If I Were Mayor…

If I were Mayor of Waukesha County in Wisconsin, I would improve our education system. Do you ever notice that kids aren’t playing outside as much? Have you noticed how children are staying up late doing homework or school activities? Or have you noticed children don’t have social or healthy lives? Well over the past year, it has come to my attention that kids do not have a life outside of school.

A typical high school student has seven hours of school, five days a week, for 180 days. Now in those seven hours, there is a mixture of seven to eight classes. Each class is about 40 minutes. Within a 40 minute class, students need time to turn in homework, review concepts, and learn lessons. By the end of those 40 minutes, there is no time to do the homework assigned in class. The bell rings and the student goes on to his or her next class.

For seven hours the day repeats itself. At the end of each day, a student looks down at their assignment notebook and sees the multiple assignments. Personally I know in high school I had a job after school, and extracurricular activities. On a typical day I would come home at five, but other nights it can be as late as nine or ten. The moment I was in the house it was time to do homework. At nine at night minds aren’t always thinking clearly which could be bad for homework.

A student is tired of the long day that was before them, and now they have a night full of work. Rushing through all the homework, it is finally time to go to bed at 11. Getting less than seven hours of sleep, waking up at five thirty in the morning. And when I was in high school that was my daily schedule. Now a thought might come to mind.

With not having as much homework as before will the children get in more trouble? Sure that is a possibility. But also with more time after school, students have the opportunities to get jobs, do extracurriculars, and spend more time with family. There will be time to hang outside, going to bed at a reasonable time, and gives time to be social. If I were mayor I would propose a piece of legislation to change how the school day is constructed. There would be fewer classes, but each would run for a longer time. If classes run on a 60 minute cycle then students are given the time to do their homework in class.

Also they will have the opportunity to ask for help from teachers if they do not understand the lesson or question on the homework. Now if 60 minutes is too long for a class, then the time remaining can be used as a study hall to get other work done. There is also another option where classes throughout the whole day is block classes and different classes change every quarter. This change in school structure has been experimented in many schools across Wisconsin, and they have run successfully. If students get their work done, then they will be outside, go to bed early and get reasonable amount of sleep, and they will have social lives. This is what would change if I were Mayor.