Teaching Tip #8

Teacherscribe’s Teaching Tip #8

What purpose does school serve?  This is a key question in John Merrow’s The Influence of Teachers.

Purpose #3 – It’s day care.

This one is still legit.  Parents need somewhere to send their children while they work, but if that’s all school is, we are wasting a lot of time.

I think this is one reason some of the brightest young people I’ve ever known have been homeschooled.  At home, when possible, all the “filler” of school can be cut away: passing time, announcements, waiting for the teacher to get done talking in the hall or taking attendance . . .  Think of what we really could accomplish if we just boiled away all of the busy work on school.

But as Merrow notes in his book, if all we are doing is a glorified study hall until students amass enough credits to graduate, why are we wasting their time?