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Our Son attended large Elementary, Middle, & High Schools....1,200, 1,800, 3,100 students.
He had a heckuva time getting from class to class in th allotted 10 mins in the overcrowded hallways.
Why dont the kids stay in the same classroom all day long, and the teachers change classrooms instead?
I knew a woman who grew up in France, probably in the 1930s, and she said in her town that's what they did.
If the students aren't at the same level of English, Math, Social Studies, etc. then the teacher would have to do multiple lessons per class period after grouping by ability.
But also consider PE needs a gym, science needs labs and equipment, Home Ec needs a kitchen, art needs a room with lots of supplies and a kiln maybe, band and chorus often have really big rooms with space for dozens of students and instruments including pianos, and so on.
Our Son attended large Elementary, Middle, & High Schools....1,200, 1,800, 3,100 students.
He had a heckuva time getting from class to class in the allotted 10 mins in the overcrowded hallways.
Why dont the kids stay in the same classroom all day long, and the teachers change classrooms instead?
All three of those schools are way, by a lot, over the recommended student population. "Rats in a trap" is one description. They're one reason why some kids get lost in the crowd.
The main reason why teachers, at least at the middle and high levels, aren't the ones that move comes down to supervision. Who watches the kids while the teachers are moving?
The other reason is that the kids do need to get out and at least move around a bit, not to mention use the restroom.
All three of those schools are way, by a lot, over the recommended student population. "Rats in a trap" is one description. They're one reason why some kids get lost in the crowd.
The main reason why teachers, at least at the middle and high levels, aren't the ones that move comes down to supervision. Who watches the kids while the teachers are moving?
The other reason is that the kids do need to get out and at least move around a bit, not to mention use the restroom.
I knew a woman who grew up in France, probably in the 1930s, and she said in her town that's what they did.
If the students aren't at the same level of English, Math, Social Studies, etc. then the teacher would have to do multiple lessons per class period after grouping by ability.
But also consider PE needs a gym, science needs labs and equipment, Home Ec needs a kitchen, art needs a room with lots of supplies and a kiln maybe, band and chorus often have really big rooms with space for dozens of students and instruments including pianos, and so on.
I taught in Japan about 20 years ago and then the kids stayed in classes except for electives/specials, which were in the other buildings and multiple class sections would do electives at one time and combine with other sections for that. The class I taught was a half-size class with kids from two sections, so we’d have 20 kids in each class as opposed to the normal 40 and the kids would come to our room.
Thx for your comments. Interesting that this was done in the past, & in other places.
Most of these megaschools have police officers now, so they'd watch the camera's. Also, if there was an alleged incident, the camera could be played back to catch the instigator.
The restrooms, between classes, is where most of the incidents occur, and there's no camera's there now.
I think this could reduce behavioral issues, & shorten the school day by 1/2 hr.
Moving 100 teachers is faster than moving 3,000 students...& yes, the schools in Gwinnett County GA are too large...but well rated nonetheless.
Thx for your comments. Interesting that this was done in the past, & in other places.
Most of these megaschools have police officers now, so they'd watch the camera's. Also, if there was an alleged incident, the camera could be played back to catch the instigator.
The restrooms, between classes, is where most of the incidents occur, and there's no camera's there now.
I think this could reduce behavioral issues, & shorten the school day by 1/2 hr.
Moving 100 teachers is faster than moving 3,000 students...& yes, the schools in Gwinnett County GA are too large...but well rated nonetheless.
You do realize that the police officers are not surveillance monitors. They are actually out in areas where there are likely to be problems or dealing with actual problems. In the mega schools, lunch periods typically start before 11 and may end after 1. Some schools still allow upperclass students to leave campus for lunch. When I subbed, the resource officers were usually out and about. At the end of the day, they would typically be out where kids were going to the buses, and I think at the beginning of the day it was also something similar.
Not to mention, even if the kids don’t need to pass between classes, they still need an actual break between classes to go to the restroom. When I taught in Japan, the school day was 8:20-3:55. In elementary-middle school school lunch was served in the classroom and in HS, kids typically brought lunch or they could buy it from outside services. Lunch was typically longer to allow kids time to eat and then have a recess period. At the end of the day, they cleaned up their classroom and had kids do other duties and went home.
Our Son attended large Elementary, Middle, & High Schools....1,200, 1,800, 3,100 students.
He had a heckuva time getting from class to class in th allotted 10 mins in the overcrowded hallways.
Why dont the kids stay in the same classroom all day long, and the teachers change classrooms instead?
I taught science, that would have been impossible and still have labs. I needed a room with water, among other things. How would I transport 12-17 microscopes, not mention having enough plugs in each room to use them? There are rules and regulations for chemical transport and storage that would be hard to comply with if I were transporting them all day.
Science isn’t the only problem. Music rooms need special acoustics, both to hear what is going on and to prevent everyone else from having their ability to think on a test disrupted by the noise. Gym needs space that ordinary classrooms don’t have. Art rooms need water also. And, books are heavy to cart around so instead of purchasing a class set used by multiple periods each student would need their own book in their assigned classroom.
But, putting that aside, cameras are not sufficient for supervising kids. You said your kid couldn’t make it in the 10 minutes, for argument’s sake let’s say the teachers could manage it in half the time. A lot of mischief and damage could be done in the 5 minutes when no adult was in the room. I suppose the drug dealing would be akin to the same issue in bathrooms when students travel. Yes, you probably could adequately deal with whatever vandalism or theft happened by relying on cameras and addressing the student/s involved after the fact.
However, that is minor compared to student injury. Trust me, five minutes is more than enough time for four kids to beat the living crap out of some kid or for a student to be sexually accosted. Part of the problem is even if the school resource office was watching the cameras the damage to the victim would be done before they could get from the camera room to the classroom. Kids, particularly angry kids, do not process the risk of consequences to their actions as well as adults because developmentally they are more focused on immediacy - which is a buzz word way of saying an adult authority figure (teacher) in the room will prevent them from taking action against another student, but even if they are aware there are cameras on them and recording, an adult authority figure (SRO) in a different room will not prevent them from taking that same action. Also, do not think for minute that they will not figure out where the camera blind spots are.
Finally, it would just be cruel to trap post-elementary kids in the same room all day. Think about it, how do we often punish kids? We send them to their room for extended periods (ground) because they hate the loss of freedom to go to other rooms in the house.
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My kids reported the same problem even though their high school was around 1000. It was almost a sprint through crowded halls to get from one end of the building to the other. No time to go to their lockers to change books or hit the head. Might be simpler to just extend the amount of time to 15 minutes.
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