This week’s blog post is based on Chapter Nine of Jared Cooney Horvath and David Bott’s book entitled 10 Things Schools Get Wrong: And How We Can Get Them Right. The chapter formed the basis of this week’s Teaching and Learning Reading Group, hosted here at Eton.
Horvath and Bott begin this chapter by describing a number of real-world examples – such as daylight-saving time, the 8-hour working day and 3.5 minute songs – to demonstrate that our society is dominated by various time-based organisational practices which have outlived their historic and original function.[1]
In the majority of western schools, they claim that the following practices are further examples of this, and in this chapter they question whether they align with modern goals in teaching and learning.
These practices consist of:
– The 9-month school year/3-month vacation structure
– 50-minute classes
– The 8am start time
Structure of the Academic Year
In the US, schools initially operated for the majority of the year and it wasn’t until 1884 that a shorter school calendar was adopted.[2] It is commonly believed that the longer summer holidays were introduced in order to allow students to work on their family’s farm. [3] However, this does not align with the peak farming season which sees most major crops sown in the spring and harvested in September. In truth, the structure of the school year was due to an increase in urban migration.[4] In the late nineteenth century, a significant number of people moved to cities for work and in order to free up more jobs for adults, children were removed from the workforce and sent to school. However, attendance during this time was poor with an average of 25-35% of students not turning up for school each day.[5] To counteract this, urban schools in the US reduced the number of school days to 180 and extended the summer holidays to allow for students to travel with their families and escape the high temperatures of the city.
Horvath and Bott argue that the historic function of the shorter academic year is now defunct: air conditioning helps to combat the city heat and affordable air travel has cut down the average family holiday to two weeks.[6] Furthermore, another issue with an extended summer holiday is the impact on students’ memory.
The forgetting curve suggests that human beings forget 70-80% of new material within a month of learning it.[7] Spaced repetition can help to combat this and that is why schools frequently undertake quizzes, review sessions and mock exams.[8] In the summer holidays, however, very few students undertake these measures and some of the content learnt throughout the year will inevitably be forgotten. The notion of the ‘summer slump’ is well-documented and it is believed that students regress by approximately 30 days of learning during the summer holidays.[9]
On the other hand, there is also a wealth of evidence which demonstrates that holidays are important in supporting memory as they allow students to rest and relax. Importantly, research indicates that optimal recuperation is achieved by day 8 of a vacation.[10] This seems to suggest that it would be better for student learning to have frequent short-term holidays throughout the school year, rather than a longer summer holiday.
A number of schools have been trialling year-round calendars modelled on shortened, more frequent breaks. Several meta-analyses have demonstrated that the student learning in these schools increased at the rate of approximately one month per year.[11]
The 50-minute Lesson
Horvath and Bott claim that the origins of the 50-minute lesson come from the US higher education system, as a result of a $10 million pension fund offered by Andrew Carnegie at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1905 Carnegie established this pension fund for university professors but in order to qualify, institutions had to satisfy a number of criteria.[12] In order to qualify and be considered an official university as per the Carnegie criteria, only students who had completed 24 Carnegie units could enrol. These units were defined as 120 hours of instruction devoted to a single topic. As a result, universities began demanding these units as a condition of entry and secondary schools responded by becoming four-year institutions that devoted 120 hours to 6 different topics each year. Essentially, this equates to six 50-minute lessons per day over the course of 30 weeks.
Worryingly, Carnegie only settled upon the 120-hour unit as a means to ‘improve the administrative efficacy of schools and colleges in the spirit of the “scientific management” movement of the day’.[13]
If the 50-minute lesson was determined by administrative efficiency, Horbath and Bott question: what is the impact on learning? They argue that the key issue here is processing power. Our students’ brains are constantly shifting between active engagement and passive automaticity throughout the school day.[14] To learn something new, the brain must explicitly engage with that material and then the more we experience and practise this material, the better we are able to access it. To do the former, the brain draws energy from astrocytic glycogen, a form of glucose stored in the non-neuronal regions of the brain.[15] To do the latter, the brain instead draws energy from glucose which is the sugar carried around by your blood.[16] However, the brain can only store a finite amount of astrocytic glycogen, and therefore there is a limit on the amount of active learning the brain can do at one time.
It is generally thought that we can store enough astrocytic glycogen to sustain active learning for 30 minutes to several hours per day before we fatigue and burn out.[17] However, even then, this can be affected by a number of biological factors and performance can also decrease over time.[18] Some studies have shown that students who study for 60 minutes only retain 9% more than the students who study the same material in half the amount of time.[19] Therefore, this seems to suggest that lessons should be shorter than 50 minutes.
The second issue in regards to lesson length is the notion of flow state or ‘being in the zone’.[20] This is where individuals become so deeply absorbed in a particular task that they lose self-conscious awareness and as a result, their engagement increases, confidence grows, and productivity can improve.[21] Although the debate continues, it is commonly thought that flow state does not require astrocytic glycogen and instead draws upon blood glucose. Therefore, it seems logical that one could be in a flow state without reaching cognitive fatigue.
There are several prerequisites to being in a flow state, however. First, the task needs to be deeply familiar but challenging at the same time. Second, it only occurs when the task is intrinsically motivating to the individual. Third, the task needs to be performed for an extended period of time.[22] If we are to take into account these arguments, it would seem to suggest that lessons should in fact be longer than 50 minutes in order to account for students being able to truly immerse themselves in a task.
Some schools have attempted to address this issue with block scheduling, where lessons can be as long as 90 or 120 minutes. The research in this area is limited but early studies suggest that these longer lessons can improve student/teacher relationships. That said, the impact on learning is varied.[23] Some schools showed improvements whilst others showed impairments to learning.[24]
The 8am Start
Despite the fact that not all schools begin at 8am – in Uganda the school day begins at 6am and in the UK it tends to start at 8:45am – the issue is the same. The typical school day runs out of sync with the start of the adult working day.
There are several theories to why this is, posit Horvath and Bott. One argument is that the school day starts earlier to help parents avoid traffic when bringing their children into school; another is that it allows students to make use of the afternoon sunlight hours to play sport; and some argue it’s to allow for school bus logistics. All of these arguments contain significant fallacies. The most likely reason is that the school day has always started this early.
In terms of learning, the biggest issue concerns sleep-based memory consolidation. An individual’s circadian rhythm helps to regulate our waking and sleeping hours and for most people, this means waking up at approximately 6am, feeling tired at 8pm and going to sleep at 10pm.[25] When asleep, our brain moves through five 90-minute sleep cycles on average each night.[26] During each sleep cycle, the brain moves through three stages: the first stage aims to reduce communication between the brain and the body, the second consolidates memories from the day before, and finally, it resets and replenishes for the day ahead. Importantly, the brain spends the majority of the first three sleep cycles in the final stage: recharging for the following day. However, in cycles four and five, the brain spends longer on the second stage which is dedicated to consolidating memories.[27]
During adolescence, a teenager’s circadian rhythm shifts about 2 to 3 hours ahead, which means that they do not tend to get tired until 10:30pm, sleep until around 12:30pm and then wake up at 8:30am.[28] Despite this biological shift, most students have to get up at approximately 6am in order to make it to school on time and as a result, only achieve around 3.5 sleep cycles in total per night. As a result, their brains may be ready for the day ahead but they’ve only spent, on average, 90 minutes consolidating memories and locking down newly learned information from the day before.
Research largely supports the notion of delaying the start of the school day.[29] Studies show that delaying by one hour has generated significant increases in students’ academic performance and wellbeing and a decrease in their absences and tardiness.[30] However, there are also a number of logistical concerns to consider. A later school day means that extra-curricular activities would run on later and there would be complications in terms of dropping off students at school and parents being able to get to work on time.
‘This is how it has always been done’
Horvath and Bott end the chapter by claiming that the majority of time-based organisational principles, such as those discussed above, are maintained out of habit and tradition. More research needs to be carried out in order to assess the impact of these practices on teaching and learning. They go on to argue that it is important to continue challenging practices such as these in order to bring into focus ongoing debate and to encourage stakeholders to consider the evidence behind such principles.
[1] S. Prerau, Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time, (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2006).
Eight-hour Day, National Museum of Australia Online, Available at: https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/eight-hour-day Accessed: 2020.
K. McKinney, (2015), ‘A hit song is usually 3 to 5 minutes long – here’s why’, Vox Online, Available at: https://www.vox.com/2014/8/18/6003271/why-are-songs-3-minuteslong Accessed: 2020.
[2] J. Pedersen, (2012), ‘The History of School and Summer Vacation’, Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education, Vol. 5(1), pp. 54-62.
[3] S. De Melker & S. Weber, (2014), ‘Agrarian roots? Think again. Debunking the myth of summer vacation’s origin’, PBS News Hour Online, Available at: file:///C:/Users/jared/OneDrive/Desktop/Bott%20Book/9_Organization/History%20fo %20Summer%20GREAT.html Accessed: 2020.
[4] J. Pedersen, (2012), ‘The History of School and Summer Vacation’, Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education, Vol. 5(1), pp. 54-62.
[5] H. Barnard, ‘On the Need for Educational Reform’, in M. Katz, School Reform: Past and Present, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1971).
[6] J. Campbell, (2018), ‘How Many Vacations Does the Average Family Take?’ Available at: https://newmiddleclassdad.com/how-many-vacations-does-the-averagefamily-take/ Accessed: 2020.
[7] J. M. Murre & J. Dros, (2015), ‘Replication and analysis of Ebbinghaus’ forgetting curve’, PloS One, Vol. 10(7).
[8] E. Gerbier & T. C. Toppino, (2015), ‘The effect of distributed practice: Neuroscience, cognition, and education’, Trends in Neuroscience and Education, Vol. 4(3), pp. 49-59.
[9] H. Cooper, B. Nye, K. Charlton, J. Lindsay & S. Greathouse, (1996), ‘The effects of summer vacation on achievement test scores: A narrative and meta-analytic review’, Review of Educational Research, Vol. 66(3), pp. 227-268.
[10] J. De Bloom, S. A. Geurts & M. A. Kompier, (2013), ‘Vacation (after-) effects on employee health and well-being, and the role of vacation activities, experiences and sleep’, Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol. 14(2), pp. 613-633.
[11] D. Fitzpatrick & J. Burns, (2019), ‘Single‐track year‐round education for improving academic achievement in US K‐12 schools: Results of a meta‐analysis’, Campbell Systematic Reviews, Vol. 15(3).
[12] E. Silva, T. White & T. Toch, (2015), ‘The Carnegie Unit: A Century-Old Standard in a Changing Education Landscape’, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
[13] E. Silva, T. White & T. Toch, (2015), ‘The Carnegie Unit: A Century-Old Standard in a Changing Education Landscape’, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
[14] J. A. Taylor & R. B. Ivry, (2012), ‘The role of strategies in motor learning’, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 1251, p.1.
[15] S. T. Christie & P. Schrater, (2015), ‘Cognitive cost as dynamic allocation of energetic resources’, Frontiers in Neuroscience, Vol. 9, p. 289.
[16] P. Mergenthaler, U. Lindauer, G. A. Dienel, & A. Meisel, (2013), ‘Sugar for the brain: the role of glucose in physiological and pathological brain function’, Trends in Neurosciences, Vol. 36(10), pp. 587-597.
[17] R. A. Swanson, (1992), ‘Physiologic coupling of glial glycogen metabolism to neuronal activity in brain’, Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology, Vol. 70(S1), pp. S138-S144.
[18] J. L. Smythe, (1972), ‘The effects of class period length and frequency of meetings on biology students’ understanding of the processes of science and their achievement in BSCS biology’, (Doctoral dissertation), pp. 16-30.
[19] J. B. Paul, (1933), ‘The length of class periods’, Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors, (1915-1955), Vol. 19(4), pp. 263-265.
[20] M. Csikszentmihalyi, S. Abuhamdeh & J. Nakamura, (1990), Flow, Available at: http://www.oxbowschool.org/assets/gallery/os36-final-projects/docs/ben-cos36paper.pdf Accessed: 2020.
[21] J. Nakamura & M. Csikszentmihalyi, (2009), Flow theory and research. Handbook of positive psychology, pp. 195-206.
[22]M. Csikszentmihaly & J. Nakamura, ‘The dynamics of intrinsic motivation: A study of adolescents’ in Flow and the foundations of positive psychology, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014), pp. 175-197.
[23] L. Mizhquiri, (2019), ‘White Paper: The Effects of Block Scheduling and Traditional Scheduling on High School Student Achievement’ Available at: https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/educ17whitepapers/1/ Accessed: 2020.
[24] C. D. Gruber & A. J. Onwuegbuzie, (2001), ‘Effects of block scheduling on academic achievement among high school students’, The High School Journal, Vol. 84(4), pp. 32-42.
[25] D. W. Carley & S. S. Farabi, (2016), ‘Physiology of sleep’, Diabetes Spectrum, Vol. 29(1), pp.5-9.
[26] A. K. Patel, V. Reddy & J. F. Araujo, (2020), ‘Physiology, sleep stages’, StatPearls Online.
[27] M. P. Walker & R. Stickgold, (2004), ‘Sleep-dependent learning and memory consolidation’, Neuron, Vol. 44(1), pp. 121-133.
[28] M. H. Hagenauer, T. M. Lee & M. A. Carskadon, (2009), ‘Adolescent changes in the homeostatic and circadian regulation of sleep’, Developmental neuroscience, Vol. 31(4), pp. 276-284.
[29] D. S. Lewin, G. Wang, Y. I. Chen, E. Skora, J. Hoehn, A. Baylor & J. Wang, (2017), ‘Variable school start times and middle school student’s sleep health and academic performance’ Journal of Adolescent Health, Vol. 61(2), pp. 205-211.
P. S. Keller, L. R. Gilbert, E. A. Haak, S. Bi, & O. A. Smith, (2017), ‘Earlier school start times are associated with higher rates of behavioral problems in elementary schools’, Sleep health, Vol. 3(2), pp. 113-118.
[30] A. G. Wheaton, D. P. Chapman & J. B. Croft, (2016), ‘School start times, sleep, behavioral, health, and academic outcomes: a review of the literature’, Journal of School Health, Vol. 86(5), pp. 363-381.
