ODYSSEYWARE

Whatever you do, do not call the Washington Post’s Jay Matthews uncreative. For years he has come up with innovative, if unconventional, ideas for reforming education and improving instruction in the classroom for students without resorting to the usual calls for more funding and more teachers. Yesterday’s column was no different as he made a call for converting lunch time into ‘reading time’ where students are required to eat and read rather than socialize with other classmates. The idea is that, in the recent calls for expanding school hours, schools can get academic results out of a time generally reserved for non-academic time for students. In these times of constrained school budgets, Matthews argues that using the lunch period more effectively would go a long way toward improving education and doing so in a cost-effective way. From his column:

I know. This sounds impractical. But it is worth a try. It would add 45 minutes of the best kind of learning, just reading, to the school day, without actually making it any longer. Students can talk to each other on the way to their next class, and on the way home.

Or, you could allow online curriculum to play a larger role in the classroom, driving down textbook acquisition costs, lengthening the school day as students complete lesson plans on their own and allowing students to socialize, work, play, etc. on a schedule that meets their own needs. That would be our counter-suggestion.