We vividly remember, January 2, at 9 PM, when Damar Hamlin went into shock! The football game clock suddenly stopped. For days, afterward, people all over the country worried about Damar. Fortunately, Damar rebounded, but what about our struggling students? Can they be revived? Do we have the time and patience to revive them?
TIME, spelled backwards is EMIT. It takes time to emit results, in school, hours and hours, days, after days, and years and years, for results. This is obvious, but let me suggest that time management, itself, may be the most overlooked need in education, not more money. When we really care enough, we find the time. Fortunately, we now have computers and phones to help students learn, any time of the day or night.
But how? How can we revive our students? Yes, we can argue about what to try, and what not to try, endlessly. In the meantime, student failure continues on. But, I have followed Rochester School Board meetings for decades, in frustration. The School Board gives people only 3 (three) minutes to share their ideas and concerns, period. It’s a joke. Mission impossible. We pour millions and billions of dollars into education. But too many children are still not graduating, still not succeeding in life. Excuses, excuses. No more excuses!
When Damar Hamlin collapsed, on the football field, rescue workers sprang into action, but at the same time, coaches argued with NFL officials about restarting and rescheduling the game. What about rethinking how students use their learning time? What about creating an ongoing sense of urgency for student effort and improvement?
Boring? In comparing schooling with sports, we may wonder why so many people find school boring and stressful, while sports is so exciting to follow and talk about. Why the difference? Of course there is only so much time in the day for study. What about the use of learning games that motivate students? What about posting the best study methods and learning games on school web pages? What about having study games at the Museum of Play?
Again, TiME spelled backwards is EMIT.
If we don’t take the time, we may emit nothing new. But how much time do we need to motivate students? There are only so many hours in the day. But consider how much time football fans spend focusing on a football game. In football, it only takes an hour of play time for a game, but sportscasters and fans spend endless amounts of time discussing a game, play by play. Can we learn from “Number 3,” Damar Hamlin? As we know, Damar was repeatedly shocked, back to life. Can we brace ourselves to shock student learning, back to life?
What if students bragged about how much time they needed to study? “Timing is everything.”
Harry S. Pearle, Ph.D.
Education Consultant
Rochester
www.SavingSchools.org
Sad but true, our RCS Board is NOT laser focused on STUDENTS NEEDS. They need to turn around and look at Adam Urbanski who is Lazer focused on Teachers! Very little interest in outcomes! If he was, our RCSD would not have maintained for 30 years the bottom or near the bottom ranking of all NYS high schools. Our students do not learn! They can not be productive citizens on Monroe County ( or any County ) based on the learning/ education track record.
Soooo… what to do? Here’s an idea = 1) Monroe County takes over! 2) School Board is a Monroe County non paid group of highly focused Community people that have a single Goal = educating our students in the City of Rochester to be productive citizens ! Making sure our students are LEARNING! Starting from 1 grade to 12th! Laser focused on learning!