It interesting to think of the concept of units-especially in mathematics. I view numeracy as a skill and, just like any other skill, I see the value in practice. When teaching my son to ride his bike, we practiced a little bit each day. Not for hours, some days for only minutes, some days more, but the point is that while he was mastering this skill, we attempted to give him the opportunity to practice every day-until he reached the point where we could skip a day or two because he had become that comfortable getting on the bike. What I find interesting about the concept of units, especially in mathematics, is that more often than not, the introduction of a new unit leaves behind the skills-even if only briefly-that are still being learned in the old one. Now I am aware that every teacher attempts in every way possible to create some sort of continuity between units, building on the ones before, but I am also aware that when a new unit is introduced, there is an inherent "introduction period" complete with new terms, diagrams, and history. That lag time often results in hearing the following sentence at least once in a classroom: "I don't remember what to do here", followed by "go back to the last chapter and look again". I guess what I am trying to say is I can't seem to see how every student can be expected to master basic numeracy skills when their learning is fragmented into units, broken up every 2 weeks to a month with little explicit, direct continuity between each one. Add on the fact that the school year itself is designed to fragment the learning process every June through to September and it seems almost impossible for anyone to master basic numeracy skills in a coherent, continuous, reasonable time frame. I think it is even worse in terms of discontinuity the farther down the educational line you go. I often think about high school where the following situation occurs just as frequently as not:
A grade ten student has second semester math. He/she had grade nine math 1st semester the year before. In total, that student has not had any sort of formal math instruction in 13 months and, given the nature of high school courses, has probably not seen much to any math in any of his/her other classes. How does one master a skill only practicing and building on it in short, intense, 4 month spurts followed by a year of dormancy? To take it even one step further, how are we as teachers suppose to relate a student's education to their real life if the schooling system itself is the furthest from "real life" as one can really get. Where else in life is everything divided into such neat and tidy compartments? Classes are isolated by "subject", as if "social science" did not influence and was not influenced by the "science" of that time period. Students are isolated by grade, as if life was a series of cohorts grouped by year of birth. Even the history we teach is still largely biased in the direction of Western America, as if it was not part of the rest of the world or, to put it more accurately, as if the rest of the world failed to exist in terms of historical, medical and scientific significance and advancement until recently if at all.
I find it interesting that there are a few schools, most notably in B.C., that have introduced the concept of a full school year with the hope that it will reduce the typical "review period" a.k.a. the reteaching and reinforcement of the material of the year before. The debate surrounding a full school year is not a new one, and according to a paper by the Canadian Council on Learning (2008), it is estimated that students lose as much as one month's learning during summer vacation, with those who come from poor economic status suffering the most. I suppose there may exist an argument that some students need to work in the summer, but for the elementary grades, I cannot for the life of me understand why, in their most formative, suck-everything-up-like-a-sponge-years, we feel that a 2 month break of all formal instruction is of benefit to our students. I also wonder how packed the curriculum would feel if the first month of every year was not spent having to review and reteach the material of the year before. I think about how I feel on my first day back, as if I have been transplanted to a new "life" that is so far removed from my summer "life" and how it takes me a good few weeks to get back in the swing of things. I think about how my students must be feeling if this is the way that I feel...and then I think about what a huge amount of time is wasted on reorientation, review, and reteaching when we have an already jam-packed, almost impossible to cover curriculum. I wonder how things would change if there were small breaks throughout a full school year...would teachers, administration, and students feel less stressed? Would the incidences of mental distress at the high school level decrease? Would student retention increase? Would the school feel more in touch with the rest of society or have the ability to become more integrated with its community? Would the curriculum feel less impossible to cover? Would all people involved be happier overall?
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