When you have to cover 150 days of content, and you only have 160 days to do, you have to limit distractions.
With assemblies, field trips, snow days and more, it’s inevitable that you will end up behind.
So when a new program comes along, promising an amazing student experience, but it will require missing class, what’s a teacher to say?
Answering that question depends how high of a priority is placed on covering the content vs. delivering magical student experiences. If the emphasis is all about covering content, the only viewpoint will be that of scarcity. But if the focus is on activating students, knowing that when they are engaged, learning is significantly easier, you will see abundance.
When I think about educating young people, I see 180 days times 13 years for us to flip a switch. For us to create a lifelong learner, a changemaker, an entrepreneur, a giver, a friend, a parent, a human being. I certainly don’t see a race to cram in as much content as possible. The content takes care of itself when you have a passion. That’s the real scarcity here, the minuscule number of kids who are passionate enough about something to look it up on their own time.
Time isn’t scarce. Passion is.