By Mark

My six-year old son sometimes gets frustrated that there are certain privileges I enjoy as a grown-up that he cannot due to his age and size. Recently, as we built his car for his school's pinecar derby, he just didn't want to accept that we was neither allowed to use the radial arm saw nor the set of carving chisels I have in the garage. I tried to explain to him how hard it is to reattach fingers, but he wasn't having it.

"When do I get to?"

"Not yet," I explained, as I handed him a rasp and some sandpaper and readied the plastic miter box and back saw he could use to angle the nose of his car. Time, practice, growth… that's all he needs. He's a hands-on boy and I have no doubt his skills can soon surpass mine tinkering with scraps of wood in the garage.

I mentioned in comments earlier on this blog that I recently had the opportunity to host two legislators in my classroom. The discussions were wonderful, and one exchange in particular stands out: when asked how long policymakers should expect for changes in education to show real fruit, I replied "twelve years." For change to take root, it takes time. Our state education system includes something like 295 individual school districts, 60,000 teachers, and around a million students. You cannot expect to see the "change" as the result of policy changes even within the term of a single elected official. My guests admitted that they had never really thought about an implementation timeline like that.

Just like my son working his way from a rasp, sandpaper, and plastic miter box up to carving chisels and power saws, seeing the desired outcome will take time. If I rush my son into it… I give him a crash course in powertool safety and toss him a pile of wood… the likelihood that he will fail (in limb-threatening ways) is incredibly high. What we need time for if we are going to do it right:

• Time for understanding and effectively implementing the new teacher evaluation system.
• Time for understanding and effectively implementing the Common Core State Standards so it's not "one more thing."
• Time for crafting meaningful formative assessments and time for evaluating these assessments in order to give influential formative feedback to learners.
• Time for collaborating with peers to problem-solve student needs, examine assessment information, and refine instructional practices.

And while this could easily be twisted to be an argument in favor of the current debate over 1080 hours, what we don't necessarily need is three more minutes each period where a kid sits in his desk.

If we want to add meaningful instructional time, think less about adding time to the class period, but more about adding the average time a teacher can spend one-on-one with supporting students–and this is accomplished by decreasing the number of students the teacher engages in a given period of time. Decrease class size and you get back much more meaningful instructional time. Getting rid of PLC to add two or three minutes of time to each class period is, simply put, not going to do a darn thing to help my kids. My collaboration with my fellow English 9 teachers every Friday has directly resulted in my implementation of practices in my classroom that have improved my instruction and my students' learning (I have assessment data from CBA's to back this up).

Yes, I post something on this theme of time every few months… (here, and here, and here…and there are more).

The reason, I hope, is obvious.