This Little Piggy Goes to School

The mind's first step to self-awareness must be through the body.--George Sheehan It used to be common sense that a healthy mind required a healthy body, but somewhere along the line educators have cast that much tested fact aside. I am not saying that childhood obesity lay only at the door of the public schools, no indeed, there is culpability enough to share, but my focus is on the culpability of the public schools. I am not impuning the schools for cutting fitness programs, because it is not the schools responsibilty to provide fitness opportunities to kids. No my complaint is that schools are completely filling up the time when kids should be outside playing or exercising. Look at the facts. Every public school system has consitently and regularly lengthened the school day and the school year. Most elementary schools have completely cut recess even for the youngest students. In addition to the time spent within the walls of the school, there has also been a steady increase in the amount of homework assigned per day. Most teachers believe that a student should get 10 minutes of homework per year in school. For instance if a child is in 6th grade they should get 60 minutes of homework. Okay, that might work well enough if a child is in a program with a single teacher, but is not such a reasonable formula in the higher grades with multiple teachers. Consider 10th grade. According to the formula, a 10th grader should have 100 minutes of homework each night. Now mulitply that by a minimum of 4 core-subject teachers = 400 minutes of homework each night. That's (well don't ask me I went to public school...just kidding. Fortunately, I learned math in college.) That's 6.67 hours of homework per night. Now include extra-curriculars, which are a necessity for any college-bound student, supper, and well you can forget family time. (See last blog) It's no wonder that the average high school student cannot get to bed before 12 AM, and it is certainly no wonder that we are seeing a steady climb in childhood obesity...by the way, obesity is considerably lower in home-schooled children where academic achievement is higher and where balance between mind and body is better maintained. If home-schoolers understand the balance, shouldn't we be able to expect professional educators to understand as well?