Just closed the lid, so to speak, on what seems to be weeks of school-related paperwork. I am excited to go to my classes tomorrow with only those classes on my mind–not the letters home to parents, the secondary school recs, the grades and comments to homeroom teachers, but just a bunch of teenagers looking to get through the day with a bit of joy, a tad of knowledge, and hopefully sloppy joes for lunch–and not much homework. This feels like the time of the school year when we produce too much and harvest too little as we feed the insatiable measuring machine.
I wonder sometimes why we assess “when” we do. The notions of terms or semesters is pretty ingrained in every educational system I know of, but I just don’t know the real reason. It is a sincere question. Maybe we should learn in short stretches of time–like three months or so, such that the year is divided into fourths and one fourth is rest and the rest of the fourths is, well…the three legs of the race…and that would work, right?
I really have not met anyone that has a massively compelling reason why we stop the wheels and give a semester grade except for because–it’s the end of the semester.
Not the most profound question to cast out there, but it is the question that is sending me to my sleep.
If you have the answer, let me know.
