Brilliant idea . . .

Making the school day longer is a brilliant idea. It’ll mean that kids can do more maths and folk-dancing and science and technology. And parents can work longer, stay at the pub longer or watch the TV news without the interruption of pesky kids wanting help with their homework, nutrition, learning manners, or attending to their personal hygiene.

Or for those parents who prefer to not work, they can watch day-time TV all through the afternoon as well as the morning.

With kids being at school longer they’ll be at home less. For many this will be a good thing.

Kids will be able to learn several foreign languages, make some sense of multi-variable calculus (or at least be able to do fractions) and instead of just learning the first 20 elements of the periodic table they’ll be able to learn them all. There’ll not just be time to do Shakespeare, there’ll be time to do them all.

Kids will all have time to play after-school footy and be in school plays and bands and orchestras and debating teams and speech clubs and chess.

We’ll have to introduce some different types of classes at school – to make up for the learning in the home that they’ll inevitably now lose out on. We’ll have lessons on sex of course – but also table manners, sensible internet use, nutritious eating, appropriate dress sense (not taught by Science teachers), reading, money sense, defensive driving, pet-care, speaking without using ‘like’, and of course personal hygiene.

We might also, subtly though, demonstrate that working for an income, rather than sucking on the dole, is a positive option. There might be lessons too on not doing graffiti, not spitting and wearing clothes properly.

We’ll have to make a few changes – but as teachers, we’re used to changes. First, we’ll have to scrap homework because kids won’t be at home long enough to do NCEA projects and eat, shower, sleep and hang out at the mall. We’ll need breakfast and dinner breaks obviously.

I suppose it’ll mean teachers will have to be at school longer. Or maybe they’ll hire more teachers from that endless supply of people dead-keen to join us.

It’s funny though – how when things go wrong, like marijuana-use, truancy, obesity, alcohol abuse, illiteracy, tooth decay, body-piercing, gothic-music… it’s because schools and teachers are so lazy, immoral, or over-weight. But they want to send kids to school for longer.

You know what – let’s cancel all the school holidays too. It can be hell getting day care for those times. No, I mean, kids would learn so much more, and better, if they were at school all year. And what about Saturdays and Sundays…

— Peter Giddens