Nowadays, a great amount of fuss is made on how to teach kids more stuff, better, and faster. One of our great exploits is currently sleep- can we tap this process to teach students better? Sadly, only a quarter of students get the recommended sleep, and we don't even know why they don’t. Is it the homework, the games, the schedule, or something more sinister? Reporter on the field Lukas Daniel sits down with PE and Health teacher Peter Cuthbert to find out why.
Lukas Daniel: So, as you know, I’m doing a project on sleep, in particular on how to improve student learning through sleep. Improving student learning is often applied to all these fancy capstone projects and new teaching techniques. In fact, you did a health lesson on sleep a few days ago, and I’d like to know do you think that just telling students the benefits of sleep is going to change much of the problem, or are we going to have to do something else?
Peter Cuthbert: No, I think it’s certainly the first step is education. If you’re not aware of an issue, you’re certainly not going to build on it, but we as a school and as a community, need to start looking at how taking care of our health and our wellness in not only going to improve our lifestyle and improve our success down the road, but also tomorrow and next week.
L: True, but just for sake of argument, do you think that the school can do anything other than teaching students?
C: I think it’s important as a school to look at the homework load, and I think it’s important for us to look at the schedule and when we decide to take breaks and how long school days are and when they start. These are all things I think we need to take responsibility for as a community, but at the same time, parents, families and students need to take responsibility of their own routines, family choices and expectations, not only of each other but for each other in terms of making sure that wellness, rest, sleep and the basic needs that the human body and brain need to function in a really stimulating environment, have the ability to de-stress, to stop and reflect, and to take short term learning and encode it into long term learning.
L: But about the schedule, if the schedule was to change, what would you change it into?
C: It’s very complicated for an institution of this size to change to a different schedule.
L: Of course, there’s all sorts of knock on effects,
C: But certainly, if we as an institution are talking about what’s best for students in terms of learning then we need to start making some choices and some decisions that back that up. For instance, we still use the agricultural school calendar where two months off of the summer historically was for families and young people to work on farms and to do physical labour in fields. We have to stop and ask ourselves, why are we still using that school calendar when we have completely changed from that culture so if you take a look at the learning studies students actually decrease their knowledge and get out of learning habits in a nine week summer break. Other schools have moved to what’s called year-round schooling where every three months there might be a two-week break. It’s not that there is more school, it’s that the holidays and the breaks are structured and spread out in a different way. Then you want to look at the reality that teenagers brains are not functioning in the way that young children are at eight o'clock in the morning. It’s convenient for a bus schedule and it’s convenient for the staffing of a school, but it’s not perhaps the best use of time to have six year olds and sixteen year olds both getting an English class at eight o'clock in the morning. We can be flexible, we can think about things like, well, perhaps teenagers then have other activities while they're on campus at the time that maybe that’s not best suited for them to learn something cognitive, so maybe some of the experiential activities or learning opportunities, maybe things like PE which have been shown to have huge impact on learning when that happens early in the day and helps the release of neurochemicals, neurotransmitters, and increases mood, motivation and energy, we could start to look at whether or not we could use some of the times that aren’t best suited for maybe academic learning and have some other forms that are valuable to both students, their health, their wellness and their overall experience at SAS.
L: On the subject of old historical adages, homework was historically believed to be good, giving students a big homework load was always seen as good for student learning. But do you think that notion should be removed, changed, or should it remain the same?
C: I think it should be looked at, I think it should be assessed, I think you're right, the research is showing that homework does not have the fantastic merits that it was once thought, certainly it’s going to help things like Mathematics and Languages if you do a little bit on an ongoing basis.
L: But wouldn't there be unpopularities with the parent body?
C: Well I think again it breaks down to a case of education. As a parent myself, would I want my son or daughter doing two hours worth of homework knowing that they're not getting any real benefit from spending that time? Would I rather that they tried out for the play, would I rather that they played intramural soccer? Absolutely. Another question I have is what is happening at our school that we cannot get the learning covered in a seven-and-a-half hour school day. Most adults work an eight-nine hour workday and that’s certainly enough in my opinion in terms of having a balance in your daily week to be focused on your occupation or on your profession. Why do we ask more of of ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen year olds than we ask of people who have professional lives. It’s a philosophical question, one that I think that if you look to places like Finland and if you look to other schools that are doing very very well, without the same academic load that cuts into social time, family time, sleep time, activity time, and music time. There’s always a cost when you over allocate resources to one thing.
L: What do you think is the cause of all these problems? Is it school, in particular the schedule, homework, or students staying up all night playing games, or...
C: Well no, it’s a culture, right? So you’re talking about a highly competitive, highly driven, high expectation institution along the same lines you’ve got an Asian and American mentality where more is always better and then you have to also understand that we are creating a culture of excellence and very often what is lost is that in a culture of excellence, is the pause and the reflection on what is really important and where should we spend our time, money, and resources. I think the pendulum is starting to shift and people are now starting to think more about balance, and think more about wellness, and think more about making sure our students have experiences beyond just what they learn in book and what they learn in class.
L: All right then. One final question: is there anything you’d like to add?
C: I think it’s a great topic and applaud you for choosing sleep as it’s such an important part of wellness, it’s a huge component of what our brain needs and does in terms of learning but also in terms of how we as individuals function, so our personal, mental, emotional and social health is highly affected by getting enough sleep and getting sleep when we need it.
L: Well then, thanks for taking the time to schedule a meeting with me here. I will be posting this on my blog, which isn’t exactly world famous, but is still public. I’ll be happy to send you the link to my transcript and the audio recording.
C: Thank you very much Lukas. Good luck with your project.
L: But about the schedule, if the schedule was to change, what would you change it into?
C: It’s very complicated for an institution of this size to change to a different schedule.
L: Of course, there’s all sorts of knock on effects,
C: But certainly, if we as an institution are talking about what’s best for students in terms of learning then we need to start making some choices and some decisions that back that up. For instance, we still use the agricultural school calendar where two months off of the summer historically was for families and young people to work on farms and to do physical labour in fields. We have to stop and ask ourselves, why are we still using that school calendar when we have completely changed from that culture so if you take a look at the learning studies students actually decrease their knowledge and get out of learning habits in a nine week summer break. Other schools have moved to what’s called year-round schooling where every three months there might be a two-week break. It’s not that there is more school, it’s that the holidays and the breaks are structured and spread out in a different way. Then you want to look at the reality that teenagers brains are not functioning in the way that young children are at eight o'clock in the morning. It’s convenient for a bus schedule and it’s convenient for the staffing of a school, but it’s not perhaps the best use of time to have six year olds and sixteen year olds both getting an English class at eight o'clock in the morning. We can be flexible, we can think about things like, well, perhaps teenagers then have other activities while they're on campus at the time that maybe that’s not best suited for them to learn something cognitive, so maybe some of the experiential activities or learning opportunities, maybe things like PE which have been shown to have huge impact on learning when that happens early in the day and helps the release of neurochemicals, neurotransmitters, and increases mood, motivation and energy, we could start to look at whether or not we could use some of the times that aren’t best suited for maybe academic learning and have some other forms that are valuable to both students, their health, their wellness and their overall experience at SAS.
L: On the subject of old historical adages, homework was historically believed to be good, giving students a big homework load was always seen as good for student learning. But do you think that notion should be removed, changed, or should it remain the same?
C: I think it should be looked at, I think it should be assessed, I think you're right, the research is showing that homework does not have the fantastic merits that it was once thought, certainly it’s going to help things like Mathematics and Languages if you do a little bit on an ongoing basis.
L: But wouldn't there be unpopularities with the parent body?
C: Well I think again it breaks down to a case of education. As a parent myself, would I want my son or daughter doing two hours worth of homework knowing that they're not getting any real benefit from spending that time? Would I rather that they tried out for the play, would I rather that they played intramural soccer? Absolutely. Another question I have is what is happening at our school that we cannot get the learning covered in a seven-and-a-half hour school day. Most adults work an eight-nine hour workday and that’s certainly enough in my opinion in terms of having a balance in your daily week to be focused on your occupation or on your profession. Why do we ask more of of ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen year olds than we ask of people who have professional lives. It’s a philosophical question, one that I think that if you look to places like Finland and if you look to other schools that are doing very very well, without the same academic load that cuts into social time, family time, sleep time, activity time, and music time. There’s always a cost when you over allocate resources to one thing.
L: What do you think is the cause of all these problems? Is it school, in particular the schedule, homework, or students staying up all night playing games, or...
C: Well no, it’s a culture, right? So you’re talking about a highly competitive, highly driven, high expectation institution along the same lines you’ve got an Asian and American mentality where more is always better and then you have to also understand that we are creating a culture of excellence and very often what is lost is that in a culture of excellence, is the pause and the reflection on what is really important and where should we spend our time, money, and resources. I think the pendulum is starting to shift and people are now starting to think more about balance, and think more about wellness, and think more about making sure our students have experiences beyond just what they learn in book and what they learn in class.
L: All right then. One final question: is there anything you’d like to add?
C: I think it’s a great topic and applaud you for choosing sleep as it’s such an important part of wellness, it’s a huge component of what our brain needs and does in terms of learning but also in terms of how we as individuals function, so our personal, mental, emotional and social health is highly affected by getting enough sleep and getting sleep when we need it.
L: Well then, thanks for taking the time to schedule a meeting with me here. I will be posting this on my blog, which isn’t exactly world famous, but is still public. I’ll be happy to send you the link to my transcript and the audio recording.
C: Thank you very much Lukas. Good luck with your project.
Clearly, we're going to need radical changes! Promoting sleep isn't just a straightforward implement, it’s like breaking a bad habit and learning a new one. It’s clearly not going to be popular with all of the parent body, and SAS will stand to lose money. But Cuthbert remains convinced that we're going to have change our ways- or things are only going to get worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCZsNRY_Jtk
I really like the topic you used, and you also asked a lot of follow up questions, which is really good. One thing you could do better is your introduction. I think you were sort of leaning towards the side of more sleep, (hence the use of words like 'sadly'), which gives you a bias, and you don't want that, as a journalist, but I could just be nitpicking. All in all, great job!
ReplyDeleteYour paragraphs are great (so far only one I've seen with one paragraph at start and one at end), and you adapted to Mr. Cuthbert's answers well. However, it would much easier to read if the Q and the A were spaced out more.
ReplyDeleteI like how you changed questions that were adapted and changed to relate with the person you were interviewing. It created a sense of relation and showed your great skills in your ability to be an interviewer.
ReplyDelete