#083 - Is there life on MARS?

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💡 THOUGHT

The 7-Hour Question

Much ink has been spilled over the question of whether kids need to spend 7 hours a day in school. Some swear that 2 hours is enough for daily academics, but an unscientific (ahem... Reddit) survey of families educating outside traditional schools reveals 3 to 4 hours as closer to the norm.

If kids can keep up with their school-based peers in half the time, what are all of those superfluous hours spent on?

• Getting 20+ kids to do the same thing?

• Transitioning between subjects?

• Doing the hokey-pokey?

What’s worse, in a one-size-fits-all classroom, a child who blazes through math but needs extra time with reading has to wait during math and rush through reading. The whole class can only move as fast as the slowest student in each subject – or else leave some students behind.

There's nothing wrong with longer days if they're filled with meaningful activity. But let's stop pretending the length of the school day has much to do with how children actually learn.

📊 TREND

Is there life on MARS?

Remember when a "hybrid” education meant part-time school, part-time home? No longer.

MARS (the Microcollective of AI, Robotics, and the Sciences), a new hybrid program in Huntsville, Alabama is rewriting the rules of what a school day looks like. They’re ditching the traditional 7-hour schedule in favor of:

• Project-based STEM learning

• AI writing workshops

• Virtual reality experiences

Students complete their academic studies in half the time, leaving space for deep dives into their passions. With a majority of their learners having special needs, including many twice-exceptional students, MARS is proving that different doesn't mean slower.

The model is catching fire: They plan to expand to 100 rec centers across Alabama, each serving 20 students at just $7,000 per year.

Learn more on the LiberatED Podcast.

🛠️ TOOL

The "Sportscaster" Method: Your Child's First Reading Lesson

Before your child can read, they need to understand something more basic: words represent real things.

But here's what's not-so-basic: Your three-year-old is a pattern-seeking machine, desperately trying to crack the language code.

"Just narrate everything," says Samantha Westmoreland, writer-in-residence at Guidepost Montessori, on the Hannah Frankman podcast.

"It sounds weird, but it works."

So try this: Narrate everything you do. Like a sports announcer, but for daily life.

• "I'm turning the doorknob."

• "The water is flowing into the cup."

• "We're pushing the swing higher."

It feels silly. Do it anyway. Because when you connect clear words to real actions, you're teaching their brain to connect symbols with meaning. That's what reading is.

Listen to the full episode, and follow Samantha at @_samantha_joy.

That’s all for today!

– Charlie (the OpenEd newsletter guy)

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