Snapchat Streaks vs. Snowpocalypse(s), Standardized Tests, and Extended School Days
Let me paint a picture for you. You’re headed fishing in the morning. You’ve re-spooled your reels, tied fresh hooks, bought the fattest, liveliest, crawlers, packed your cooler just right so that every can is embedded in the ice, gassed up, washed your favorite shirt, and woken up at the crack of dawn — just to discover that your waders leak, the wind’s blowing a few knots faster than you anticipated, and the fish aren’t quite as hungry as you’d hoped.
That’s kind of how I’m feeling. I’m still crossing my fingers for that lurking lunker, facing my soggy socks with stoicism, and having a good time in spite of what the gods have tossed my way. The only problem is that I’d already written the day’s narrative. The story I wanted to tell was that I’d set the weight perfectly to get just the right action off the bottom, baited my hook in such a way that that monster brooky I knew’d been been hiding under that rock just couldn’t help himself. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to combat what you failed to anticipate. I’m telling myself there’s plenty of time, but I may end up swinging by the grocery store on the way home.
See, I’ve run into a few variables I just failed to see coming. In the last couple weeks, we’ve had nearly 40 inches of heavy wet snow (aaand three snow days), five days of mentally draining standardized testing, a teacher’s workshop day, and the announcement and implementation of “extended school days” in order to make up for the number of days that we’ve missed due to inclement weather (which, of course, we’re using for mandatory reading time). All of this, in addition to the fickle nature of adolescents is mangling the conclusion I’ve already written in my head. Besides what this weird, disjointed, and unstructured schedule has done to my students moral and stamina — I simply can’t keep track of their independent reading when I don’t see them.
In short, the answer to the question, “If students read for at least 21 straight days will they develop the habit of daily recreational reading?”, is supposed to be an emphatic YES, not a soggy sort of… maybe? Time’ll tell.
Check out SetLab by Strategic EdTech, and all of the wonderful studies by the other education scientists. Follow me on Twitter @y0MrSmith.
