Next week AHS will have 1000+ students doing who-knows-what between 8AM and 11AM for 4 days. That is 3 hours x 4 days x 1000 students = 12000 hours of lost potential AT ONE HIGH SCHOOL! (Capitalists, unite!) Why doesn't a group like Habitat for Humanity challenge the Denver Metro Senior Class of 2007 and the Denver Metro Junior Class of 2008 to each build a house (or two or three) during the CSAP testing window?For folks outside of Colorado, our state testing program is called CSAP and is only given to Freshmen and Sophomores - meaning Juniors and Seniors have those hours off (Juniors take a state-administered ACT later this spring). Go read the entire post - I think there's some potential here. Probably too late for this year, but surely we could organize something for next year. Any takers? Surely Amanda and I aren't the only naive idealists . . .
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
CSAP: Colorado Students Acting Productively
Amanda has a really good idea:
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Surely not! Great title by the way. Wish I had thought of it. I put a call in to the Denver Habitat for Humanity office earlier today. Maybe someone will call me back.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea. As much as we love sleeping in, I know a lot of students would love the opportunity.
ReplyDeleteKarl,
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea. We are dealing with the same issue of downtime here in PB County, FL. My son, an 11th grader, has slept in, watched movies, and text-messaged his friends from his cell phone for many school hours these last few weeks. It's an unfortunate waste of valuable educational time.
Lee
Pennsylvania has a similar situation. My district already has a service component. Thanks for the idea to connect the two events.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea. I would love to help this get off the ground.
ReplyDeleteExcellent idea, Karl! Still time to get it set up for next year! We have our juniors on campus working on ACT prep and filling out their answer folders.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked in Broward county, Florida, we had similar issues. Way too much wasted instructional time for high stakes testing.
I often wonder why we don't do the same at AHS. Of course, people who don't teach Western Civ probably don't know that we lose yet another class with our juniors in a few weeks so that they can fill out their ACT folders.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the topic of this CSAP post, here is what I posted on my blog tonight: I talked to the lady who organizes Habitat for Humanity projects in Denver. She is interested in the idea, but there is a sticking point - they require that volunteers spend the entire day on a site - until 4:30 PM. Thus, I think that laufty's comment regarding her school in Kansas might be more in line with what we can do based on our schedule. What do you think about organizing something for next year? We could probably organize something in the neighborhoods surrounding AHS. It would give the students a chance to show the community that teenagers do think about others.