Sculpture teacher Jeremy Wright wishes to begin improvement in the current school system by integrating an annual day without bells at SDA.
“If we’re going to say we’re 21 century, let’s talk 21 century,” said Wright.
The current school system has been in place since the time of the industrial revolution, in the 1880s and 1890s and many students and teachers agree that it is time to change.
“There’s a great video by Sir Ken Robinson. It’s a Ted Talk that talks about education and our administration has shown us this video twice and for me as a teacher I get a little frustrated like ‘I’m going to show you this inspirational video and then we’re going to go back to our usual routine,’” said Wright.
A day without bells is the first step in changing the school system, he said. It would serve as a yearly reminder to change the old style of learning into one that would properly fit the current day and age, according to Wright.
“We talk about how we want students to be innovative and how we want them to think for themselves, yet we have this constant everyday reminder [of the bells],” said Wright.
English teacher Mary King also agrees on the rigid structure of the school day. “The problem is really the whole ‘you’re in English class now; you’re in history class now,’” said King.
Wright offered a solution to this problem, a development that would hopefully result from the motivation of a day without bells and the continuing improvement in education. He explained his idea of a project-based school day which would allow increased collaboration between subjects: “Maybe there’s kids who come in here and stay in here the whole period. Maybe they go and maybe they work in a group project with science.”
Cross-curricular collaboration is one method of improvement. Increased collaboration between subjects would be welcomed by teachers because most already touch on other subjects when teaching their own, Wright said.
With the implementation of an annual day without bells, students and staff can be aware of the changes that must be made to the education system, although it would be a slow and difficult change.
“The way that the educational system is run is just so complicated and a lot of it is based on money and budgets. If I would rule the world, I would certainly not have AP classes of 38 students; I’d probably have like 20 or 25,” said King.
Another desired result is less dependency on teachers by the students. According to Wright, students have the idea that if they do not know something they must ask the teacher. “I’ve had some students say ‘but you’re the teacher, I’m asking you because you’re the teacher,’” said Wright.
With the idea of a day without bells also come difficulties. Some questions have risen regarding the students’ ability to make it to class on time. “If we didn’t have a bell, then how do we get everybody to know it’s time to go to school without somebody yelling and isn’t that the same thing as a bell?” said Principal Bjorn Paige.
According to Wright, even if this day does not work out, there will be ideas to take away from it. “Let’s say we do it and it’s a complete disaster. Just like I talk about in ceramics, if something breaks you learn something. So whether we did it and broke away from tradition or it just didn’t go well, what did we learn? I think as teachers and staff we need to emulate that to students that we’re just trying something,” said Wright.
Once such an event is established, it will be important to spread the message. “I guess another thing we would have to do somehow is educate and inform the students about this. I think if they know that there is a bigger reason for this there could be a little bit more buy into it. I think we’re SDA and we like to experiment. It’s worth a shot,” said King.