Nibbled to Death by Mice

I don't know where I first heard the expression 'being nibbled to death by mice,' but I understand it better now than I did then.

The school day begins at 7:30 a.m. and ends at 2:20 p.m. so, in theory, we have six hours and 50 minutes for teaching. But of course, that's not how it is in practice. Teaching is not the only thing that happens in school.

On a typical day, I spend the first ten minutes of my Block One class taking attendance, leading the Pledge of Allegiance, and listening to announcements over the public address system. Then we go to work. A class block is 85 minutes long, so the total instructional time is about 75 minutes.

When the bell rings, we have five minutes of passing time. Block Two begins with five minutes of attendance and other housekeeping (no pledge, no announcements). Instructional time: 80 minutes.

After another five minutes of passing time, advisory begins. Advisory is 15 minutes a day set aside to read announcements, hand out report cards or messages for parents, and let the students have a snack. They're not allowed to eat in any other classes.

Ring! Passing time! Block Three includes all three lunch groups, so it's longer than the other blocks. On a normal day, it's a full two hours, which allows time for one 85-minute class block, plus a 30-minute lunch break, plus passing time. We don't use bells to indicate when each lunch break begins (because there are classes in session at that time), so kids often successfully lobby or bamboozle their teachers into letting them go to lunch a little early or come back a little late. A typical Block Three might include only 75 minutes of instructional time, though maybe that's because I'm a softer touch than most teachers. I'd hate to be at the end of the line when 400 kids are trying to get lunch. You can barely finish before it's passing time again.

The day ends with Block Four, another five-minute chunk of time lost at its beginning, and an additional few minutes lopped off at the end when there are more announcements. During heavy sports seasons, there are also announcements in the middle of Block Four that release teams from class to go to away games. It's a wild guess, but between the attendance, the announcements, the clatter of athletes leaving, and the natural twitchiness that afflicts teenagers in the last few minutes of the school day, I consider myself lucky if I get in an unbroken hour of useful time in the day's last class.

Total instructional time: five hours. But that's only if a student has four classes. A sizable number of them take only three classes per semester (some take even fewer), so they're getting more like three hours and 40 minutes of teaching between 7:30 and 2:20 .

Oh, and every Wednesday, we extend advisory to 40 minutes by shortening each block by five minutes. That provides time for club meetings, assemblies, make-up work and extra help for students who need it. But it drops the teaching time to three hours and 20 minutes.

'Our life is frittered away by detail,' said Thoreau. I'm not knocking X-block, or passing time, or announcements, or lunch, or sports. Each is valuable, and not one of them, by itself, takes an unacceptable amount of time away from instruction. But put all those little mouse bites together and half the school day is gone.

So if you are looking for somebody to blame for the failings of our public schools -- and who isn't? -- don't forget the mice.