10 ms·

Schools can still help with this by trying to schedule the core academic stuff later in the the day and the less mentally intense stuff like PE earlier in the m

Schools can still help with this by trying to schedule the core academic stuff later in the the day and the less mentally intense stuff like PE earlier in the morning. My kids' elementary school actually does this. They tell parents "if your child has a doctor's appointment or needs to be out for a portion of the day, schedule it at the beginning or end of the day to make sure they don't miss anything important."

madcaptenor 9y ago
I wonder how they schedule that. Does that mean that all PE classes (assuming PE is part of the "unimportant" category) are either at the beginning or the end of the day? What does the PE teacher do in the middle of the day, then?
- cmpb 9y ago
  Often PE teachers (and coaches) are also teachers. My civics, geography and geometry teachers were all football coaches. Incidentally, they were also not very learned in their respective courses.
  - importantbrian 9y ago
    This was the same for us. The exception was the teacher that made me fall in love with history as a subject. He was also an assistant basketball coach, but he was passionate about history.
- hysan 9y ago
  Teach health? Sex Ed? Preparation and setup? My PE teachers in JHS and HS were more than just PE teachers. Was my school just an outlier?
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    It depends on the school and the state. I went to a small district where they shared roles. My wife went to a huge school where the PE teachers taught only PE and were paid coached as well. In some districts, you need certification in a subject... a gym teacher can’t teach math.
    - solarkraft 9y ago
      And they couldn't be certified for both? In NRW, Germany afaik (almost) all teachers have two or more roles.
      - Spooky23 9y ago
        Probably -- I think the specifics vary from place to place.
  - jeffcore 9y ago
    It probably depends on the size of the school or school district. I went to large schools for both MS and HS, and all of our PE teachers only taught PE throughout the day, as it was offered all seven class periods as there were simply too many students to only offer the class two to three periods. In HS, freshman tended to have the largest class sizes as they only had two class periods to choose from, and were split between male and female. They'd rotate through all sports during the school year. All other years got to choose their class period and were able to select the sport(s) they wanted, and would rotate through different teachers quarterly, within that same class period, based on those selections. Coaches that only taught electives usually rotated in teaching Health/Sex Ed and Driver's Ed.
    - squeaky-clean 9y ago
      Yeah my high school had 2,500 students, there's no way they could've even fit everyone onto the field in the morning let alone have the staff to handle that.
DanCarvajal 9y ago
Anecdotally I definitely did better in High School when I had band first thing in the morning.
imjk 9y ago
I remember nothing worse in High School than waking up showering and getting dressed for school, only to have PE class first period.
- tmuir 9y ago
  What was so traumatizing about the showers available to you in high school? Because I certainly remember first period gym, and I just took a shower afterwards. Then I was right as rain.
  - war1025 9y ago
    Probably the effort of getting ready once and then having to get ready again. Not traumatizing, just a pain. Some people are particular about their routines.
    - tmuir 9y ago
      All people are particular about their routines. Some to greater degrees than others. Are you familiar with the phrase: "There are two types of jobs, those you shower before, and some you shower afterwards."
      - war1025 9y ago
        What's that have to do with routine? You shower after manual labor jobs. That's just a matter of practicality.
        solarkraft 9y ago
        Yeah, but that's at the end of the work day. Difference here. Though I just wouldn't shower in the morning.
        war1025 9y ago
        I really have no idea what this side tangent is about. I made a comment that getting ready twice in short order is a pain, which is why people wouldn't want to have PE first thing. I don't see what any of this has to do with the difference in showering schedules between white collar and blue collar labor. My dad worked in a factory and showered after he got home from work. That was the time of day that made sense because his work was hot and sweaty and dirty. I suppose the idea could have been that you could have just not showered at all and showered once you were done with PE, but still unsure where this detour is headed.
WhompingWindows 9y ago
The problem with that is rotating schedules is more economically efficient than loading all the class-types onto one time of the day. This would mean you need more PE teachers in the morning, more math teachers in the mid-day. There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day. One interesting follow-up study could be to compare night-owls/morning-larks in rotating schedule schools vs schools with fixed schedules. We could then see do night-owls do significantly worse in the classes they only take in the morning, vs night-owls who take classes rotating throughout diff periods of the day?
- jamescostian 9y ago
  > There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day Could you elaborate on this? What is the reason? Saying it's "more economically efficient" than grouping class types is something many of my teachers would disagree with, as they have lives they would love to get to outside of school (e.g. if a PE teacher gets out early in the morning, they can go to their second job or see their own kids) and complain about having to stay at school because there isn't enough time between similar classes that are spread across different times of day.
  - war1025 9y ago
    At least where I went to school, teachers generally had full schedules with maybe one period empty for prep. If they are teaching multiple sections of the same class, it isn't feasible to lump all classes of a certain kind into one part of the day. The same person can't teach multiple classes at once.
  - olympus 9y ago
    Because a single PE teacher can manage five rotating classes of twenty kids throughout the day. If kids didn't rotate periods, then all 100 kids would take PE at the same time. That would require extra PE teachers, because one teacher cannot manage 100 kids. Multiply this effect by every different area (music teachers, art teachers, etc.) and you have to hire a bunch of extra teachers which is a waste of money. Plus, those teachers would only be busy for part of the day, so their wasting a lot of their time.
kerng 9y ago
Sorry, not from the US. What does PE mean?
- cialowicz 9y ago
  Physical Education
- psibi 9y ago
  Physical education. In India, in our schools it mostly meant playing Soccer.
  - tmuir 9y ago
    The irony of defining a regional term in the context of other regional terms.
heedlessly2 9y ago
if kid's played dodgeball every morning, then they would be excited to come to school
kolbe 9y ago
This brings back memories for me. My friends and I realized even at a young age that we shouldn't have hard classes in the morning, and we almost always chose PE/arts first.
JepZ 9y ago
So and how about the people who would like to have the mentally intense stuff early in the morning? For example, I have the clearest mind about 5 minutes after I got out of bed.

madcaptenor 9y ago

I wonder how they schedule that. Does that mean that all PE classes (assuming PE is part of the "unimportant" category) are either at the beginning or the end of the day? What does the PE teacher do in the middle of the day, then?

cmpb 9y ago
Often PE teachers (and coaches) are also teachers. My civics, geography and geometry teachers were all football coaches. Incidentally, they were also not very learned in their respective courses.
- importantbrian 9y ago
  This was the same for us. The exception was the teacher that made me fall in love with history as a subject. He was also an assistant basketball coach, but he was passionate about history.
hysan 9y ago
Teach health? Sex Ed? Preparation and setup? My PE teachers in JHS and HS were more than just PE teachers. Was my school just an outlier?
- Spooky23 9y ago
  It depends on the school and the state. I went to a small district where they shared roles. My wife went to a huge school where the PE teachers taught only PE and were paid coached as well. In some districts, you need certification in a subject... a gym teacher can’t teach math.
  - solarkraft 9y ago
    And they couldn't be certified for both? In NRW, Germany afaik (almost) all teachers have two or more roles.
    - Spooky23 9y ago
      Probably -- I think the specifics vary from place to place.
- jeffcore 9y ago
  It probably depends on the size of the school or school district. I went to large schools for both MS and HS, and all of our PE teachers only taught PE throughout the day, as it was offered all seven class periods as there were simply too many students to only offer the class two to three periods. In HS, freshman tended to have the largest class sizes as they only had two class periods to choose from, and were split between male and female. They'd rotate through all sports during the school year. All other years got to choose their class period and were able to select the sport(s) they wanted, and would rotate through different teachers quarterly, within that same class period, based on those selections. Coaches that only taught electives usually rotated in teaching Health/Sex Ed and Driver's Ed.
  - squeaky-clean 9y ago
    Yeah my high school had 2,500 students, there's no way they could've even fit everyone onto the field in the morning let alone have the staff to handle that.

DanCarvajal 9y ago

Anecdotally I definitely did better in High School when I had band first thing in the morning.

imjk 9y ago

I remember nothing worse in High School than waking up showering and getting dressed for school, only to have PE class first period.

tmuir 9y ago
What was so traumatizing about the showers available to you in high school? Because I certainly remember first period gym, and I just took a shower afterwards. Then I was right as rain.
- war1025 9y ago
  Probably the effort of getting ready once and then having to get ready again. Not traumatizing, just a pain. Some people are particular about their routines.
  - tmuir 9y ago
    All people are particular about their routines. Some to greater degrees than others. Are you familiar with the phrase: "There are two types of jobs, those you shower before, and some you shower afterwards."
    - war1025 9y ago
      What's that have to do with routine? You shower after manual labor jobs. That's just a matter of practicality.
      - solarkraft 9y ago
        Yeah, but that's at the end of the work day. Difference here. Though I just wouldn't shower in the morning.
        war1025 9y ago
        I really have no idea what this side tangent is about. I made a comment that getting ready twice in short order is a pain, which is why people wouldn't want to have PE first thing. I don't see what any of this has to do with the difference in showering schedules between white collar and blue collar labor. My dad worked in a factory and showered after he got home from work. That was the time of day that made sense because his work was hot and sweaty and dirty. I suppose the idea could have been that you could have just not showered at all and showered once you were done with PE, but still unsure where this detour is headed.

WhompingWindows 9y ago

The problem with that is rotating schedules is more economically efficient than loading all the class-types onto one time of the day. This would mean you need more PE teachers in the morning, more math teachers in the mid-day. There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day. One interesting follow-up study could be to compare night-owls/morning-larks in rotating schedule schools vs schools with fixed schedules. We could then see do night-owls do significantly worse in the classes they only take in the morning, vs night-owls who take classes rotating throughout diff periods of the day?

jamescostian 9y ago
> There's a reason schools have multiple periods of each course, and that those periods rotate day-to-day Could you elaborate on this? What is the reason? Saying it's "more economically efficient" than grouping class types is something many of my teachers would disagree with, as they have lives they would love to get to outside of school (e.g. if a PE teacher gets out early in the morning, they can go to their second job or see their own kids) and complain about having to stay at school because there isn't enough time between similar classes that are spread across different times of day.
- war1025 9y ago
  At least where I went to school, teachers generally had full schedules with maybe one period empty for prep. If they are teaching multiple sections of the same class, it isn't feasible to lump all classes of a certain kind into one part of the day. The same person can't teach multiple classes at once.
- olympus 9y ago
  Because a single PE teacher can manage five rotating classes of twenty kids throughout the day. If kids didn't rotate periods, then all 100 kids would take PE at the same time. That would require extra PE teachers, because one teacher cannot manage 100 kids. Multiply this effect by every different area (music teachers, art teachers, etc.) and you have to hire a bunch of extra teachers which is a waste of money. Plus, those teachers would only be busy for part of the day, so their wasting a lot of their time.

kerng 9y ago

Sorry, not from the US. What does PE mean?

cialowicz 9y ago
Physical Education
psibi 9y ago
Physical education. In India, in our schools it mostly meant playing Soccer.
- tmuir 9y ago
  The irony of defining a regional term in the context of other regional terms.

heedlessly2 9y ago

if kid's played dodgeball every morning, then they would be excited to come to school

kolbe 9y ago

This brings back memories for me. My friends and I realized even at a young age that we shouldn't have hard classes in the morning, and we almost always chose PE/arts first.

JepZ 9y ago

So and how about the people who would like to have the mentally intense stuff early in the morning? For example, I have the clearest mind about 5 minutes after I got out of bed.