High school students ought to manage their own time. But in the typical one-size-fits-all daily schedule known widely as “cells and bells,” students migrate from class to class every 48 minutes. Borne of necessity, cells and bells homogenize education. Complacency is a risk when students have their time managed for them, as are both absenteeism and a lack of engagement.
Having seniors in high school face the same type of schedule each day as that which defines a fifth grader’s day does not make developmental sense, nor offer the kind of preparation teens need for postsecondary education. The prevailing model does not fully develop the skills we know today’s students will need to have to be successful in the rapidly changing world they will enter.