"We're always rushing."
"There's too much material to cover."
"We never have time to finish anything."
"There just isn't enough time!"

In this groundbreaking book on school reform, Chip Wood boldly confronts the epidemic of busyness in our nation's K-8 schools. He shows how changing the way we use time will transform our schools from the "fact factories" they have become into the democratic communities of learning which they can and should be, schools in which the pace of the day encourages investigation, contemplation, completion, and community. (Book cover photo: David Muir/Masterfile)

Features:

• Highly practical strategies for creating time in the school day for reflection, deeper dialogue, more rigorous academics, and more meaningful social interactions
• Guidelines for making changes in how time is structured and used in the classroom
• Guidelines for making changes at the administrative and political level

"This book tackles one of the most complex and often corrosive influences on education--the use of time. Chip Wood goes way beyond the simplistic "more time on task" solutions and offers teachers and administrators meaningful ways to transform the quality of teaching and learning for all children."
     –Jennifer Richard Jacobson, teacher and author of How Is My First Grader Doing in School?

Table of Contents

Front matter, including Table of Contents and Preface
Introduction: The School Zone
SECTION ONE: FOUNDATIONS
Chapter One Time to Learn
Chapter Two Time, Growth, and Learning
Chapter Three Using Time Wisely
SECTION TWO: OBSERVATIONS
Chapter Four Floating on the Surface in Seventh Grade
Chapter Five On Your Mark, Get Set . . .
Seven Years Old in First Grade
Chapter Six Working to Be "All There at Once"
SECTION THREE: TRANSFORMATIONS
Chapter Seven Changing School Time
Chapter Eight Changing the Structure of Time in Classrooms
Chapter Nine Changing the Use of Time in Classrooms
Chapter Ten Time to Teach
Afterword: Heros in the Classroom
Appendix A: Standards
Appendix B: The Responsive Classroom®
Notes
References
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author

Northeast Foundation for Children, 1999, 336 pages, paper
ISBN: 1-892989-01-8