Unnatural breaks

We've invented these things called semesters. We've decided that since you can divide a 10 month school-year into two five month chunks, you should. And we have. And it only occurs to you when you're right in the middle of the change from the first semester to the second one, how arbitrary and awkward and unnatural it is to stop something like a "learning period" at the end of January, and then begin another one.

The strongest argument in favour of this kind of arbitrary dividing of the school year is, if not now, when? And since we love the neatness of two five month halves, we think that it won't really matter on which five months we impose it. And it won't matter what other "natural" (in this case "natural" means unavoidable, country-wide breaks, like Christmas, New Years, and Spring Break) breaks occur during those five months, or how those breaks might impact the ebbs and flows of learning. Yes, the strongest argument in of the semester system is "because it creates two equal halves".

But if you hang around a school on the semester system and you have a sense of learning momentums and activities, and you watch the learning community, you will notice the interruptions and anxieties created by these arbitrary starting and ending points. We finish Christmas break, we pick up a few pieces of learning, we prepare for final assessment, we finish, we start again. The hurly-burly of it is ludicrous. Ask any kids who experience it. They're not learning. They're surviving. They're not feeling like their courses are coming to a natural end, they're feeling like they're happy to be walking away from a train-wreck, and looking forward to getting to the next station to board the next train.

We're all just enduring at this time of the year. When we should be crossing the finish line and celebrating a good performance, we have, in essence, run off the track on the final lap in order to find the toilet and void our bowels. We need a break, but not because we've run hard and well, because we've been running without a controlled steady pace, and after the last slowdown, we've actually lost our will to care about the outcome of the race at all.

I have suggested, and will continue to suggest, an overhaul of the semester system, to at least match the "natural" breaks of society. In this new trimester system, the first learning period would run for four months, from Sept to Dec (four courses per day) and break for Christmas. The second learning period would run for three months, from Jan to Mar (three courses per day) and break for Spring Break. The final learning period would run for three months, from Apr to June (three courses per day) and break for Summer. That's it. Every time we take a break, we take a break together (as a society); we finish what we're doing at school, and prepare to start anew. Exitus Aditus Semper ("Every ending is a beginning.")

The learning time per course would be the same as it is now, but more focussed and concentrated, and less interrupted. I have little hope however, that this more "natural" system will ever catch on though. Probably mostly because of its asymmetry (asymmetry is too hard for some folks to comprehend). And because it makes sense.

Ride report:

in: -10'C wind 15ks S

out: -6'C wind 15ks W