There are some educators out there talking about making school last six days a week. My goodness, if any child were made to sit another day in public school, they might as well go insane.
The problem is the way kids are taught. Sitting at a desk learning one subject at a time with worksheets bores kids to death. Kids with ADD or ADHD are left out. They need to move to learn, and many kids need to experience to learn, rather than sit and be lectured at.
Really children learn best through play, and with an interactive and integrative approach.
Storytime Yoga has always felt that kids learn best through play and by integrating many subjects into one cyclical whole, rather than linearly progressing through different subjects.
Recently in my after school class, we learned a whole bunch of stuff. The class is For the Love of Story. While eating snack, children learned about eating healthy foods and taking care of the body. I told them stories during snack. Children interviewed each other then presented each other = name, age, where they were born - and used oral skills to present the other. The children had a Story Siesta, relaxing and listening to the Native American story of Jumping Mouse, and before hand locating Native American territory on a map. Afterwards I had them recall images from the story, such as mouse, eagle, raccoon, frog and move their bodies, as wild as they wanted, to act out the animals. I asked them what their favorite part of the story was, and they orally told it. I encouraged them to tell the story at home, or make up a story about how the story may continue. Some said they wanted to bring a story in for next time. We then walked through the school garden, sampling different types of herbs and identifying plants that were starting to pop up through the spring soil.
Even on my kids trip last week to Florida, it was an educational experience. My daughter, who struggles in school, finds this approach much better - whether it's learning about animals, plants and conservation at the Jacksonville zoo, or history at Fort Matanzas, or writing about their trip, a participtory, experiencial education is one that will last. It's one that comes from within a child rather than being hammered into him or her from the outside. So longer classroom hours is going to create more frustrated children who still won't learn. Get kids moving; get kids playing and experiencing the world with awe and amazement and that's how they are going to learn.