Time to Teach, Time to Learn: Changing the Pace of School

Childhood Education, Summer 2000 by Sandel, Lenore

TIME TO TEACH, TIME TO

LEARN: Changing the Pace of

School. Chip Wood. Greenfield, MA:

Northeast Foundation for Children Inc., 1999. $16.95. "I believe time can be our friend, rather than our nemesis," says Wood, and he offers practical suggestions to document his convictions in Time To Teach, Time To Learn. Wood speaks to each teacher who is familiar with what he calls the concept of time as "currency"-we spend it, save it, account for it, and are economical with it.

Time To Teach, Time To Learn is organized into three sections: "Foundations" (the importance of theory and research), "Observations" (direct experience), and "Transformations" (practical application). Wood shows how to change the way we use time, as well as how to transform schools from the "fact factories" they have become into the democratic communities of learning that they can and should be. Practical strategies and guidelines for classroom administration and policy-making abound. The importance of incorporating children's concepts of time and the social context in learning is explained throughout the text.

Wood speaks to the heroes of the classroom, the good classroom teachers who are most representative of the profession. Parker Palmer says teachers need courage. Herbert Kohl says we need hope. The myriad texts that compel us to consider learners' developmental growth find further support in Wood's view of time as meaning more than being on task.

This sensitive, cogent, and exquisitely defined book bursts with ways to avoid the typical school hazards associated with time management. The author's voice is convincing, punctuated with experience and documented with successful results. He is inspired and inspiring.

A teacher and teacher-educator himself, Wood uses the responsive classroom approach, integrating the teaching of social and academic learning skills in elementary and middle schools. It is these skills, Wood contends, that not only meet or surpass state standards, but also restore our schools to places of civility and decency.

The conceptual framework of Time To Teach, Time To Learn can be codified in seven basic principles for a responsive classroom:

* Complementary sides of academic and social curriculum

* Balance between content and process of learning

* Cooperative interaction as learning facilitator

* Specific social skills that are necessary to learning

* Teachers' knowledge of children, as well as of content

* Teachers' knowledge of parents, as well as of children

* Good working relationships among adults.

Time To Teach, Time To Learn makes the lesson plan malleable, and the administrative tasks manageable. Time To Teach, Time To Learn is an invitation to take time to read. Reviewed by Lenore Sandel, Professor Emerita of Reading, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY