I suspect we’d be able to personalize the classroom more if we had more time. One of the effects of the current schedule is mass delivery of content and assessment, because the teacher simply doesn’t have the time to individualize any of it. A class like English, which many students dislike, covers too broad a range of material to be simply and inherently disagreeable to some people. We understand the world through language and vocabulary, and are an inescapably story-telling species. You are engaged in reading simply being here on Medium, and engaged in writing simply by commenting. That’s the stuff of an English class.

The problem with the class isn’t always the subject, it’s the specific content you are forced to engage in, the specific way you must engage with it, and the specific way you must demonstrate understanding and growth. If I, as a teacher, had 3 hours with a small class every day, I could far more easily individualize reading and writing than I can in the 45 minutes I have now. I would also have the time to try and figure out exactly why the material is giving some students so much trouble.