In urban schools learning is offered in disconnected jolts.The work of the day is unconnected with the work of preceding days or subsequent ones.Life in urban schools is comprised of specific periods and discrete days each of which is forced to stand entirely on its own.If homework is not done, or books not taken home (behaviors which are universal for males and almost so for females by the completion of the
upper elementary grades), everything students are taught must be compressed
into isolated periods of «stand alone» days.Teachers and principals, as well as students, survive one day at a time.
The
upper levels of
elementary school, when students move beyond foundational lessons
into more abstract learning, are crucial
grades that set the stage for a student's lifelong education.