Three-quarters of an hour can be one lesson hour. Five days define the week and constitute a weekly lesson schedule. Two semesters in combination with holidays define a school year. Time divisions are commonly known, are obvious, visible, and apparent in schools. They have a linear character with a clear beginning or end point, like a school year or a lesson hour. However, not everything is linear when it comes to school time. Challenges in relation to time arise when it is squeezed into other dimensions when time is hidden and non-apparent, and when we cannot define its beginning or its end. When we talk about a school lacking time for something, it is a self-contradictory expression as time is not a phenomenon that can be saved or multiplied. There is no point in focusing on searching for lost time, but it would be interesting to look closer at where time is hidden within the curriculum, how time affects its educational efficiency, and to determine precisely what the educational functions of time within the curriculum are. Drawing on the theory of school practices of Kemmis et al. (2014) and  functionalists’ theories of school (Merton, 1969), the presentation will offer a conceptually rich analysis of the temporal organization of educational practices within the classroom.

In classical physics, there is a notion of time as an arrow of infinitesimal moments which flow in a constant stream. This means that time is conceived of as a uniform and linear series of ‘now-points’, a concept in which the past is ‘no-longer-now’, the future is the ‘not-yet-now’, and the present always flows from the past to the future. In this understanding, anything that happens begins and ends at some point in time. In some sense this corresponds to our understanding of ‘clock time’, which constantly moves in one direction – from the past to the future, always escaping the present. The linear perception of time is understood in the classic Aristotelian-cum-Kantian sense where time is the infinite a-priori ‘ruler’ that solidly grounds everything from physics to metaphysics (progression in education is linear). Rappleye and Komatsu (2016) contend that such an understanding of time posits perpetual progression and forward movement. Such an understanding of time within the school activities assumes the forward-moving concept of time. Under this assumption,  progress in education is linear (Rappleye & Komatsu, 2016), and education is about gaining knowledge, skills or competencies that are predefined and fixed in time (i.e. school year) (Biesta, 2013). In this understanding, progress is often assessed through high-stakes tests, which restricts teaching and learning (Holt, 2002). This time regime where schools are “fast” derives from the Holt (2002) appeal of ‘slow schools’ which offer temporal space for discussions, analysis, scrutiny and resolution.

A curriculum in Tyler’s (1957) understanding is all the learning experiences planned and directed by the school to attain its educational goals. In our study, the curriculum as set of courses (subjects) that learning institutions offer in the form of subjects and lessons explicitly taught in the classroom (McLean & Dixit, 2018). The hidden curriculum is considered to be part of an unintended learning process created by a school culture and school environment that influences their growth and development i.e., the acquisition of experiences, knowledge, and skills (Berg et al., 2017; Giroux, Penna, 1979). Unintended learning processes may involve practices that happen in schools for which certain times are dedicated such as notetaking, sitting still or asking a question, which for this study are time-related practices. Bloom (1972), considers activities like school teaching about time, order, neatness, promptness, and docility to be unintentional lessons.

To identify educational functions related to time within the curriculum, 21 non-participant observations in 11 international schools in Poland were used. The classroom observations covered subjects including biology, maths, geography, economics and physics lessons. Each observation lasted between 45 and 90 minutes depending on the lesson duration in selected schools. Non-participant observation is when the observer observes the group passively from a distance without participating in the group’s activities. Neither does the observer try to influence them or take part in group activities (Mack et al., 2005). In addition, semi-structured conversations sometimes also called post-observation interviews with teachers and students were conducted after each classroom observation, with an aim to provide “room for negotiation, discussion, and to give interviewees an opportunity to expand on their responses” (Mann, 2016, p. 91). Another aim of these semi-structured interviews was to understand the rationale for the lesson design and the selection of teaching activities and materials. With specific regard to the lesson, teachers were asked one general question: “How do you think the lesson went?” This encouraged them to reflect on their lessons. For the study, we posted the following research questions: 1. What are the educational functions of time within the curriculum? 2. What are the hidden time dimensions of the curriculum? 3. How does time affect the educational efficiency of the curriculum? Instrument: there was 2 instruments developed – one for observations and second for post-observation interviews. Both instruments were developed with an aim to search relations to time in classroom activities. To identify these activities we used Kemmis, et.al. (2014) theory of school practices that distinguished such practices as student learning, teaching, professional learning, leading and researching. Another useful theory adapted for our study and particular for instrument development, is the theory of the temporal organization of daily life of Southerton (2020). Temporal dimensions of school activities were searched under categories like periodicity, sequence, tempo, duration and synchronicity.

Following study revealed that despite commonly held opinions about the slow pace of school life, time within classroom practices makes lessons a dynamic process. Our observations showed that multitasking is a form of temporal binding or chrononormativity (Freeman, 2010) where time is used to push forward individual decisions and actions toward maximum productivity that delimits flexibility and freedom against particular social norms of “maximum productivity”. A distinctive feature of classroom practices implemented in the curriculum are rhythmic class-room practices, power of fixed schedules, time negotiations of teachers and students concerning how much time really matters to complete a task. Strategies that teachers and students undertook contained all the elements of school temporality, i.e. periodicity (work planning, lesson preparation, meeting the imposed schedule/work plan deadlines); sequence (linearity allowing the manoeuvring of one’s own resources to achieve the assumed goal within a given time-frame thanks to which students and teachers remain stable); the pace (which varies and depends on the waves of work); duration (the physicality of time, its instrumental character enables the maintenance of order and time management, e.g. bell, clock); synchronization (the latter learn time management, independence in learning and responsibility for a completed task). Time provides orientation for learning and emotional well-being where repeated activities provide a certain emotional safety and stabilisation. The temporal organization of school practices determines the educational functions of the curriculum and their time inflexibility and non-linearity constitute a functional part of a hidden curriculum. Teachers and students reproduce a particular time hegemony, however, the power of time is not as strong as the norms of time being negotiated within curriculum practices. Teachers’ agency is perceived as an individual’s action that is conditioned by a variable mix of creativity, autonomy and reflexivity which opens up the potential for innovation and the unexpected.

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