Abstract
<p style="text-align:justify">Lesson starts are transitional events which may cause management problems for teachers. In this study 131 lesson starts of equally many teachers were observed in primary and secondary schools in Finland. The results indicated that, in general, the problems were minimal. However, for various reasons lesson starts were delayed by an average of about six minutes. Calculated on this basis, the total loss of instructional time in the whole school year was about five weeks of schooling. No statistically significant relationships were observed between disturbances in the classroom and any background variable studied including grade level, classroom type,(special or mainstream), group size, presence of classroom assistant, sex of the teacher, weekday, time of day of the lesson, or subject of the lesson. In order to maximise instructional time more attention should be paid in future to starting lessons promptly.</p>
Highlights
The lesson start is a transition period in which both students and teachers enter the classroom and orient themselves to the commencing class
Some teachers spent the breaktime in the classroom and were immediately present at the lesson start
A typical organization of the school day in Finland consists of single 45-minute periods with a break of 15 minutes between the periods. This is determined by the Decree on Basic Education (1998) according to which at least 45 minutes must be used for instruction in each school hour
Summary
The lesson start is a transition period in which both students and teachers enter the classroom and orient themselves to the commencing class. Starts have been identified as typical moments in which teachers have difficulties in attracting students’ attention (Jones & Jones, 2007, 223). Lesson beginnings have been used to exemplify the “hidden agenda” of school life in the sense that they have often turned into instances of meaningless waiting. The concept of hidden agenda was introduced by Philip Jackson in his book “Life in Classrooms” in 1968. He described the school as a place where the virtue of patience was exercised through learning to suffer in silence during the dreary waiting periods characterising typical school life (Jackson, 1990, 18)
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