{"id":25263,"date":"2026-04-01T09:27:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T17:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=25263"},"modified":"2026-04-14T09:30:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T17:30:37","slug":"all-work-no-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/all-work-no-play\/","title":{"rendered":"All work, no play"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
A photo of the anticipated slide that could be installed on campus. | Photo from @e_stolt on Instagram<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Disclaimer: all articles featured in this issue are fake in celebration of April Fool\u2019s Day<\/b><\/p>\n

April 1, 2026 |<\/span>\u00a0Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief<\/span><\/p>\n

Western\u2019s College of Education is well-known for its comprehensive education programs that attract many aspiring teachers who eventually are ejected into their field of choice. By the end of the four-year program, education majors are student teachers and are compiling lesson plans that will follow them into their careers for years to come.<\/span><\/p>\n

The program\u2019s success comes from innovation. Routinely, faculty observe the education program and add alterations to improve the program, in terms of student satisfaction as well as learning impact. More recently, Western has been considering the implementation of new class options, schedules and changes that would boost morale, encourage learning and actively support up-and-coming educators.<\/span><\/p>\n

One proposed change for the upcoming academic year includes required nap time for all education majors, excepting fourth-year students engaging in student teaching. This would affect all education major schedules, implementing a structural gap midday for about 50 minutes to incorporate some rest into hardworking students\u2019 days.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Western, they noticed a distinct \u201cunder-eye darkness\u201d and \u201cdead-eyed look\u201d in students studying education; the required nap time would alleviate all the late hours of lesson planning and art assignments that students are forced to complete.<\/span><\/p>\n

Off-campus students would have access to a large, poorly-lit room in the Hamersly Library for nap time, lined with cushioned mats and zero blankets, whereas on-campus students can merely visit their dorms.<\/span><\/p>\n

To boost activity and encourage morale, education majors would also be given a brief recess, spanning 30 minutes, closer to noon, to play outside. Thankfully, Western already offers a few outdoor activities, such as walking paths on campus and the tennis courts, as well as the Health and Wellness Center\u2019s much-too-tall rock climbing wall. Additionally, Western would construct adult play structures to accompany the applied recess time, within a reasonable budget. Reportedly, Western is considering a slide, seesaw, wallball and tetherball courts and one of those really weird dome structures tied with rope that children routinely get stuck in. However, nothing has been set in stone yet, as one rumored option is still being considered: an old McDonald\u2019s play structure. The HWC has already agreed that if Western were to proceed with the golden arches\u2019 infamous play pits, the pool would be drained so the playground could be placed inside. After all, the pool is only open a couple hours daily and the lifeguards could still be utilized for the large ball pit.<\/span><\/p>\n

The hope for the playground would be to restore a childlike joy for students, who should remain carefree and youthful in order to better serve as educators to children. The development of a relationship between work and play has been widely considered a solid methodology to growing adequate self-regulation skills, which would then be used to teach children self-regulation skills.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even aspiring high school teachers will find themselves with two optional blocks of time in the day, meant for others for sleep and play. While some students might take this time to study, they are overall encouraged by the education program to \u201cmethod-act\u201d; high school teaching students might find themselves engaging in random acts of stereotypical tomfoolery, such as dressing in band shirts they aren\u2019t actually familiar with, overapplying their eyeliner and hitting the top of every door frame they pass under. It could also be considered important to replicate teenage speech, with words such as \u201clowkirkenuinely\u201d capable of connecting teenagers alike.<\/span><\/p>\n

This also allows for new tutoring roles within the education program to open up, with those extremely capable of teenage method acting able to instruct others on their teenage etiquette and speak. Teenage students at Western may be able to actually instruct their older peers, gaining work experience and a paycheck.<\/span><\/p>\n

In order to not only relocate funding for these new opportunities but also free up student time and expectations, certain aspects of the education program requirements are facing alterations or being dropped entirely. For one, all of the math-related courses previously taught within the education program would be cut because of technology such as calculators. Faculty has argued that because nobody needs to do mental math anymore, classes regarding basic math and teaching math are unnecessary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Secondly, all classes related to language education would also be removed from the program requirements due to the rise of AI chatbots such as ChatGPT. With ChatGPT, students no longer need to write and submit their own assignments, but can rather employ ChatGPT to construct it for them. The majority of education majors at Western have agreed that this decision would be worth it, considering they\u2019re all using ChatGPT the same way.<\/span><\/p>\n

Students at Western, so far, have expressed a lot of interest in these potential changes, as well as a lot of anticipation for the new playground possibility. For students majoring in other departments, if you see a group of education majors playing tag outside and judging them for it: have a little whimsy. They\u2019re changing the world, one adult nap at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at howleditorinchief@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disclaimer: all articles featured in this issue are fake in celebration of April Fool\u2019s Day April 1, 2026 |\u00a0Hannah Field | Editor-in-Chief Western\u2019s College of Education is well-known for its comprehensive education programs that attract many aspiring teachers who eventually are ejected into their field of choice. By the end of the four-year program, education […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1645,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"All work, no play","_seopress_titles_desc":"Education program faces rework to emphasize productivity and work ethic","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[737,6836,5069,1254,684,3927,39],"class_list":["post-25263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-education","tag-oregon-2","tag-program","tag-university","tag-western","tag-wolf","tag-wou"],"modified_by":"saragerrick","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1645"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25268,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25263\/revisions\/25268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}