As many of you know, when I taught college undergraduates, I came to the realization that the semester seemed much shorter to me than to my students. My own undergraduate institution still sends me their calendar. It shows the first semester as 11 full weeks not counting the final exam week -- at best 33 class days. Aside from each week costing approximately $4090/student, that's not much time. However to the students, December looks safely off in the outer distance. The current 2025 calendar pictures hi jinks on the quad in shorts and t-shirts in September, and three flips later, December features hi jinks on the quad in hats and gloves with giant snow sculptures.
With my own students, I came to realize the four individually featured months, cognitively primed them to think there was a much greater distance between the first day of class and the final exam. This was reinforced by the course syllabus which was a comprehensive and mutlipaged outline of the progression of the content. The months ahead were strung out with hi jinks to engage and course content to slog through, the final exam barely peeped above the horizon.
I needed to create a visual display of the semester that would shrink the cognitive priming of the length of the semester.
The next semester, I walked into the first day of class with the semester calendar on a single sheet of paper. Seven days by eleven weeks fit tidily as did assignments and due dates. What made it work is there was no separation between months. For example, this month September 30 falls on a Tuesday. On our calendar, October 1, 2,3, and 4 stay on the same line. Likewise with Friday's Halloween followed on the same line by Saturday's November First.
Seeing the whole semester as one continuous flow on a single sheet of paper widened their eyes. All of a sudden, September 28 was much closer to Thanksgiving -- with finals appearing almost immediately afterward -- than those separated pages with their static images, lead us to believe.
Continuing our current theme in these recent posts of anticipation, activation, and reflection -- beginning with an hour, a day, and a week in the context of three weeks -- in my current practice, I've taken the concept of the semester continuous calendar, and extended it to a year.
What I've found is this view of the calendar and the exercise of standing in front of the three-foot long version of it, is not for the faint of heart. It brings forward both the certainties and uncertainties of the year ahead. Our cells are sized for removable labels in acknowledgement of the uncertainty.
More on the integration of anticipation, activation, and reflection as a foundational approach to living a richer and more fulfilled life next week.
If you're interested in learning more about the Kairos continuous calendar, reply to info@kairoscognition.com.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper