Arrythmia, time poverty and a taxonomy to examine the temporal paradox of schools

Time poverty plagues schools worldwide. Current research has focussed on the quantitative analysis of accumulated tasks and duties that serve as the symptoms of a phenomenon known as time poverty. Every school is home to a similar yet unique set of complex, hidden temporal patterns created by different and often conflicting social calendars that combine to influence the rhythm of school life for teachers and students alike. The need for these social calendars to structure school time-and-place arrangements inevitably leads to the formation of the temporal paradox of schools: that to function effectively, time must be fixed; yet to succeed, time needs to be fluid. Rhythm analysis and a taxonomy for understanding the subjective experience of time provide novel lenses through which to reconceive time poverty in schools not solely as a quantitative problem, but instead as contextually specific temporal arrythmia. Activity theory provides an analytical framework to be paired with a new taxonomy of temporal experience to create a novel analytical tool to reframe time poverty in the context of teacher workload and develop a temporal empathy for the purposes of meaningful – school-based – intervention.