Almost every weekday, students all across our school district wake up, get ready and make their way to school. Just on a normal schedule, high school students spend around 6 hours and 55 minutes in teachers’ classrooms. After a full five-day school week, hours of listening to lectures, filling out worksheets and collaborating on projects can get slow and exhausting. By the time Friday comes around, numbers and letters start to blend together in a string of gibberish. The students and teachers of our school need time to recover and recharge after a long week, but is the weekend cutting it? My proposal is simple: a half-day on Friday.
As someone who is involved in multiple extracurriculars, in which many other students can relate, I find myself busy almost 90% of the week. Whether it is after school rehearsals or practices, weekend performances or games, we are constantly busy. Undoubtedly, this creates conflicts between extracurriculars and schoolwork, so a half-day would be helpful.
Getting an extra couple of hours to work on schoolwork would erase a lot of stress that many busy students feel heading into the weekend. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to those who have extracurriculars, but also those who have rigorous course loads and may be taking higher- level classes.
Unfortunately, there are always going to be kids who, even given the opportunity, will not put forth effort and use this time to its full advantage, which is why I personally believe that this could be a convenient way to extend the use of AIM.
AIM, in this scenario, could be used as a tactic for teachers to pull students who have not completed work or are struggling and need some extra assistance to succeed. Those who have all of their work completed can either go home at the half-day mark or choose to spend their time in a teacher’s classroom for extra assistance on a subject. This approach would allow for those who work best in an environment that is not their own home to sit down, study and work.
In turn, by giving the students a break, teachers would also prosper from this change. A break from students, or at least a few instead of a full class, would allow teachers to put together lesson plans in anticipation of the next week, finish grading any assignments from the previous days and overall give a chance to catch up and wind down before the weekend. This change would also improve the burnout that many teachers may feel at the end of a work week. It’s stressful dealing with high school kids all hours of the day for a week straight, so if this change could make their lives any easier, it’s certainly worth it.
Obviously, there is the issue of losing out on “learning time,” but in all actuality, students and teachers alike are mentally drained and physically exhausted from being go, go, go all week. Students are unable to focus on lessons at hand because of their heavy schedules, and teachers are becoming frustrated further because of that lack of focus affecting their ability to teach. It would be a win-win situation for all parties involved.
A half day may not completely solve all of the issues that having a classroom full of children or a heavy schedule creates, but it’s a step in the right direction. With a rise in mental health issues stemming from overworked and stressed people, everyone deserves more grace and fair flexibility. Implementing half-days would show, to all those looking in on our district, that we are a school that cares about mental health and long-term success in our students and employees, rather than a schedule built to overfill our already busy lives.
