Imagine waking up excited to go to school. Doesn’t sound like you? What if it could?
Do you ever have to force yourself out the door on Monday morning, full of dread for the day because you are sure every teacher is going to give you new assignments? Wouldn’t you feel better if you knew how your were going to be distributed through each quarter?
Towards the end of each quarter, some teachers may cram in extra assignments, which adds an unpredictable amount of work to already anxiety-ridden students. While you’re inevitably going to be stressed out in high school, especially at such an academically challenging school, it doesn’t have to be this wearing. If teachers explained their plan at the beginning of each quarter, students would better understand why they need to complete their work on time and study for each assessment. This would allow teachers to move forward with the curriculumin each class and hold all lessons and assessments on schedule, which would inevitably lead to students spending their time properly and becoming less overwhelmed.
By employing this method in our school’s education we could potentially raise students’ overall learning, at the same time as decreasing severe anxiety and burnout. Since this is such a simple addition with the capability of such success, many students think this would raise the level of knowledge they gain in their classes.
However, previewing the entire quarter’s work could end up overwhelming students anyways, because they might not be able to focus on the current assignments in lieu of future work. While this could become an issue, most students would feel much more in control of their education and would appreciate the debrief. Finally if there were any spontaneous negatives to these previews, they could be removed.
Although it would take some time for the teachers to go through their quarter plan, the benefits outweigh the few hours this would take because students would have more energy and attention to give in class, instead of constantly working on other class assignments, which many teachers complain is very disrespectful.
Since we are trying to best prepare ourselves for college, jobs, and the ‘real world’, it is a good idea to add communication between the levels of our ‘small society’ so that once we leave high school our foundation is the strongest it can be. I’ve heard many adults say that once you stop striving you stop achieving.
In this context, I take this to mean that if there isn’t understanding between teachers and students, workers and employers, citizens and politicians, then there is no way to uplift each other or reach a higher status in life. While this might seem extreme when you look back at the point I’m making, what is the point of everything we do now if not to prepare ourselves for later?
So, although it will take effort from students and teachers alike, these quarterly debriefs, that have the potential to completely change the way students view their education, are a necessary change that we, as a school, should make.