School Changes

It terrifies me to think what would happen if all control over schooling was handed over to the students, especially since, with so many people, we would have no way to make decisions effectively. So I'm going to change the prompt a little bit and list some changes I personally would make if I had the power to do so.

1. more self-guided learning
I think student engagement would be increased if teachers tried to, whenever possible, create more options for assignments. For example, I love when projects give me the option to use different mediums to show what I've learned, whether that's a poster, a Prezi, a good old-fashioned report, or a skit. This way, students can pursue their interests and learn the curriculum at the same time, and the idea of a project is not so dreadful when you know you can use your creativity.

2. create a fall vacation
This change isn't for academic reasons at all, but if I could, I would give just Memorial (and maybe the whole school district, if I'm feeling generous), a fall vacation or some other, oddly timed break. Rates for airplane tickets, cruises, hotels, etc. would be extremely low and families who couldn't otherwise afford vacations could find time to relax and have fun without worrying about taking the kids out of school and having them miss important instruction time.

3. homework focused more on learning, not on doing
I read about an approach to school where schoolwork and homework are more or less flipped, so that students consume accompanying media at home and do practice problems and projects at school. Now, I know this would not work, or would even be counterproductive in some classes (for example, history lectures that need to be made engaging by a teacher), but I think there are a lot of times at school where time is wasted. For example, when we spent two or three periods of history class watching a movie, then answered some questions at home. We could have easily watched that movie at home and discussed it in class. Not only would our time have been used more productively, but we would have had a more fruitful reflection on the movie if we had had our classmates around us to bounce ideas off and find new ways to think about the movie.

4. healthy lunches
A lot of people would probably disagree with me, maybe even yell "What are you thinking?!", but this list is completely hypothetical and none of it is going to happen anyways, so, don't worry. Anyways, in a country where rates of obesity and related diseases are rising so rapidly, it's scary to see how little is being done to battle that. I know that having nothing but healthy options won't solve everything because the food can easily be thrown out and a bag of chips can be brought from home, but it will be in a step in the right direction. If I had the power to make the decision, all school meals would be made at the school, using fresh ingredients. There's no wonder I didn't eat the vegetables in my lunch when I was little - they were soggy and tasteless, and no one else was eating them. In my new and improved school, vegetables would be used to their full potential. They would be the stars of the dishes, not reheated sides. Perhaps there would even be stir fry bars.

5. more movement
Since sitting is so unhealthy, I think a break in the middle of class would be nice, just to move around, do a few jumping jacks, stretch, etc. Or maybe install standing desks, although I think if they were optional, the students who wanted to use them would be hesitant because standing in a class full of people who are sitting down is uncomfortable.

6. fix the heating/cooling system
This is a pretty basic thing, to have the whole school be the same temperature. I think kids could focus better if they didn't have to go from fanning themselves in orchestra to bundling up in a sweater in math.

7. more ways of explaining
There have been many times where a concept is confusing to me at school, but when I go home and watch a video or read an article about it, it makes perfect sense. It would be nice if teachers, at the beginning of a unit, handed out a list of good resources to take a look at at home. Teachers can't explain things in every single possible way, which means that some students will not have their needs met. I think this simple change could make a big difference by making resources more accessible and encouraging students to take charge of their own education.

8. overhaul of advisory
Advisory is so controversial that Shruti and I wrote a whole article about it for the Sword and Shield. My personal opinion is that it has the potential to be so much more than what it currently is. The talks on dignity, the "self-discovery" worksheets, those are completely useless. But I have had advisories where I truly felt like I learned something and was able to step back and take a look at my 4 years in high school from a different perspective. So if more planning was put into those types of activities, advisory might become something that actually benefits students, instead of being an hour of the week to wait for the minute hand on the clock to make its way around.