After going to the GDS lower/middle school, I have noticed multiple very large differences between the LMS and high school. The main difference is the amount of freedom high schoolers have. In middle school health classes, our teachers taught us students how to use our time efficiently, but we did not have any time during the day to do so. In high school, I have much more freedom, with free periods and community times, but I never built strong time-management habits, so I have struggled to use this time effectively.
In the LMS, we were constantly accounted for from 8:15 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. from Monday through Friday. Now, we have multiple hours of free time during the day and no one telling us how to spend that free time. Giving middle schoolers the option of a space for homework or studying during recess or lunch would benefit our transition to high school.
“The [middle school] study hall times were very brief; it isn’t really enough time to get all my homework done,” freshman Harry Turner said. Turner added that it would be helpful to allow middle school students to do homework during recess.
Eighth-grader Ella McKenzie said it’s very difficult to get homework done during recess. “You have to be supervised by an adult; you’re not allowed to have your Chromebooks outside or inside, and you have to be in a teacher’s room with a teacher there,” McKenzie said. “You have to go out of your way to ask a teacher if you can stay during recess or lunch, and a lot of teachers aren’t available.”
Middle schoolers have 30 minutes of lunch, 30 minutes of recess and a 25-minute study hall. However, teachers often tell students they are not allowed to do coursework during recess, and student-athletes often have to miss study halls for practices and games. In high school, I have still been unable to get into the habit of completing my homework during the school day.
I have extracurricular activities such as school athletics and club sports almost every day of the week, so it is essential that I get a significant amount of homework done before they start. “They have other commitments outside of school, and sometimes they don’t have time to complete work,” eighth-grade Spanish teacher Jorge Baez-Mora said of middle school students. “Many of them have extracurricular activities. [Students] arrive home really late, so they complete the work, but the next day they’re so tired; I can see them.”
“At least part of the [school day] should definitely be a forced break, even if you don’t think you like it,” Michelle McKeever, Associate Director of the Impact Lab and middle school health teacher, said. “There’s somewhere deep down where it’s beneficial for your mental health.” However, not being allowed to use the hours of the day efficiently added to my stress and made me lose sleep, and that stress still affects me in high school.
Freshmen can do whatever we want during our free periods. Eighth-grade students are given as much free time during the day as fifth-graders, and they have a significantly larger workload. While the middle school attempted to prepare its eighth-graders for the freedoms of high school by teaching study tactics and proper note-taking, they did not give us the time during school days to implement the skills in our lives. If the middle school had given students more autonomy over their free time, freshmen would have been much more prepared for the GDS high school.