What happened to Study Hall?

By Mark

He's a middle-of-the-bell-curve kind of kid, affable and hard working, but his strongest efforts tend to net him Cs at the very best. 

He's not into sports, and is always telling me about his truck that he's working on at home. He's got a good mind for literature (my content area) and when he really puts effort into it is a better-than-average writer. 

But, he's not the most organized. The only thing keeping him from a higher grade in his English class is that he's missing a few assignments here and there, bombed a few vocabulary quizzes for lack of studying, and didn't take well to the recent unit on poetry.

And he's probably not going to graduate from high school on time. He's a few credits short already, as a junior. He knows his problem: he can do the work, but when he leaves school, it just doesn't get done. Chores on his family's small farm and tinkering under the hood of his or any number of other local vehicles...the joys that make his face glow when he talks about them...take up all his precious homework time when he should be doing his geometry or poetry or history homework.

We've already had some lively discussion here about the importance of vocational ed and trade skills in our public schools, so that's not my angle here. This young man could conceivably graduate from high school with the required math, science, English and history. He's not averse to the requirements for PE and art and CTE. He's capable, and there are ways to make up those credits. In our building, in addition to all the named requirements, a student must also take a total of 6.0 credits of general electives in order to graduate.  Many use these for foreign language, higher level math and science, extra arts and music, or other specialized courses that interest them. We do have two periods of woodshop and vehicle design, but that's about all we can fund and house.

With all due respect with my colleagues in arts, CTE and upper division maths and sciences, what this young man needs isn't more of those in his schedule.  

He needs study hall.

He needs some structured time to get that work done so that he can satisfy the core graduation requirements to leave with at least that high school diploma. I'm not talking a holding tank for the Sweathogs here, I'm talking a course in his schedule whose purpose is to help him get his work done, teach him time management and organization, and ensure that he's doing what he needs to do to graduate. It's not just for the bottom of the bell curve, I bet some AP kids would jump on it as well.

When asked, he'll tell you he's already got a plan for after that high school diploma--and he does. He's already informally apprenticed with a local mechanic (for as long as he could hold tools), and he knows his way around the inside of a shop better than I do despite growing up on a farm and taking four years of shop in high school. He's highly employable because of these skills and because he has the kind of disposition that lends it to forming life-long customers for his future business. 

While we'd like to pack our young'uns schedules full of meaningful seat time in our comprehensive high schools, I think it is worth remembering that for many of our kids, juggling six different courses is not only too much to ask, it is a completely artificial situation which they will never again see in their adult work lives. There is no real-world profession which will force an employee to completely switch focus and modes of thinking at the ring of a bell every 50 minutes and expect them to be efficient and effective by catching up on their own free time. True, millions of kids handle it just fine.  But millions don't. 

Presently, in my building the closest thing we can offer to "study hall" is a period where students can recover credits that they've already lost due to failing grades. That is, of course, reactive not proactive. We've worked hard to offer outside-of-the-schedule study help; our math department has a well-attended and well-staffed after-school "Math Help" session almost every day, and our foreign language teachers' rooms are often as packed after school as they are during the day.  But many of the kids who need that time are not there after school.

I worry that as more graduation requirements are discussed, whether it be math, PE, science or art, that we're inadvertently setting up more kids for failure. The juggling act is feasible for a certain kind of kid, but not every kid.

Do high schools that you know of still offer a study hall during the school day? If so, how is it structured and funded? If not, why not?

Comments

[Tom]

We have a son who just entered middle school. He recently missed a week of classes due to illness. His grades went from As to Cs in five days because he simply couldn't do the required work. He's been able to make up the work and get his grades back where they belong, but I can fully appreciate that time itself is the most precio9us resource our youngsters have. Especially time at school in the vicinity of the terachers that can help them. Bring back study hall!

[Bob Heiny]

I agree with you, Mark, that teaching multitasking as part of public school makes sense. And, Brian, I recognize the situation your describe. Thanks goodness for families who have pushed us forward. Best wishes to both of your students with your efforts.

[Brian]

I'm getting pretty old, so when I talk about when I was in high school, one of my students will always add "before electricity, right?" But back when I was in high school taking study hall was an optional part of the day for everyone. My dad was an engineer and encouraged (made) me take a challenging academic load, but he also said take a study hall, it will help you keep up with your homework. It did.
The school I teach in did not make AYP, and we have to come up with a School Improvement Plan. Part of the plan has to address the gap between low-income students and their peers. We thought about offering after school tutorials (many of us do that already), but many of the students who would benefit the most are working, or helping at home. So we're starting to look at time built into the day where they can do their assignments and get help when they need it.
Maybe we're going back to the future.

[Mark]

Bob, I agree with your interpretation that he is not choosing to do the work necessary. That's a conundrum, because he's the first to admit that he knows better. Part of my stance is based on the artificiality (word?) of the six period schedule, as well. As a junior in high school, he has not mastered the multitasking skills manage those six intellectual strands in the same day, and so when he's at home, it's far easier to retreat into what he knows will ultimately be his lifelong calling.

Thirty years ago, it wouldn't be as big a deal, since the high school diploma was not necessarily a requirement for jobs which would support and sustain a family. Granted, it seems by all outward appearances that he's on track for a happy life in a skilled trade, but I wonder about other opportunities which might be closed to him without a high school diploma...formal trade schools, as one example. Besides that, if he doesn't earn a diploma, wouldn't it ultimately be a failure of the school system?

Perhaps it boils down to cost-benefit analysis: would he benefit more from another academic or elective class in his schedule, or would he benefit more from a study hall type elective which reinforces/teaches time management, prioritizing, study skills... I feel like there is a need for this within the school day--and more accessible to all kids.

[Bob Heiny]

Great example of an unsolved student problem in comprehensive public high schools.

Yes, I know public and private schools that offer study-halls. Some offer it on-line for after school hours with live "teachers". I haven't reviewed the school budgets, so can't say how they're funded, except by student family paid online service and as a line item related to a teacher assignment.

I know other high schools that allow individual students to take shop, advanced math, etc. at a community college. While different from study-hall, it requires a more sophisticated organization to match the 2 school requirements successfully. I think refined organizing is one part of your requirement for him.

Cross school enrollment arrangements reduces HS personnel and facility costs, but I haven't paid attention to those budget lines either.

Why do you assume that this student "should" be organized differently? From your description, it appears he knows how to organize his time to do things he chooses to complete. For whatever reason, he does not choose to complete the school assignments you mentioned.

I'd suggest: Find him an "advocate". Push the school rules. As an advocate, I'd try to work with him to complete as many courses as he will and get "exceptions" or another substitute to those uncompleted required courses, if any by then.

From what you've said, a work-around seems possible, but I don't know which one(s) in your district.

Another view: I know an editor of a national magazine (you know the mag)who'se high schooling matches your student's profile closely. Because of requirements like the ones you describe, he still dislikes teachers and schools. His sentiments are: Get out of my face! It's my time, my life, not yours. I'll do it myself. (Louis L'Amour, as have many others, said he quit school at 16, because it got in the way of his education. Many people consider such individualism an admirable quality that has given us literature, art, air travel, PCs, etc. from middle or lower school bell curve holders.)

Hope this is respectfully responsive, and best wishes to your student.