¿70 MINUTE CLASS?

GIVE ME A BREAK.
Emilia
Diliz

There have been numerous changes in school

this year, but the one I disagree with is that some
of our periods are 70 minutes long, while last
year, all of our classes were 40-minutes long. I
believe that this change is not benefiting us as
students. On the contrary, it is disadvantageous
to our academic performance.

According to research, teenagers from

16 to 17 years old have an average
attention span of 32 to 51 minutes. We
teenagers can not focus that much time;
we get distracted and find it difficult to
concentrate. Salman Khan, the founder
of Khan Academy, said: “No matter how
good the teacher or how compelling the
subject matter- there would become a
lapse- the students would lose it,”
reinforcing the idea that to obtain better
results, students should study for
shorter periods, with breaks in
between.

Along those lines, if the classes were 45-50 minutes

long, we could still cover all the topics that we learn in a
typical class because most of the time, in the 70 minute
periods, the teacher finishes the class before the period
ends. The rest of the time, we end up doing nothing
when instead, we could be using this time to implement
different activities or classes that contribute more to
our performance as students.

 Furthermore, various alternatives

could be implemented if classes
were shorter. For instance, the
time we would save by having 50-
minute periods can be used to
include other classes; as a result,
we would have a more diverse
schedule with more periods each
day. In addition, this would allow us
to include new classes that can
help us develop our creative
abilities, like including electives.

There are countless

reasons why shorter
class periods are better
for students than longer
ones. This is why I believe
that Marymount school
should apply these
shorter periods again, just
like in previous years, so
the students can be less
stressed and perform
better at school.