High schools in Ontario are returning to a four-period schedule and a long-awaited sense of normalcy. Or not. It depends on where you live. Either way, students and teachers have thoughts.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced on November 18 that high schools will finally be given the go-ahead to ditch the much-maligned “modified schedule” of two 150-minute classes per day, with classes alternating week to week.
Educators, students, and parents have bitterly complained about this model for several reasons: it makes semester planning difficult; Students have found it incredibly difficult to absorb and retain lessons; and the cohort is meaningless with common lunches. The return to the more traditional schedule of four 75-minute classes per day is appreciated; the timing, however, has brought students and educators to a halt.
The first school board to announce a speedy return to “normalcy” was Halton Hills, which returned to a 4-term day on November 29, followed by the York Region on December 6. While Peel delayed this transition until February, the Toronto District School Board has yet to make an official announcement, although the Ministry of Education has set a deadline for the second semester.
Tazeen Alam, a TDSB high school teacher, received a generic email about the upcoming change, but received no further information. “I think, in general, we are all holding our breath and waiting. It can’t happen soon enough. “The seasoned educator, with 15 years of experience, shared that the current schedule,” as any teacher in the province can tell you, has been exhausting. I barely have a moment to breathe. trickle, physically and on the mental health of the staff, with a great impact on the lives of the students. “
This makes the delay in switching to a more manageable 4-period program even more frustrating for Alam. “Even if we put teachers’ concerns aside, we know that teens can’t focus for 2.5 hours. On paper it is the same number of hours, but [in reality] It is not the same amount of instructional time. We spent the first day back reminding them [students] what we talked about the last time we saw them, nine days ago, and then we try to get the highest productivity on the remaining four days of the week. “
Angie Mitrevski, a high school teacher from the York region with 15 years of experience, is excited to return to the four-period day, although her initial response was surprise for the moment. “I thought we could finish the semester. Teachers have had to change and adapt so frequently and we were very close to finishing things. “However, he acknowledges that” we all expected this to happen. This is good for our students. “
Mitrevski agrees that going back to the four-period schedule has many benefits, such as “the attention span of students, our ability to engage them in authentic learning activities, and the opportunity for them [students] to change gears throughout the day. “
My two sons are in high school, and while my oldest son Mustafa briefly experienced the four-period model before the close of the pandemic, for my youngest son Ibrahim, this will be yet another adjustment. Mitrevski echoes these sentiments: “Some of our students have never experienced what a normal school day looks like in high school, so this will be a totally new situation for them, a new learning environment.”
As a high school teacher, while I am happy that normalcy is returning to my teaching day, the decision to implement another schedule change mid-semester also led to many last-minute changes to my semester calendar and my daily lessons. Teaching for 75 minutes a day is completely different from teaching for 150 minutes every other week. I guess I’m used to this by now; this characteristic lack of warning has been the only reliable pillar of the pandemic response of the provincial government.
Mitrevski, like many educators, shares my frustration: “After how many times we were asked to turn around, just when we figured out how to finish our semester, we have to change again. It takes a lot of time and effort to find authentic learning opportunities for students and now we will have to do it again. “
While the benefits to students will be real and hopefully significant, as educators we know that the well-being and achievement of students is also highly dependent on a stable and predictable classroom routine. The return to a four-period day will be jarring for teachers and students, particularly as it comes at the most stressful time of the year: six weeks before the end of the semester, when students struggle to study for exams and finish projects.
Many of my students shared that they have become used to the two subjects per week model, and while 150 class periods are arduous, after 12 weeks of classes, it is the one they are most used to. And now they are expected to adapt again.
Add to all this the new variant of Omicron, which the World Health Organization recently labeled a variant of concern, along with the surge in COVID-19 cases in Ontario, and “it looks like we’re taking a step forward, but I he worries that he will end up taking two again, ”adds Mitrevski.
I can’t help but agree. There are no good options in education left in Ontario right now, and teachers and students continue to pay the price.
Reference-www.thestar.com