Student Survey

I decided to ask students in my city (my son is high school age, so it was easily disseminated!) to comment anonymously on their experience of school.  Two questions asked for comments, and I thought I'd share the voices of these teenagers.  

It's just a snapshot at this stage, and I haven't edited. I think it's a great reminder that, as high school teachers, most of the 20-30 students in front of us every hour of every day have valid views and are able to make astute observations about the way they spend their time at school.

Do you think high school is structured as well as it could be?

Often don't get enough sleep.

I hate it. Six hours is far too long, and one hour per period is not long enough to concentrate.

I think there is too much pressure on students at level 12, and there is no time to actively function as a person, learning for learning's sake. Instead everything is about passing internals and externals. I love to learn, but this year I feel like it is not about learning, it is only about passing.

A break later in the day (earlier lunch and afternoon tea) I feel like that would make students more productive as most people work better in the morning and slump in the afternoon.

I think improvement can be made. Teachers just talking in front of the class is boring and can decrease student's attention span. 

But sometimes the timing can get confusing, like the bell will ring to swap class when in the middle of something important.

It is quite nice to be able to move at least once an hour because if you have to say sitting for longer than that it gets really annoying.

I don't think many classes are structured in an interesting way, more towards the teachers convenience, but saying that some teachers are very good.

I think it's really good to have different classes and move around because that way you aren't stuck in the same class with the same people all week.

The structure is good - 1 hour is a good length of time for each class, not too tiring but I'd rather not have to move too much.

It's good that you have a break in between the classes, where you can wake up.

Sometimes I'm in the zone and then the bell rings, which is a pain.

I think schools should start at a later time. So students can wake up later and be more awake at school as they are currently. Also I think breaks between terms should be 3 weeks long instead of 2 just so students have a longer time to recuperate and be more ready for the next term and give teachers more time to prepare new lessons for students.

HAVING TO WAKE UP EARLY WHEN OUR BODIES ARE PROGRAMMED TO WAKE UP LATER. ESPECIALLY WHEN IT SCREWS UP OUR DEVELOPMENT GOD DAMMIT SCHOOL SYSTEM!!!

I could write a novel about this.

In an ideal world, what would high school look like to you? Some suggestions to consider might include: longer/shorter periods, topics across subject areas that relate to each other, smaller or larger classes, different furniture configurations, comments on styles of teaching that have worked for you.

More conversational style of teaching when the topic is interesting. Which ideally it should be. Tangential discussion is okay, even if it is not directly related to curriculum. High-school should be an opportunity to expand the mind.

So much time is spent learning utterly useless things like film analysis and calculus(unless you actually need it). We should learn more actively appropriate things like car maintenance, basic cooking, and finance. Although it is very important that these topics be varied and spaced out, no one wants to do accounting all day. Ideally, I think school should be five hours, with two periods of two hours separated by one hour lunch break. Homework should be at a minimum, allowing more focus in class. I personally spend more time thinking about my overdue internals than the content being taught. I struggle to care about learning, credits are the sole achievement I seek. I genuinely stop myself from extra curricular learning, thinking that I ought instead to get my reading responses done. Honestly what is the point, I like learning, but I despise school.

School should start later in the winter terms and finish later. I think that we need to promote the ability to manipulate students internal to fit their individual needs: allowing art internals to fit English internals, and English fit into media studies internals. If this is already possible, it should be better known and discussed.

More hands on teaching if possible (handouts don't work as well for me personally to get the message through).

The periods should be shorter and school should start at 10 am because science has proven that the brain isn't fully active until 10 am. Also it would decrease the lateness number significantly and will give students more time to eat a nutritious breakfast to be able to focus more through out the day. The classes that are available to students do not relate to what they will be facing in real life; there is so much pressure put on students academically that it has gotten to the point where it's not students learning any more, it's just student remembering and being stressed out a lot. Science has also proved that the emotional state of a high school student now, is the same as a mentally insane/depressed person in the 1950's. That is messed up. Also the uniforms we have don't allow students the comfort of expressing themselves and if we try to express then we get in trouble.

Small to medium classes where students get lots of feedback from teachers are good. Larger classes where you get fewer comments/longer waiting time for marks back makes it a lot harder to figure out what you need to improve. Organized classes where you know what needs to get done when are also very helpful( aka the year planners we are given are great). As long as the main priority of the teachers and administrators the education the students are receiving it is good. However sometimes it seems like the administrators specifically at this school and occasionally the teachers are worried more about the reputation of the school and prioritize punishment for petty problems without caring about the disruptive effect this has on the students.

Make learning more fun for the students. have more hands-on education.

Make the class sizes more even, going from a class of about 30 to a class of about 17 is odd, and the timings throughout the week could be more even, changing the times is confusing, especially when new to the school, and for relieving teachers.

I think that sometimes there is a bit too much work in some classes as you don't get the chance to understand everything and then you move on to something else. And all the teachers expect you to do work at home but you also have work to do for other classes and most people also have other things after school such as sport. So by the time you have finished all your work from that day it is really late and you don't have time to revise for anything else that you need to especially when the school exams are coming up.

I think having smaller classes makes it easier to learn and engage in a lesson but that is also helped by a teachers ability to control a classroom environment. I think better topics, with better teaching strategies and more interesting in-class work and homework would be good and having a larger range of subjects based on student wants would be beneficial too. I also think that the furniture set up isn't a major factor into learning it is again the activity and the teachers take on a lesson that can either make or break a student's interest.

I think that it would be great if we could have some input as to what teachers we get in our senior years as different teachers have different teaching styles and what teacher you get can really affect how well you do that year in that subject and how much you enjoy it.

Fewer subjects in year 12-13 (as an option) because if you know exactly what you want to do, then typically you should only need a few subjects to fulfill this. If you don't know what to do then more subjects is optimal but I think you should have the option of only taking a few if you want to.

PLAYGROUNDS :D :D :D

The learning would come first, and we wouldn't get in trouble for little uniform issues. Getting in trouble for hair etc just makes me resent school.

More teachers that are passionate about teaching kids rather than just being there to get paid.

NO HOMEWORK LESS CLASSES WITH LONGER PERIODS.

I haven't bothered to suggest anything because I have come to accept that nothing will be changed while I am at high school.

The teachers are mostly fine, it's the education system that is completely broken. We end up learning about things that will never help us later on in our lives. However having a teacher to guide you through different subjects is good. I believe I could learn more online in a week than I could at school in a term therefore I find school somewhat of a waste of time. I honestly cannot wait until I leave school and I'm only staying in it because I have to. I will end up going to NCEA level 2. However, I'm leaving at the end of that.

As my husband says, 'muy interesante!'