First Week

So far, I've been in the classroom on three separate days. I'm almost to the point of knowing all the students' names, though I think a smaller proportion knows mine as of yet. I'm in Miss Hardy's 1st period chemistry class and her 3rd period physical science class. These classes are comprised of mostly juniors and seniors, and freshmen and sophomores, respectively, though--at least from what I've seen so far--the level of complexity of the material being covered so far doesn't differ much between the two. However, being the first two weeks of school, it's a bit early to judge the classes' curricula quite yet, since the beginning of the semester is generally very straight forward.

The first period class tends to be fairly sedate, and at first I thought this was because of their higher maturity level, but I'm beginning to think it has more to do with the early start time. Speaking of which--not to digress to far--I think the 7:20am start is excessively early. When asking Miss Hardy about it, she said that her high school started at 6:50am, though it was a magnet school and she also attended a regular high school later in the day. I think my high school had originally started at 8:30, and there was a bit of a row among students when it was moved up to 8:15am. I recall hearing about studies that had found the optimal time to start high school classes was about 9:00 because of adolescents' tendency to stay up later, and yet require more sleep than the average adult.

The third period physical science class is definitely more awake and ready to socialize during class than their first period peers. I wouldn't characterize the use of cell phones and music players as being excessive, though it's definitely widespread and regard for any existing policy against them is pretty minuscule. I notice, however, that most students don't use these electronic distractions when they're supposed to be doing work, but mostly when they've already finished the task assigned to them. I interpret this as an indication that they need something more challenging and engaging to work on. I don't want this to be interpreted as advocating "busy work" by any means, but when in the classroom, I think being bored is perhaps a worse condition than "not getting it".