Balancing school hours vs outside of school hours: The PACA student dilemma.

Should school days be shorter than they are at PACA?

Caption: Freshman Annabelle Harper hops onto her bus where she can expect at least an hour ride home due to heavy afternoon traffic. [by Paula-Chloe Asare-Duah]

By Paula-Chloe Asare-Duah

Every morning, the congestion of morning traffic can be expected to accumulate between 7:30 to 8:00am.  In São Paulo, the heaviest traffic time is 26 minutes. Now, picture our PACA students, rising sometimes as early as 5:00am to prepare themselves for the early pickup that is inevitable due to the time it takes to get from their home to their school campus. They are very tired before they start their day.  They drag themselves out of their homes knowing that they will not be back until late into the evening. 

Now, let’s talk about students who do not attend PACA. The average private school in Brazil has seven plus hours in their school day starting at 7:00 am and ending at 2:00 pm. This gives them time to beat the afternoon traffic jam when they are ready to go home.

For PACA students, the school day officially ends at 3:20 or 3:25p.m. However, many students who attend PACA also participate in after school sports practices and do not return home until 7pm or later into the evening. 

Studies in studyunicorn.com help us see this is not the healthiest option for high school students. According to the article, “all the studying and busy tasks can prevent students from unwinding, having fun, or taking some time off.” 

PACA students are affected mostly in this scenario, because mainly everyone is active and either does a sport inside or outside school. If they are not participating in a sports team, they are often participating in a club or other extracurricular activities. 

Which leads us to our burning question: What time do they have for homework? With eight periods and 45 minute classes everyday, how could they have time to finish any of their assignments?

I argue school days should be shorter not just for the students’ well-being but also the teachers. They would have more time to prepare for their classes and simply take a break from their busy schedules.

“Being tired mentally makes it hard for students to focus, remember what they are taught, and participate effectively in lessons,” says researchers on studyunicorn.com. 

Students need a break from their tiring schedules. How are students expected to focus or stay awake in class when they got home from practice or an extracurricular class late and then stayed up just to finish and submit their assignments on time? 

“Being consistently exposed to learning material can make people bored and less motivated,” said the National Library of Medicine. 

According to research done by the National Library of Medicine, “self-determined motivation leads to high study effort, which then leads to better academic performances.” 

Not only are students tired but they’re bored. In my opinion, spending seven hours, or more, stuck in a seat doing handouts is not fun. No one is expecting everything to be fun all the time but classes will be more fun if they are shorter.  I believe that having shorter classes will lead to shorter school days which would be an improvement in the daily schedule for PACA students.