Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week are final exams days. Students have two 2+-hour final exam periods each day, and are dismissed at 12:50 or so.
Most teachers are using Monday and Tuesday of this week for final exam review. I'm sure many of us used last week for our last chapter tests and perhaps some final exam review towards the end of the week.
If academics is a priority--and that's a BIG "if" nowadays--there should not be sporting competitions in the several days leading up to final exams. In a school system where education was the priority, with everything else coming after that, such would be the case. There would be no competitions at all during finals week.
One of our sports teams missed two days last week because of some tournament. We have students leaving school early tomorrow, the day before finals start, for a game. At the very least, that does not send a good message about the importance of academics in general and of final exams in particular.
I'll admit that I'm one of those people who thinks academics should take precedence over athletics. I think too many students miss too much class due to sports. I say that so you know my biases. But even if you're one of those people who thinks sports is an important/integral part of high school, can we at least agree that competitions should not be scheduled during finals week?
I guess it depends on the competition. I think for some students, having the time to study while going to the meet and waiting for say, their individual meet, is a lot more focused time than they would get while at home. Unfortunately too many parents assign the half days to chores or sibling care, rather than devoting the time to review and exam prep. And of course, some students have no appropriate coursework, so exams study isn't needed...as my dc's AP English teacher noted, the only hard part about Regent's English is that its five years too late for most, so the review does have to be taken seriously to pick up a detail or two that would allow scoring in the 90s...which many do need to pick up for their state academic scholarship.
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone is sitting on the sidelines at the soccer game doing their math.
ReplyDeleteIn my 26 years of experience, it's only the basketball and football teams that have grade issues. Soccer seems to do okay, while golf and tennis are where the valedictorians reside.
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