AMS’s school day goes from 8:30 to 5:30 many days.
#Ordinary day at school inthe pass progressif free#
We also include long periods of free time at the end of the school day. Combining these two activities helps fit free time into the schedule while also ensuring students are checking in to get food before going off on their own. Students are allowed to take get their food and then wander around the school grounds while they eat. We schedule breaks for students both during their morning snack and then again after their afternoon chores. One solution is to schedule free time around meals. Telling students to do whatever they want in a small classroom doesn’t really allow for the freedom necessary to make scheduled free time feel worth it, but allowing them free roam of the entire school offers supervision challenges.
School days can feel so short and tightly packed with classes and activities that it’s hard to justify setting aside time to “do nothing.” Additionally, it’s hard to give students the space to feel like their time is actually free. The two biggest hurdles many school face when trying to provide middle schoolers with free time is finding enough time and providing adequate space. If they just moved from one class to the next, so much of this knowledge would be lost as they became overwhelmed by information overload. We often witness our middle schoolers spending their free time processing what they just learned in class, or applying their knowledge by joking with each other about a topic they just learned. By providing space for play and open experimentation, the students end up internalizing their education and be more conscious in their actions. Why allow a kid to skateboard when they could be spending more time understanding math? We are taught to see down time as wasteful and a loss of potential growth. Our culture tends to prioritize utility and busyness. Using free time as an educational tool might seem a bit counter intuitive. It gives them a break from their daily pressures and allows them to incorporate what they learned into their everyday activities and social connections. Free time gives students the opportunity to play and experiment. She understood that students need free time to processand practice the lessons they learned during academic periods. Providing them that time helps makes them better students. It doesn’t matter what they do during that time, just that they have freedom in how they spend it. Making it a regular part of their day helps them remember to take care of themselves, to prioritize their needs and interests. One area we don’t try to cram into a small available slot though is free time. Students sometime spend months trying to remember that the All School Game only occurs on Thursday afternoons. Finding time for every class to sufficiently meet while also providing opportunities for art, music, physical activity, and advising requires many schools to set up confusing schedules in which single half hour chunks attempt to satisfy a middle schooler’s need for artistic expression or adult mentorship. We believe in the importance of free time for students so much that we make it a part of our daily schedule. At AMS, our middle schoolers get lots of free time. They will another free period later today. If they don’t finish their conversations or games, it’s not a problem. It’s just 10:30 and that means they all have a half hour of free time before heading on to their next class.
They did not earn this free time by finishing their work early or getting a test done. One student sits on the grass reading to themselves while some other students play a board game at a picnic table.
Another group are climbing an apple tree and talking excitedly. A group of students are riding skateboards on the school courtyard.