There’s nothing like getting to Patriot Period, ready to work on an assignment due next block, only to spend the next 38 minutes covering middle school social skills.
While grade-level seminars seem like well-intended attempts to support students, they are just that: attempts. The reality is that a large number of students and teachers don’t take them seriously, viewing seminars as a box to check rather than a fulfilling educational opportunity.
The reality is that a large number of students and teachers alike don’t take grade-level seminar seriously, viewing it as a box to check rather than a fulfilling educational opportunity.
AHS’s abysmal seminar attendance makes this clear. Even with the recent Patriot Period switch-up designed to boost attendance, only 1,268 of 2,003 students showed up to the March 1 seminar, according to Database Administrator Andrea Spinner. If only a measly 63% of the student population even shows up to seminars, how effective can they be?
In an Instagram poll of 169 AHS students, 92% of respondents said they do not find grade-level seminars useful, and for good reason.
The majority of these seminars focus on common sense skills that are taught in Freshman Seminar, a required class for all ACPS high schoolers (excluding transfers). During Patriot Period seminar time, 9th graders are left twiddling their thumbs since they are already enrolled in Freshman Seminar. Meanwhile, sophomores through seniors review lessons that are irrelevant to their current experiences.
Student opinion of Freshman Seminar is also generally negative — 87% of 139 AHS students polled did not find the class useful. But, it at least gives 9th graders an accessible resource to help them acclimate to high school. The repetitive nature of grade-level seminars fails to do much besides put students to sleep.
Even when seminars do cover important topics, the implementation often works to students’ disadvantage. For instance, the mandatory alumni panel on post-high school paths for seniors was great in theory, as it looked to represent diverse career aspirations.
However, its awkward timing in early December conflicted with local university students’ schedules, meaning most speakers did not pursue traditional four-year college educations. While it may have been helpful to students looking for alternate career paths, it was immensely irrelevant for the majority of seniors who either already applied or planned on applying to universities. Additionally, the panel ran overtime, making 60-80 students miss half of first block.
In their current form, grade-level seminars are unpopular and unsuccessful. The Patriot Period switch was intended to give students more enrichment time with teachers; why should students lose some of this crucial time to seminars? ACPS should either redesign or remove them altogether.
Redesigning could include anything from content to structure, such as:
- Scheduling seminars during grade-specific, credit-bearing courses. Seminar attendance would improve, and students might be more comfortable sharing with a class of peers than a homeroom of randomly selected strangers.
- Preparing students to apply for jobs, internships and schools. Seminars could include lessons on how to create resumes and cover letters, utilize job-searching sites like LinkedIn and successfully complete an interview. This is valuable knowledge that isn’t accessible to all students, but should and easily can be.
- Planning more engaging activities, like an October Zoom panel with college admissions officers, whom seniors can submit questions to. Expecting high schoolers to participate in dance parties and slide decorating sessions is unrealistic and unrewarding, not to mention demeaning.
While students and teachers want change, we are also tired of being treated like guinea pigs for the county to test their half-baked ideas on. ACPS needs to re-evaluate grade-level seminars without causing more chaos.
It comes down to this: either get rid of seminars or make them worth our time.
