Wouldn’t it be nice to have all of your homework done before you go home? Or to be able to do that extra club you couldn’t do because it meets at the same time after school as the other one? Or wouldn’t it be nice to have a long lunch and enjoy chatting with your friends.
Welcome to the convenient idea of “Power Hour”!
An hour every day giving students a break in the middle of the day to relax, get help from a teacher, make up work from an absence, have a club meeting, catch up with friends or study. This helps refresh students and gives them a break from the rigorous, everyday academic environment.
This is important, so students (probably teachers as well) do not feel burnt out during the day at school. I mean we already have to wake up at six am in the morning! That is a lot to ask for some people. So, obviously, Power Hour would do a lot of good all around at Chapman.
Before I went to Chapman, at my previous school we had Power Hour. So, I give Landrum High School credit for the idea of Power Hour.
Many teachers hosted or sponsored a club for students including cooking club, adulting 101, sports trivia and environmental club.
Days that I did not go to a club, I went to the art room and painted for recreation; not for a specific assignment.
Power Hour was a fun way to get involved with the school. Plus it is always less awkward to do an activity with a group of people instead of making a staggering effort at small talk.
Power Hour gave me the opportunity to broaden my social group by meeting new people. I went to high school to take classes when I was in eighth grade.
The whole experience was mostly all a blur, but I do remember how nervous I was about making new friends at that time, but I met many new people and friends. Power Hour gave me the opportunity to find friends with similar interests as me. I felt more comfortable when I was actually officially at high school, because I already knew so many people from Power Hour.
The solution to making Power Hour work is shortening each class period five minutes. If we shorten each of the four class periods by five minutes, then we get twenty extra minutes that we can slide in right beside the thirty minute lunch break slot. That time combined with the five-minute class change before lunch, and after lunch to get an hour in between second and third period for everyday.
Power Hour will enable students to enjoy their day more, and the flexibility of Power Hour that it gives students.
Power Hour will give the students, and probably teachers, (win, win for everyone, right?) something to look forward to in their day at school.
It may even change some student’s perspective about school.