The Revised Mid-Term Schedule, or "The Biggest Waste of My Time Since Study Hall"

(Written Friday, March 14, 2008 at 3:19pm for The Highland Fling)

The Revised Mid-Term Schedule, or "The Biggest Waste of My Time Since Study Hall"
An introspective analysis by Ronnie Cacace

In another brilliant decision by the Powers That Be, Highland Park High School's Midterm Exams would keep students in school for the entire day. In former years, the time after the exams was free, with the school day ending early. Students were free to go home and sleep, study, relax, spend time with friends, and basically just unwind after spending over two hours taking exams. Teachers also benefited from this schedule, as it allowed them the time to grade and mark tests, which would otherwise take up their free time. Some people looked forward to Midterms, just for the half-days and opportunities to sleep from noon to midnight.

All these things sound wonderful, don't they? They sound like things that you would enjoy partaking in, perhaps even feel happy about. Would you like to experience these events?

Too bad.

The revised Midterm schedule kept students in class for the full seven hours of the day, (oh hey, we got out ten minutes early! I forgot about that. So it was more like six hours and forty-five minutes.) There were two midterms each day, with two "classes", two "breaks", and a designated lunchtime to complete the schedule. How did this all fare? How did our magnificent school manage to deal with this new schedule?

Quite poorly.

None of the exams that I took required more than half the time allotted, except for one. In almost all of exams, people were left with a good half-hour to forty-five minutes to sleep or study for their next test. I never study, as I find studying is detrimental to my grades. I know that there are some people out there, who do study, and you have my apologies. I can't possibly imagine what it's like to live like that. For the "classes" that students had between exams, absolutely nothing was accomplished. I'm not even trying to be funny, nothing got done in any of these classes. Teachers were busy trying to keep the restless students quiet, while trying to grade stacks of papers. Students were either exhausted from having to get up early to take exams or hyper from the lack of activity. I haven't even gotten to the best part yet, just wait for it, you're going to love this.

During the second fifteen-minute "break", students were told that snacks would be served in the cafeteria. Apparently, someone forgot to carry the two in one of the equations they used that created this excuse of a schedule, because the entire Middle School was using the lunchroom. Do you remember those guys? The same Middle School students who were supposed to have their own lunchroom?

Students were told they had to report to the auditorium, (Let me take a minute here to just say that I could not have made this stuff up. I'm a funny guy, but this is just way beyond even my capabilities. This is million-dollar comedy material, right here.) Upon arriving to the auditorium, students were told once again that the Middle School was occupying the area and that they would have to leave. With nowhere to go, and no one to tell them what to do, the students did exactly what any other teenager with free time would do. Loiter in the hallways, create blockades, form embargoes on communist countries, and start drum circles. The best part about this wasn't the fact that students had nowhere to go, or that the Powers That Be failed to remember that we share our illustrious building with a large amount of preteens. The best part was that I had to go to the main office and inform the people working about what was going on. The administration had no idea, as they were in a meeting and unreachable at the time. I will forever remember these fifteen minutes as the funniest fifteen minutes of my life, even better than that time I got suspended in my freshman year. The next day, students were again left to wander in the hallways, only with supervision this time. Things gradually return to whatever passes for "normal" around Highland Park, and everyone seems to have forgotten about those fifteen minutes. I haven't, and I doubt I ever will.