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Study hall (or otherwise called Study
Period) is the perfect example of why you can't trust your school to
give you a proper education. If I were to gather a group of the best
experts in studying together and I asked them to design the worst
possible environment for learning, what I'd have would look almost
identical to study hall. (The difference would likely be that study
hall has slightly less physical torture.)
Why is it so bad?
1. You're Surrounded By People That Don't Want To Study
The vast majority of students in any
study hall couldn't care less about improving their grades. They're
just slightly relieved that they don't need to listen to a teacher
blather on for a period. That leads to one of two environments.
Most schools keep a teacher on full
alert to ensure no student does anything entertaining. (We can't have
people entertaining themselves on school grounds. That might actually
make it a good learning environment.) That usually means that all
students are expected to remain completely silent.
While silence can be a good thing for
studying, there is a major difference between silence for the sake of
learning versus silence for fear of trouble. That kind of an
environment usually just leads to secret communication between
students that requires way too much brain power for any productive
studying to get done.
Then there are the study halls where
the teacher couldn't care less about talking students. Of course, the
majority of students take full advantage of that. When the majority
of the students in study hall end up talking, it's virtually
impossible for most students to get to their peak studying
efficiency.
2. Silent Studying Sucks
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Anyone that's read this blog might be a
little confused by that statement because it needs plenty of
clarification.
To study most effectively, the vast
majority of students require near perfect silence in the background.
Any little noise can be a major distraction from the study material.
That being said, many students suck at studying when they can't break
that silence themselves.
In study hall, you can't just break out
into reading your book out loud to try to get a difficult part down.
Sure, it would be great if every person was gifted with visual
learning to the point that they could read and memorize complex parts
but some people need to hear and say what they're studying to get it.
Just about any study hall you go to would have you reprimanded (or
made fun of) for doing that.
Studying is not something that should
be done in a group unless that whole group is motivated to study the
same thing. There is no way it can work in this kind of an
environment.
3. No Breaks
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Seriously, of all the stupidity a
schools force their students into, this is one of the most
irritating.
Study after study after study after
study has shown that people can't study effectively for a full hour
long. They can study effectively for 15-20 minutes and then they need
to be able to take a break. Why do they make study periods so long?
Sure, it may fit conveniently into the already a mess of a schedule
but it's virtually guaranteeing half of the study hall is completely
wasted time.
This isn't just preference. This is
something that academics have been studying and proving for decades.
The worst part of all is that it trains
students to study like idiots. Any student that doesn't take the time
to research this information themselves is getting taught that an
hour of sitting and studying is an effective strategy. Not only that
but this also hurts the students that know how to effectively study.
Whenever you study, you get your brain
into a rhythm of focus. A certain amount of focus can be maintained
while studying and that amount of focus can improve over time. That
is, it can improve if you don't blatantly force yourself into stupid
study strategies like studying for a full hour.
You might start study hall with 80%
study efficiency. If you spend your whole study hall studying, by the
end of it, your brain is going to be working at somewhere around 50%
efficiency. The next time you study, you're not going to be starting
at 80% again, you're brain is going to be trained to think 60 or 70%
efficiency is acceptable (because you did just study for nearly an
hour at lower efficiency levels.) It gets your brain in the habit of
sucking at studying.
4. Middle Of School
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Alright. So I want you to learn
something. Now, to help you learn it, I'm going to stress you out for
hours before you learn it and hours after you learn it. That's called
the modern school day study strategy.
It's insane. Unless you're legitimately
interested in the study material, there is no way you can learn much
in such a stressful environment.
If your study hall is in the beginning
of the day, it might not be so bad. You can save a little schoolwork
for that morning and start the period fresh (even if you're still a
little sleepy.)
If your study hall is at the end of the
day, it also might not be bad. You get to wind down for the end of
the day and do only as much work as you feel like.
It's the middle of the school day that
causes most of the problems. While an effective student can nullify
this problem, it can be miserable until you figure it out.
In the middle of the school day you're
stressed. I don't care how much you enjoy school, your brain is
probably pushing its limits in one way or another (if you don't like
the classes then you can't stand the people, if you like the people
then class is probably miserable, if you don't mind either then you
might have just had a bad night before, etc.) Even if you could get
work done during this period, you may get more overall efficiency
from a good nap.
How To Manage Study Hall
This isn't going to be any students
favorite advice in the world but ideally, don't manage study hall
unless it's a near necessity.
What would make it a necessity?
If you have such a crappy home life
that studying at home is worse than studying in school then do what
you can to survive study hall. Otherwise, do everything in your
power not to have a study hall.
Study hall isn't a required course.
Instead of wasting your time with a study period, get another class.
Sure, that might not be better for studying but you'll be doing more
for yourself overall. In the ideal world, that course would help you
get your diploma faster.
To be practical though, feel free to
replace your study hall with any course that you find mildly
entertaining. If you love art then an art class would do much better
things for your stress level than a study hall ever could. The same
goes for any subject that you enjoy.
This may end up adding more work to the
end of your day but when you're in the habits that allow you to study
more effectively the work goes by even faster than if you had it
finished in a study hall.
Do you want to know how to study in
less time while still improving your grades? Be sure to follow this
blog and check out the archives to know it all.
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