Passing period: the six minutes between classes we get to ourselves so we don’t lose our minds. During the passing periods we can go to our locker, hang out with friends, or go straight to class. For many, going to their next class never takes the entire six minutes, but it takes a good portion of it, so why do teachers feel it their right to use up a majority of our passing period to finish up a last slide or to wait for one student to quiet down?
Issues tend to not rise when teachers only hold one student back and allow the rest of the class to leave, because it is simple for them to write a pass or call the student’s next teacher allowing for them to not be marked tardy in the system. However, many issues tend to occur when teachers keep entire classes behind, and don’t write passes for each student they keep behind and cannot make it to his or her next class on time.
There are many ramifications of the teachers’ habit to use passing periods as an extension of their own class periods. An obvious one being that students may arrive late to class and either be forced to get a tardy pass because their teacher would not write them a pass, or risk their next period teacher being angry at them because they did not arrive on time, and getting a pass would be a further waste of class time.
Another issue is that for students who do mind being late to class; health problems are posed by those running to class. Many students who are attempting to rush to class may collide with one another, or other students trying to get to class who are not late. Those who do not run into one another may trip over the various obstacles left around campus, or the muddy ground after plants have been watered or rain has fallen.
Regardless, why do teachers feel the need to use passing periods as instructional time? Are 53 minutes not enough instructional time to cover all of the material they need to?
According to teachers, they’re supposed to not keep in entire classes, but only one student if needed, a rule that is ignored when it suits them. Even worse is the hypocrisy of some teachers who despise when students arrive late to their class, but keep students in classes when they need the extra time to finish the class period. Why must we deal with the bipolar attitudes of teachers over the use of passing period as class time, can we not have a single system that treats us fairly rather than leaving us at the whim of our teachers when we have no direct control if we are kept in or not?
