Students were both excited and disappointed that fall term came to a close with a two-week Protected Period rather than a typical Term-End Experience.
From interviews with the administration, a number of logistical factors influenced the final decision to not have Term-End Experiences this fall term. For one, classes began after Labor Day, which was later than usual. Additionally, Parents’ Weekend fell much closer to the end of the term this year. If Choate had held traditional Term-End Experiences, it would have been separated from Parents’ Weekend by only a week and a half. Finally, Thanksgiving Break is both starting and ending earlier than last year, making the term even shorter.
There are mixed opinions floating around campus about the implications of no Term-End Experiences. According to Calvin Carmichael ’18, the workload during Protected Period is worse than it would have been otherwise. He said, “I think it’s horrible because teachers assign ‘quests,’ and in the last ten minutes of class they will try to squeeze in new material. Assigning a quest every other day and giving a test during the protected period is not helping my grade, it’s only making it worse.”
Caroline Soper ’17 commented, “Having no Term-End Experiences is good for the stress level of the students, but as someone who is going to college next year, it’s going to leave me a little unprepared for what I’m going to find there. In college you end the term with a major assessment.”
However, Olivia van den Born ’17 said, “I would much rather just write an essay or take a quick test than take an entire exam.”
In the past, Protected Period fell on the week before the Term-End Experiences each term. This year, Protected Period started two weeks before the end of term. Designed to prevent teachers from piling on major assessments at the end of the term, Protected Period only works when both teachers and students adhere to its guidelines. Gabby LaTorre ’17 said, “Protected Period is hard because a lot of teachers don’t stick to it or give assessments that they don’t think are ‘major,’ and it becomes hard to juggle all of the work.”
While Term-End Experiences mean students only attend a maximum of two classes a day, Protected Period is simply an extension of a typical week of classes, with limits placed on when certain departments can give assessments. However, extending classes until the end of the term means that most students wouldn’t have the extra time to study for assessments that they would have had if there were Term-End Experiences, which is problematic because they still have to do homework for other classes, in addition to preparing for a few assessments every day.
Angelina Heyler ’18 said, “I thought Term-End Experiences were nice, because I had a lot of assessments but I also had a lot of free time. It’s tough having a lot of assessments but also having a lot of other classes and homework to keep up with.” Jeanne Malle ’19 added, “I was happy when I first heard about it. However, in practice it’s similar to Term-End Experiences except that during the week of Term-End Experiences, we only had to concentrate on one or two classes per day, whereas now all our classes are mixed together.”
Protected Period doesn’t prevent students from having more than one assessment in a day, especially if students take two classes in the same department. Heyler said, “Teachers should keep in mind that I might have two classes in the same discipline. My chemistry teacher was nice enough to move our test because she knew that many people taking that class were also taking a different science class.”
HPRSS teacher Mr. James Davidson said, “I think the intention of Protected Period is not so much limiting volume but pacing and spacing. It becomes a little intricate because not each class meets each day, so then sometimes a teacher’s assignments will, by structure, be forced into the day that follows or the day ahead.” He added, “It appears that students are less burdened than they were in previous years, and I think it’s a noble experiment provided it doesn’t put an added burden on students.”
