This document proposes introducing a free period at the beginning of the school day, about one hour long, where students can do homework, work on projects, or get help from teachers. The free period is intended to give students dedicated time during the school day to be productive and get assistance from teachers without needing to stay after school. It argues that students, teachers, administrators, and parents would support a free period because it provides students with flexibility, allows teachers to focus class time on lessons rather than assignments, and ensures students can get help from teachers easily. The free period aims to enhance students' learning and productivity while reducing the need to stay after school for assistance.

1. By Daniel Rodríguez

2.  A free period is a time in school where there
are no academic courses, but only free
activity. This means that one can do
homework, or planned activities by the
school.

3. How this will work

4.  Basically, there will be a period at the
beginning of the day, around one hour
long, where you are free to do
anything, mostly. The beginning of the day
was chosen because scientific studies show
that brains are more productive in the
morning, and after a meal, which make this
time perfect.

5.  When I began the idea, and developing it, I
thought of making some kind of “lateral
thinking” class, inspired by the video we saw
in Ms. Shawn’s class. However, I found that
actual lateral thinking exercises are only
games, and by the small chance that these
would stimulate actual creativity and
thinking, they couldn’t occupy one class. So, I
decided to develop my idea into another: a
free period.

6.  Now, there would need to be some kind of
preparation for this; in the event that this
happened, the school would have to probably
buy more computers and laptops (however, it
could be encouraged to bring their own
laptop).

7.  Now, on the way to doing this, I found there to
be some obstacles (this, by the way, was before I
decided to change my idea from lateral thinking
courses to free periods). First, to accommodate
this, one would have to sacrifice some classes
(electives, was my idea), or, alternatively, cut
short classes to fit the period into the schedule.
Then, after I developed my idea into what I had
now, I realized that if I was going to do a free
period, I might as well let those that want to do
electives do these things, and those that aren’t
interested in electives take the free period.

8.  As for grading this class, I initially thought
that, possibly, there would be a minimum
requirement of projects that you had to do to
pass this class, however I found that a free
period, with only work from other classes, was
quite good, too. So, instead of this idea of
projects, I used this idea of a free period.
However, I think the idea of extracurricular
exploration projects was really good, so I
thought that, if one preferred, you could use this
extra time working on some kind of experiment
or project. This could give extra credit to the
class it pertains to, raising your grade.

9.  Also, all the teachers would be available to
get help, so it would be like a kind of
“Opportunity Day”, except every day. This
would definitely be a motivation for many,
and I will detail incentives for people to want
this idea in action next.

10. Positive sides from the
viewpoint of others

11.  Students would want this because of reasons that are
mostly obvious. Everyone likes to have free time, and
this will give them time to do work and be
productive. It is their choice to do work or
not, however many, and I think most, would take the
advantage to do work, or at least talk to teachers.
Something that personally bothers me as a student is
that there is not “Opportunity Day” every
day, something which is a reality in some schools.
So, you have to wait some days to go see a teacher
after school, and it is tedious to have to take the bus
ride home and arrive home so late for help at school.
I think that an idea like this, a free period, would help
reduce the need to stay after school, and let people
arrive home earlier.

12.  The teachers would probably also be motivated
by this because it would help their classes a lot.
There wouldn’t be a need to give a lot of time in
class to work on assignments, since this time
would already be there, and virtually the
same, with the work being done in school and
the teacher readily available. This would
mean, then, that the curriculum would finish
faster and could possibly leave time at the end of
the year without lessons.
Or, alternatively, difficult subjects could be
covered more thoroughly and there would be
more time to learn the subject and get help
before tests and other assignments.

13.  The administrators, principals, and other staff
members that do not directly teach the
student body would have no reason to object.
This would, in fact, make the school seem
possibly more revolutionary and
progressive, since although some schools
introduce it later on, none would introduce it
from the earliest grades where homework is
important (ideally, this free period would start
for the 6th grade onwards).

14.  Parents would probably be happy that the
children could have time to work at school.
They would see this as something alleviating
for their children, something that might even
help them get better grades. The parents, I
think, would in majority support this.

15. I hope that my presentation
has given you some insight on
this wonderful idea.