It’s common sense that school isn’t where most students want to be during the week, but since we spend so much time here, we should at least be able to voice our opinion on what we’d like to see.

Students at Lafayette have ideas on how to make time in the classroom more enjoyable while also keeping it informative:

Paige Tuttle, a freshman at Lafayette, suggests more teacher involvement. “Spending more time to help us master the curriculum,” she says. For some students, a fast paced learning environment makes it hard for them to actually learn content, and instead they just memorize words and equations. Teachers should find the time to have one on one conversations with students about their learning. Allowing students to ask questions privately and get help curated to them.

By taking the time to really teach instead of memorize, students would feel more prepared for tests and finals. Making sure that students can explain answers rather than just picking answers out of multiple choice, they will be better prepared for more in depth questions. By making sure students have mastered the current curriculum, they can be much better prepared for future content.

Being better prepared and well versed in a curriculum is very useful, especially when you get into college. Unlike high school, College professors aren’t as attentive to you as a student because they have more students than they could ever handle one on one. College also goes much more in depth content-wise, so memorizing won’t be as helpful. Mastery of current units will.

Another person we spoke with was Max Roe, another Lafayette freshman. “Well I think it could be better if there were more teachers.” He explained that it would be helpful to split up crowded classrooms. That it would help students get more one-on-one help. “It would allow for teachers to help students more often.” The student voice team is one of many Lafayette groups that works to deal with Issues like this one to improve upon the comfort students experience at school.

The Student Voice Team is a team of students who act as a council and will discuss and think of ways for students ideas to be implemented in classrooms. Members of the group bring topics that interest them, and as a team, they work together to come up with solutions to these issues. They are a way to represent students in school and put forth ideas that help students directly, made by students who actually understand what could be useful.

Lafayette students have been very helpful with suggestions on how to improve our school. From how to help students learn and understand content to how to make the learning environment for both students and teachers more manageable, by lessening the teachers already stressful workloads, and helping students actually understand and learn what teachers and teaching.