On Being a Goldfish: Students Can Not Focus for 400 Minutes

Nine seconds. That is the average attention span of a goldfish. They will stare through the glass at the goofy fish face you are making, or work on their aquatic acrobats, or explore the underwater castle in their tank… for nine seconds. And then they move on.

The average attention span of a teenager is similar… eight seconds. Yes, that’s correct. “According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, at the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the average attention span of a human being has dropped from 12 seconds in 2000 to eight seconds in 2013.” Of course, teenagers are not goldfish. They are more intelligent than goldfish; however, this startling statistic does, or at least should, raise many questions and concerns for leaders in education — both systemically and individually.

One of the glaring issues that this data point should impact is just how much we’re asking, or even worse, allowing our students to do during a school day. I wouldn’t say it’s a recent trend. However, the practice of allowing students to skip things like study hall and lunch in order to take more classes — most of the time more Advanced Placement classes — flies in the face of this data point, not to mention a mountain of other data that revolves around the mental health, stress, and overall happiness of our students.

I get it. Students want to be all that they can be for as many colleges possible. They want to be better than their peers, more accomplished than their classmates, and more impressive than their neighbors. However, schools, families, and students must start working together to create a culture and a norm in which students can be kids more. One way to do that is to help students enroll in a more balanced schedule. This can’t be done in isolation, so here’s what you can do to help.

District/School Administrators

While this, like so much in education, will need to be a team effort, you hold the key. Simply put: stop allowing students to skip lunch in order to take their 8th AP class. Work with other administrators and the school board to create a policy that flat out does not allow a student to not have a lunch — and then stick to it with the highest levels of fidelity. Once one exception is made, the floodgates will open. I’m usually not someone to say make something an absolute because life happens in the grey areas. But in this case, anything less than an absolute and the community will quickly get to talking, leading to more applications for exemptions than you could ever imagine. Create a policy and stick to it.

Parents and Families

Talk with your students before registration occurs. Ask questions. Find out what they plan to take the following year. Ask why they plan on taking that class load. Is it because they want to be in those classes or because they feel they have to?

As department chair, I have students visit me often, some of them former students from my class and other times kids I’ve never met, to talk about whether honors or AP would be a good fit. My favorite two questions are:

• Tell me why you love this class so much you want to study it in more depth?
• How would you feel if you worked twice as hard as you are now, but got the same or a lower grade?

These two questions help me get at the “why” for this student. Do they want to take honors or AP classes because they love the class and want to learn more, or just because of the weighted grade and transcript boost? Or do they truly love this discipline? You should ask similar questions of your student, and at the end of the day, don’t be afraid to tell them “no” when it comes to taking that extra, advanced class. You probably set a curfew for your child because you worry about his or her safety. This is no different. Too many students taking honors and AP classes (especially when they skip lunch to do it) is a legitimate and real safety concern — treat it as such.

Teachers

There is no one in the educational system that the honors and AP student looks up to, connects with, and wants to do well for more than their favorite teachers. Recently, I had a soon-to-be junior student who was in my ninth-grade honors class come to visit me. She stops by often, so I thought it was just another friendly visit to catch up and say hello. However, this time she seemed nervous. I asked if everything was okay, and she said, “I think I want to take regular English next year, but I don’t want to let you down.” I was stunned — not that she wanted to drop down to regular courses, but because she thought that would disappoint me. I quickly asked her, “why do you think that you’d be letting me down?” To which she said, “well you did so much for me as a freshman. I know you want to see me go on and do great things.” I replied,“Of course I want to see you go on to do great things, but you will do great things regardless of what English class you take next year.”

From there, I had the normal conversation that I would have with any student, asking her why she feels like it’s a good idea for her to move down. At the end of the day, she decided she wants to go into biology and Spanish in college and was worried about the workload of AP Biology and AP Spanish. So, of course, this was a good decision for her. But unless we get to know our students, allow them to be honest with us, and support these sorts of decisions (even if it means another discipline other than your own “wins” for that student), students will continue to think that they are disappointing us by taking fewer AP classes.

Students

When I think back upon the many, many fond and cherished memories of my time as a middle and high school student, some of the best trace back to seventh and eighth grade “rotation.” Each quarter, students were assigned a different elective. We rotated through music, woodshop, art, and health. As a musician, I knew I’d love one of these four, but it turns out each brought joy to my day that I could never have known if not forced to take the class.

Most people who know me know that I’m not “Mr. Handy” around the house. However, I can still vividly remember the birdhouse, footstool, and shadow box I made in eighth-grade woodshop. I’m very far from a visual artist, but I can still remember the clay mug I made on the pottery wheel in seventh grade. And as a musician who went on to study music in college for two-and-a-half years, I still remember playing the xylophone in seventh-grade music class. Ultimately, these classes unearthed lifelong passions and provided never-ending memories. So, as you sit down to think about what classes to take next year, think about trying something fun. Try something that gives you a break from the constant stress of AP classes. Try something that allows you to play, to explore, to create — something that allows you the chance to be a kid!

400 minutes of classes each day. That is what a student on an eight-period day schedule with no lunch or study hall encounters. So, while we might never completely overcome the goldfish syndrome in education, if we don’t try, we’re no better than the emptiness of the rhetoric when we say we “care about kids”.