NEWS
CULTURE
FEATURE
OPINION
San Mateo County seeks to reach “net-zero homelessness” by the end of 2022. Read about how local authories are meeting that ambitious goal.
Taylor Swift's Midnights has taken the world by storm. Some hate it, some love it, but all should read Ellie K.'s '24 take.
As artificial intelligence art rises in popularity and accessibility, artists and AIcreaters grapple with its ethics.
Guest writer Noor Z. ’24 weighs in on how the historic movement in Iran is redefining the way she views women’s roles in the greater Middle East and shaping the future.
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11/04/2022
THE
NUEVA CURRENT THE NUEVA SCHOOL, SAN MATEO, CA 94403
INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: @THENUEVACURRENT
ISSUE TWO
VOLUME 6
A new kind of high school creates a new kind of teacher How Nueva’s reinvention of the high school learning experience transforms traditional teaching roles READ MORE ON PAGE 12
Walking the tightrope: the quest to craft the perfect schedule As school reverts to the pre-pandemic class schedule, students and faculty discuss what a sustainable and balanced system should look like STORY Owen Y.
O
n a Wednesday afternoon, Noah S. ’24 carefully dipped his brush into the ink before gliding it onto a crisp sheet of rice paper. This wasn’t any ordinary class. “Water, Ink, and Rice Paper” was just one of the hundreds of two-hour workshops offered weekly through the Wednesday of Wonder (WoW) program in the 2021–22 school year. From “LGBTQ+ Film Forum” to “Latte Art and Espresso Science,” WoW workshops allowed students and faculty the unique opportunity to teach or sign up for topics that interested them, whether it was furthering a passion or simply trying something new.
However, beginning this school year, class schedules were reverted to their pre-pandemic form and WoWs were scaled back to twice per semester, sparking discussions among students and teachers around how to create a schedule that prioritizes learning while also leaving ample breathing space for creativity and rest. To briefly summarize this new schedule, Mondays and Thursdays are “A Days” and comprise class blocks 1 through 4 while “B Days,” Tuesdays and Fridays, contain the remaining four classes. Wednesdays alternate between A Days and B Days depending on the week, save for the four WoWs per year. Leaving Wednesdays as flexible time
mitigates the impacts four-day weeks, such as those due to federal holidays or professional development days, have on teaching. What led to this change? According to upper school history teacher Sushu Xia, a primary issue lay in the sustainability of the WoWs. Xia, who oversaw WoW logistics in the spring of 2022, noticed teachers spending four to six hours preparing for workshops in some cases. “It was very relaxing for students but not very relaxing for teachers,” Xia said. Additionally, Xia observed a steady, frustrating decline in WoW attendance: by the end of the spring semester, more than a third of students were reported absent from workshops.
“That leads to the question: if people are opting out of WoWs, why are we hosting them?” Xia said. She attributes the absences to students considering Wednesdays as a “free day” because of the lack of regular classes. In conjunction with the exhausting process of planning and preparing workshops each week, the imbalances within the system soon became apparent. On a larger scale, Upper School Assistant Division Head Claire Yeo, who has been heavily involved in the scheduling process, emphasized the need to “regroup academically” as students reacclimate to fully in-person classes after two years of pandemic learning. CONTINUED ON PAGE 11