2023 KLS Changes vs. Core Values: Middle School

By Uma H. and Zaya S.

The core values of our school are the literal core of all of the philosophies implemented into our learning and teaching styles, so they’re the foundation of our schedules. We got an interview with Laura where she described her opinions on the school schedule and the core values she thought about while designing it. One of the first core values she discussed was, “everyone’s a student, everyone’s a teacher.” Most people at our school have heard this at least once in their time here, but not many have thought about what it actually means: no one can really ever get too old for learning and that you can always keep an open mind and learn from other people. It encompasses yet another core value we found in the KLS philosophy, the idea that learning should not be bound by time or space. Another core value highlighted by Laura is agency, the value that gives students independence and the ability to make different clubs and start initiatives like the student store and the Khranicle, both of which were ideas of students that eventually became important parts of the school community. Our core values are tied into our schedule because they’re the foundation of our school’s learning, and our learning style gets directly translated into our schedules.

No matter how well thought out, in the end our core values are just ideas. The schedules are their reality, literally making them come to life by putting them into practice. Giving KLS students agency was one of the core values Laura emphasized in our interview with her, and she remarked how goal time, a time where students can work on what they want to, can spark unrestrained creativity. Giving students goal time can help them not only learn how to manage their own time but also explore other creative projects that they might be working on with their friends. Another core value Laura had tried to work into the original schedule was the idea of ‘Everyone’s a teacher, everyone’s a student’. At the beginning of the year, the schedule was organized in a way where teachers would be able to take one or two of the other teacher’s classes along with students. Because teachers are already expert learners, it would give students a good example to follow and let them see teachers in a new light. Though these two core values are present in our school schedule, the last two core values we named, ‘learning should not be bound by time or space’, and ‘we all learn at different rates’, we haven’t seen in the schedule yet.

You, the students of the school, the people who are impacted and live through the schedule every day, have many opinions on how the new schedule has changed. In middle school, there’s a collective feeling that the extra goal times weren’t worth the lost blocks of the core classes. “I think that because we’re in middle school, there’s no way to make everyone focus, there’s always going to be people distracting them.” stated one of the interviewees. The statement that this student made was echoed by the other students we’ve interviewed, all of them mentioning that they feel goal times aren’t as effective as intended. The loss of class time used for the core subjects. Last year, middle school had four blocks of each subject a week, spread out over four days. This year, classes are three hours each, spread out over only two days due to the one double block. Students found it more difficult to focus during the double blocks and commented that it made it easier for them to remember what happened in class when the week’s curriculum was over multiple days

This school’s values should be reflected in our schedule, as it is structured by what the school believes in. The schedule and new changes still haven't reached that perfect balance, but with every revision, it gets closer and closer. While many feel that the schedule isn’t perfect, there are also good parts of the schedule that everyone likes and hopes will become permanent in the future. To conclude, our schedule has its ups and downs. What do you think? Does our schedule reflect our values?