You’re sitting in class, following along as the teacher scribbles notes. Just as they write down the main ideas of the lesson, a student blurts out something unrelated, drawing laughter from around the class.
On the other side of the room, a conversation that had started small is getting louder, and the teacher must stop teaching multiple times to get the students back on task. The interruptions pile up throughout the hour, and by the end, the class hasn’t covered everything planned, meaning more homework for everyone.
When classes are interrupted, teachers lose valuable teaching time trying to redirect their students back to the topic. In The Hidden Cost of Interruptions, published by ASCD, researcher Matthew A. Kraft observed classrooms from Providence Public Schools in Rhode Island and found that “students lose between 10 to 20 days of instructional time over the course of the year.”
The distractions that may arise from tardiness, discussions or loud remarks can impede the progress of both teachers and students, leading to them working harder and spending more time on their work. One student, senior Claudia Hansen, has experienced this herself.
“It [disruptions] makes me get off track easily, and I might have to restart the process,” Hansen said. “Sometimes I get extra homework because of it.”
In a separate paper by Kraft, The Big Problem with Little Interruptions to Classroom Learning, published by EdWorkingPapers, his research indicates that “on average, teachers and students estimate that they experience 11 to 16 total interruptions per day in a typical school, respectively.”
While there are lots of interruptions at Loy Norrix, such as announcements, phone calls, and students arriving late, a major factor comes from the students already inside the classrooms themselves.
“Pretty much every day, there’s some sort of disruption,” social studies teacher James Johnson said. “Kids get bored, and their attention spans aren’t great. They come in with sleep deprivation and other stressors, and I have to stop them.”
When interrupted, many teachers must stop teaching in order to end the disruptions. They have different ways of addressing the students’ misbehaviors, ranging from verbal warnings to removal from the classroom.
“Sometimes, I can separate them if they talk to group members. If I know the students, I will check on them later,” English teacher Josie Pike said. “If it gets too disruptive, I will send them out and either email or call home.”
Among teachers, there is a consensus about which group is the most disruptive. In a survey of 25 Loy Norrix teachers, 80% believe that first-year students are the most disruptive, while 56% believe that seniors are the least.
“I think that the underclassmen struggle the most with disruptions,” freshman Benita Smedes said. “They haven’t learned respect or their place in high school yet.”
While some view it as a matter of respect, others, like Pike, believe it is due to the readjustment period between middle and high school.
“They’re [first-year students] still trying to figure out high school, you know,” Pike said. “They’ve come in, and they’re back at the bottom of the food chain again and are trying to figure out how to exist in high school. It’s a different social structure, different expectations, and they’re dealing with all this newness. They don’t know how to express that emotion.”
When disruptions accumulate, more instructional time is lost, resulting in less time for their classmates to complete assignments. This causes others to have to work longer on their homework that they could have done during their class, and if disruptions last long enough, students may be given more work to do out of the classroom.
“My science teacher said that because we spent so much time disciplining students, we were doing another assignment on top of the old one,” Smedes said. “I feel like I’m being punished for someone else.”
Additionally, other people’s grades are not the only ones that suffer. According to the article “Effects of Disruptive Behavior” by the Iris Center, a national center dedicated to improving educational outcomes for children from birth to age 21, disruptive behavior can lead to lower academic achievement.
“Students that are on task in class have better grades because they’re learning,” Johnson said.
With this in mind, teachers continue to navigate these challenges in their classrooms to ensure a productive environment, seeking ways to help students get back on track.
“The more subtle things, I think, work well for most cases,” Johnson said. “Going over and standing near somebody, putting your hand on the desk, those things work.”
While teachers may differ with approaches, one thing is clear: a focused, uninterrupted class benefits everyone. And, perhaps, one overlooked solution is simple: sleep.
As someone who has had my class interrupted, I’ve thought about simple ways to stop the interruptions, as they don’t only affect the interrupter, but the students in the same class, trying to learn as well. I thought about this not only as an editor, but also as someone who cares about my own education, and I realized that sleep is one major factor that is often ignored.
As Johnson said, his students’ sleep deprivation forces him to wake them up, momentarily halting the class. However, not only that, but tiredness can also cause students’ ability to focus and behave in class to drop rapidly.
Knight Life writer Delilah Reynolds addressed this in her story, Sleeping in class creates harmful impacts which lead to debate on later school start times. While the school itself can reconsider changing its start times, parents and students can also contribute to this effort by setting screen time boundaries, establishing a better sleep schedule, and prioritizing their health and academic performance.
While getting more sleep won’t solve every problem, it can be a good first step to having clearer minds, more involved students, and a better learning environment for all.
