Commentary: Bring Back (More) Long Lunches

As of this school year, Northwest Academy has replaced about half of its two-hour long lunch periods with Advisory, downgrading to three sessions from its initial six long lunch periods. Instead of going outside, walking around the city and taking more time to decompress at the end of a week, students now must stay inside and participate in group activities, such as conference slide making and homework time. 

Northwest Academy states on its website that it “uses a place-based approach to learning, using Portland as our classroom.” Field trips occasionally support this argument but going out to lunch is the primary way Northwest Academy students experience downtown.

Aaron Thacker, High School Dean of Students & Belonging, thinks that there might have been some students who felt like they didn’t have anywhere to go during the long lunch periods and that Advisory can help support those students. 

“It’s just an opportunity to catch those kids who aren’t the type to connect and have a group to go out to lunch with,” said Thacker. “Without putting it all on the student body’s shoulders.”

While using Advisory as a net to support these students is extremely thoughtful, it takes away from other students who might want a less structured lunch period and more of a break on Fridays.

A longer lunch allows for students to reset their minds before going into the last half of classes at the end of a week. Breaks are stress-reducing, and as studies show, they assist in increasing productivity, and are important for memory, reflection and planning. 

“Breaks keep our brains healthy and play a key role in cognitive abilities such as reading comprehension and divergent thinking,” Yoki Terada, an educational researcher, wrote in a study for Edutopia.

A more beneficial plan is to have a slightly more structured long lunch, where students check in with a designated teacher, like an advisor, for five minutes during that period before being allowed to leave and spend time around downtown. 

If a student has missing work or needs to make up class time they could use the more structured long lunch as a chance to meet with a teacher or retake a test. This could also be a tool for students who want to be in the company of others but need some structured support.

Students could use the check-in as a chance to ask other groups that are going out for lunch if they could join them. If a student doesn’t want to go out but wants to be in the company of others, the optional advisory would be there for them to utilize. 

Long lunches have been a Northwest Academy tradition since its early years and while this is only a downgrade of a few long lunches from last year’s six, its important students still get all of that time and potentially more. 

“Many creative connections and widening of circles have happened through long lunches,” said Julia Cain, Director of College Counseling. “Whether students walk around town, connect with a teacher, gather in the commons or outside, spend time in the art room or music lab, or simply read quietly, it’s an important time for them to connect with each other and themselves in unstructured, organic ways.”