My freshman and sophomore year, I attended Roaring Fork High School. While I came back junior year, I only stayed for roughly the first month. Then, I made the decision to transfer to Bridges High School.
While Bridges might not work for everyone, it certainly did for me. This opinion piece is not meant to throw shade, but to outline why alternative schooling was effective for me and to express my gratitude for that.
Frankly, I wasn’t in the best place starting out my junior year. Ultimately, this led to me moving to Bridges, which seemed like it would be beneficial to me and my future. Now, having graduated from Bridges just recently, I don’t regret a thing.
Growing up, there was a certain stigma when it came to going to Bridges — something I recall that was often brought up when the school was mentioned in a passing conversation. It was like being “sent to Bridges” was this recurring joke that might come up when someone wasn’t doing well in a class.
To the contrary, the teachers and staff prioritized my learning there and I always felt comfortable asking any question, no matter how small. Being given the time to fully understand a concept we were learning in class was very beneficial. I never felt bad about any trouble I might have had when struggling to grasp something. Even if I had a question based on something I should have already known or the answer to which was surely in my notes somewhere, a teacher would take the time to walk me through it again.
The no homework system and one-hour class periods really worked for me too. In my pre-Bridges schooling, I found myself drowning in homework and becoming really demotivated by that. Oftentimes, I felt like I had to re-teach myself important concepts at home, which ended up becoming more confusing than what I had been taught in school.
To me, this cycle of learning something new, doing the work associated with it and moving on to another lesson was exhausting. It gave me less free time, induced quite a bit of stress — including for the people around me — and was just too much of a chore to be remotely enjoyable.
I also really appreciated the social environment that Bridges instilled within its hallways. I, for one, never faced any personal hostility from any of my peers there. In my experience, people at Bridges tended to mind their own business or were just straight up kind. That being said, I’m sure there are still issues that occur at Bridges as it’s bound to happen in any school environment.
All of this is not to say that Bridges didn’t challenge me. It certainly did. But whenever I was being challenged I didn’t feel like I was just slugging through the day. I felt like I was getting a healthy, and ultimately productive, amount of work done. I didn’t feel behind. At the same time, I probably put in more effort being there. It worked for me.
At the time of typing this, it has been a little under two weeks since I graduated. Being a part of the graduation ceremony felt like a big accomplishment for me. I am incredibly grateful to my peers and to the staff at the school. I wholeheartedly believe moving to Bridges was one of the best decisions I made when it comes to my education and my future as a whole.
Go Frogs!