Cover photo courtesy of Membean.com
The most disliked school chore at Loveland High School, Membean vocabulary practice, is now banned. Membean is no longer being used in Loveland Schools due to the number of complaints from students. Not only is Membean no longer a requirement for students enrolled in Loveland City School District, but it is completely gone from all schools it was previously used in. Membean used to be used in over 200,000 schools in 30 different countries, but it has since been removed. Many students used to dread the Membean work, but this is no longer a problem.
Membean is the online system that many English teachers use to get their students to expand their vocabularies. It used a specialized system to help your brain memorize as much vocabulary as possible. Many English teachers require their students to complete weekly sessions. These assigned sessions can range from 10 to 30 minutes, adding up to lots of time throughout your high school experience. Three 15-minute sessions every week of school, about 37 weeks on average, adds up to 30 hours. Over 4 years of high school, that can be 120 hours of Membean total, not to mention the possibility of “dubious minutes” when you receive too low of a score and the need to redo sessions.
The founder and CEO of Membean, Ragav Satish, has recently stopped all Membean services. Satish was receiving too many complaints from students about the amount of extra work Membean added to students’ daily schedules. When Satish was asked in a press conference about this change of heart he said that it wasn’t really a change of heart, he was receiving too much hate from students online. Loveland students started a Students Against Membean group called “Mean-bean” to protest the program. On Twitter, students from other schools were harassing Satish because of the extra work that his program cost them. Satish decided that the only way to stop these hate comments was to forfeit his company.
Membean has been an integral part of the English curriculum at Loveland High School. All students are very familiar with the chore of Membean. Kiley Eckert (12) says that she will not miss Membean. When asked to comment on the banning of Membean Eckert said, “I love that I don’t have to do it anymore.” Most students, including Eckert, scramble to finish their sessions before midnight on Sunday night.
Although teachers argue that Membean expands students' vocabulary, recent test scores have shown that it is negatively impacting students’ grades. 87% of students who are required to do Membean have lower grades in their English class. Further investigation has led many to believe that this is due to the Membean session and test scores impacting their overall grade. Every couple of weeks Membean tests are conducted to see if students have learned the vocabulary that they were given to memorize. The average score on these tests is 67%. Many students say that they score so low because of the “select all that apply” questions.
With no more Membean, students will not have to worry about completing sessions or scoring well on Membean tests to keep their grades up. Many students have said that Loveland Schools will be a better place without Membean.