Moby Max is an online program that the kids at Edgewood and Northwood Middle School spend 40 minutes on every Wednesday and Thursday during a time called X-Block. It was introduced 3rd quarter of last school year and, despite many previous protests, has continued on until now. But the kids of Edgewood Northwood want to fight back.

This program is not helpful to the students. Every child took placement tests when Moby Max was first introduced in both math and language in order to assess their skills. They were then given a variety of different lessons that were supposedly “tailored in order to provide students with the right difficulty level for them”. However, we quickly found out that this was not the case. 7th graders that were taking high level math classes were getting problems such as counting the number of blocks shown on the screen and adding 1-digit numbers. 

Another thing the students found very frustrating was that previously, X-Block had been a time to study, do homework, or just relax and take a break from the constant pressures of being a teenager. But now, kids are spending those 40 minutes sitting and staring at a wall, because they’d rather do that than do Moby Max. It is a known fact that most teenagers do not get enough sleep. Kids go straight from school to sports to other activities and then get home late and have hours of homework to get done. X-Block was a huge stress reliever for many students because it meant they could get some of that work done during the school day, instead of staying up until midnight.

In summary, Moby Max is doing more harm than help to these students. Bring back X-Block and BAN MOBY MAX!