In the early 1990s, teachers and students were not at all motivated. The school, says social studies teacher Deborah Burk, was sticking to the 19th-century concept of dividing the day into 42-minute periods (still common in many schools across the country), with each period counted as a credit toward graduation. Back then, Burk says, students focused more on the clock than on what she was saying. They weren’t entirely to blame.