CON Block schedule
November 10, 2016
Meant to keep students from stress and overworking, block schedules have been used by various schools aiming to improve students’ chances for success.
The point of block scheduling is to allow students to learn more in one sitting. Doubling the class period, the reasoning goes, produces a more relaxed environment and more time for both homework and in-class learning.
However, students who have a block schedule compromise their education for a seemingly less-strenuous routine.
On an almost hourly basis, students squeamishly sit in their chairs in anticipation for the bell to ring. For teenagers with 20 minute-long attention spans, staying in one place for 54 minutes is enough to send them fidgeting.
It is incredibly difficult for a class to last almost two hours and still hold the unwavering attention of a room full of antsy 14-18 year olds notorious for their lack of attention.
Fearing that students do not have the ability to keep up for the entire 90 minutes, schools with block schedules are forced to fill their class times with several shorter lessons or with “fun” activities that keep students entertained and focused. Classes will have to be filled with creative labs, “educational games”, and lively extended group discussions in order to engage students in the long period of time.
While advocates of block schedule claim that the longer class times give teachers more time to plan, unless the teacher is shockingly talented in being able to come up with both educational and entertaining assignments that are equally as informative than a regular class period would be, students are losing productive class time in which they would otherwise use developing a better idea of the subject and actually learning.
Furthermore, 90 minutes of a subject twice a week is significantly less class time than taking the class for 50 minutes daily. Students are actually losing about 10% of essential class time by splitting up their schedule in this way.
Students need daily exposure to subjects to be able to effectively retain information, particularly in topics that require continuity. For students struggling in say, math, having a block schedule makes it too easy to ignore the problems they have in the class if they are only being subjected to that particular topic twice a week.
A student who takes elective classes will have even less effective school days, as 90-minute chunks of one’s six hour school day would be filled with a class like band or woodshop. The implementation of block schedules lumps together classes that would fare better to students in daily doses rather than sitting through hours of class.
The arguments for extra time to do homework and study simply do not stand up to the fact that students who undergo block schedules are losing a significant portion of information in their daily class that could be essential to a student’s learning experience.
