What is your least favorite class, the one you dread most? Picture yourself walking into that class, taking a seat, and watching the clock move slowly as you suffer through the next 90 minutes. Yes, you read that correctly. Imagine being stuck in your least favorite class for an hour and a half! This is a reality that many high school students experience every day. It is block scheduling. “Unlike traditional bell schedules - which typically comprise six to eight class periods per day, lasting anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes - block schedules contain just four daily class periods, with each one lasting an average of 90 minutes” (Block Scheduling in Schools 1). Although designed to increase student achievement, block schedules carry a number of disadvantages that make them an inadequate method for offering high school students a successful learning environment. Despite its few benefits, block scheduling works in direct conflict with most human attention spans, creates more scheduling problems than it solves, and lacks any solid evidence of improving student learning. In a world where educational practices come and go, block scheduling is a fad that should never have arrived in the first place. First of all, while block scheduling may sound like a good idea on paper, the reality is that is requires the one thing that very few people have: a long attention span. Today’s society is fast-paced. For example, smart phones and computers instantly provide us with
Student's grade average could improve with a mandatory study hall. Studies show that 71% of students strongly agreed that a study hall improved their performance. The purpose is to help support students struggling with time management issues related to homework and study. These are structured quiet times where students can either work independently, with
Day after day, late students are punished or end up in detention due to short passing periods. Having short passing periods can make a student’s grade go down or worse when students are late to class. This can be prevented by extending passing periods to 10 minutes. Although the staff at H.P.M.S may disapprove, but in the long run, they will see the effects of having longer passing periods has on students. Because of the short time of passing periods, students at Happy Place Middle School are petitioning to extend their passing period time to 10 minutes. In short, some of the positive effects are that students can get to class on time, and gives students and teachers time to prepare.
All these voices come from the same people. Students wishing for longer passing time in the halls. Now Smithville Middle School joins the fight, but this school isn’t using a barrage of exclamation points. It’s time somebody got to the root of this argument. ‘How can short passing times affect middle school life?’, ‘Does it affect student behavior?’, and finally, ‘How many minutes are really needed?’
Adding just an extra ten minutes to each class, the new schedule would create the potential for students to have more homework time, lab time, learning time, and/or valuable free time to read for pleasure, relax with music, draw, etc. (Hadfield). Especially as students get older and more involved in extracurriculars and rigorous academic courses, the need for any spare moment to get assignments done, study, or even sleep increases. When this time is unavailable or extremely hard to get, students are more likely to fall asleep in class, miss school due to illness, misbehave, cheat, hand in incomplete assignments, or drop out altogether. The same is largely true for teachers. The more homework turned in by students, the more grading has to be done by teachers who are already exhausted from a long, often repetitive day of work. Therefore, it is important to emphasize the fact that this extra time should not be used to cram in larger quantities of learning standards or homework problems, but rather to enhance the quality of the already demanding school regulations that are in schools
In today's society, most people desire success. They want to attend a respected college, earn exceptional grades, get a wonderful job, and make a lot of money. However, the road to success starts before all of those accomplishments can happen. This journey begins in the classroom. In the classroom, over 25% of all high-school students fall asleep one or more times a week (Mayer-Hohdahl 1). Why does this happen? Schools have sleepy students because of their early start times. "Starting high school early is probably one of the worst things you can do as far as timing the day, as far as adolescents being alert or ready" (Wooley 2). This is a serious problem in high schools all across the nation. Students are tired, and teachers are
But we simply do not have enough time in the day. Some students don’t get home to almost seven after sports are done, some have jobs and don’t get home until seven o’clock… Before we know it, its eight o’clock and we still have three hours of homework to do. Going to sleep at eleven and waking up at six is not enough sleep for students. Because of all the work we receive in school, we need more time to sleep and make sure our mind set is in the right place. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, if you don’t get enough sleep your brain will not absorb information you learn.
Sommerfeld, Meg. "More and More Schools Putting Block Scheduling to Test of Time." Education Week. N.p., 02 May 2016. Web. 24 Mar.
Eyes watching the clock, praying it could move faster. The students are full of joy when the bell finally rings. Only to wake up tomorrow to repeat it over again. Some teachers and students want to go to block scheduling for the upcoming school year. Having Advanced Composition in either of the block schedules has its advantages and disadvantages.
Anaheim High School, a beautiful campus filled with intelligent students all around. You may tell yourself that but do we really have some of the best grades? Anaheim has too many days off for vacation and not enough school time for students to learn. In order to increase student success at Anaheim, we should have longer class periods so that students understand the material without having to be rushed and start class earlier or extend school release time until 3:30 or 4:00 pm. In the article, “Marita’s Bargain" by Malcolm Gladwell, he states, “The day goes from seven twenty-five until five pm” (9). Students at KIPP Academy are starting their classes at seven twenty-five and get out of class at five pm. They are getting longer classes which allows them to focus on their academics without having to be rushed to move onto the next topic. Anaheim High School is struggling with students being rushed and not understanding the
One of the biggest struggles for students today, is the struggle to wake up for school in the mornings, and to make it to class on time. Because of the start times that many high and middle schools currently have, students are having to get up early to get ready, therefore providing them with little sleep at night. They are faced with their everyday schedules, things that are happening in other parts of their lives, as well as having to keep up with their schoolwork. All of this results in a loss of sleep, with the added factor of having to wake up early in the mornings. Having a later start time for schools is beneficial for student’s health, safety, and their overall performance in school.
The primary reason for attending school is for adolescents to get an education in hopes of getting a good job. Attendance, test scores, and GPA’s all play an important role in a student’s success in school, and if they can all be improved by pushing the start time back, then this issue should be pushed further. The root problem of students not performing to their full potential has to do with the inability to focus from drowsiness in class due to the lack of sleep they are getting. To support this point, Carskadon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior, and his team, “found that students showed up for morning classes seriously sleep-deprived and that the 7:20 a.m. start time required them to be awake during hours that ran contrary to their internal clocks” (Richmond). In other words, Carskadon believes that current high school start times go against teens’ natural sleep patterns, making them be awake at a time where their bodies aren’t ready to get up yet. This causes concentration issues making paying attention in class harder, and kids not getting the best grades they can. Also, sleep won’t get any
In the fast paced world in which we live one can see the trickle down effect of that pace seaping into our school systems. With the mandates No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) brought to the table in 2002 school districts are finding themselves using every spare minute of the day to prepare students for rigorous standardized tests used to not only determine success of the students but also the school and staff. Schools are trying to squeeze more information in an already busy day. When looking at schedules it is a given that children need to eat, forcing schools to not take lunch away, so the only logical solution is to
In the last couple of years there has been a debate to change the block schedule and go to a traditional 7 period schedule. A block schedule is a system for scheduling high school students. With this schedule it makes it easier to complete more classes within a school year, It also gives a closer connection between student and teacher and does not put as much stress on the student compared to the 7 period schedule. The 7 period schedule would extend a one term class to a one semester course, it would also shorten the time in class to 45 minutes compared to the 90 minute class periods that we have now.
Now let me start on my first argument that we junior highs learn better when we have a double block. Usually when we're really into something it’s by the end of the block and we lose that mindset during class change because of friends and acquaintances, then we have to reset that whole entire process of trying to get focused. In the first ten minutes of class it’s hard to pay attention because every class has a group of students that are annoyingly loud, that just can't concentrate so they disrupt everyone else's learning. I think that wouldn't be such a high number if they didn’t see their peers from other grades and classes between switches. Most of my peers complain about how they never have enough time to finish just one question so
My fourth block class has been one of the times that I look forward to each and everyday, it is `English Honors 9. There are several reasons why I look forward to it, them being the freedom, independence, and creativeness the class provides to me. Although the class has been interesting there are a few things I don’t enjoy don’t for example, the due dates and the workload of the class. Consequently, minor changes can occur to make this class a better experience for my peers and I. English 9 honors has mostly affected my schedule and time management for me.