Flowings of Your Everlasting Taffyman

Block Schedules
This is my first opportunity to observe and work with block scheduling in a school. The students recently registered for their classes next year, and I have heard from my cooperating teachers that once the students have chosen their classes they have very little input on how the block are laid out. Still the block schedule seems to offer some advantages in longer class periods, more electives and fewer classes to prep and take for teachers and students. At a recent teacher meeting I heard that many of the teachers were looking forward to returning to a 6-7 period school day. This struck me as odd, and the teachers mainly highlighted the idea of content retention as the main problem with the block schedule. I think it is rather interesting that the teachers see the longer day and shorter term as being less in depth when teachers on 6-7 period days constantly complain about having too little time to handle anything in depth.

I have not yet taught with a block schedule, although I have seen both of my cooperating teachers give students significant amounts of time to work on their worksheets, readings, etc. I also noticed one of my teacher watching the clock while going on 25 minute tirade that was essentially inspired by the topic at hand but not helpful to the students… this time could easily have been spent going into more depth on any subject rather than rushing through it and then relying on the students to do worksheets (which they tend to copy from each other-little to no learning taking place. I have watched the students fill out these forms in-between their personal conversations (which I don’t see as the problem, though the teachers do) I see the worksheets and review questions themselves as the problem. They students are wonderful at picking out the one to two sentences they need, the key word or random tidbit of information and moving on. They don’t read the book, they simply answer the questions. They don’t understand the topics; they can’t reflect on them, they are just regurgitating facts, which they will quickly forget the moment the test is over. This is why the students have no content retention, not because the block schedules (at least in my subject matter, math and languages may be different, however students are not really tested in social studies by state or national standards).

My first observation of the effects of the block schedule on students was that it helped them be a lot less stressed. At first I thought this was a great affect of having less classes and subject matter to be worried about. The students will naturally be able to handle organizing fewer topics, and should be able to focus on the content they are studying (similar to college). At 6-7 period schools the student constantly seemed stressed, anxious about time (teachers too), impatient, distracted, -symptoms I assumed had to do with so much going on, and not enough time to process. At ________ the students seem to have much less stress, they are much more patient in the class (they wait for 5-1o minutes while the teacher does attendance) the transition time between activities is usually slower paced. The students seem to have far less homework and other in-school concerns… but they seem to have developed bad habits, like expecting that transition time to take 5 minutes, talking when they aren’t supposed to be, having a relaxed attitude about discipline, insubordination, joking around, cell phones and most importantly their studies! They get impatient with the workload (small as it is) because it isn’t challenging and most seem to be able to spend that 20-30 minutes in class to get it done, and what they don’t get done they copy off their friends. They don’t read. They don’t study outside of class. They don’t seem to bring much to the class (observations, questions, comments, etc). In short, they are irresponsible because they have the time to be. Personally I don’t think it is the block scheduling that makes them lazy and disengaged; I think it is the fact that they don’t see what they are getting out of school. Learning 50 facts about a country they will never visit has little to no interest to them, and they are well aware that should they ever need the information they can look to the internet for their answers, just as they look to their peers for the answers to # 6-10… Somehow we need to make this information relevant to them, or change the whole system and start looking at how we can encourage students to utilize those resources they are aware of to increase their general knowledge of what is around them, of what is affecting their lives.

-alternatively we could look to Western Europe and Scandinavia where students are asked to choose their field of interest much younger and progress into lines of work that are much more focused on a project/business/ field etc at hand. The students who at 17 are still drifting through the school system uninspired and barely participating might be better off in a trade school at 14 where they can focus their energy (if not on something they enjoy, than at least on something that will secure their living, so that they can do what they enjoy in their spare time).