Block Schedule: Will it crumble?

 

This blog spends a lot of it's time on school matters.  This happens for many reasons including the fact that there is a lot going on within the district, a learning environment is an exciting and interesting environment, and the energy of youth is generally contagious.

There are so many good things that can and do happen in public schools that one can feel the need to give change a little scrutiny, yet one of the exciting things that occur in schools IS change.  But change can be an exciting trial for the future, and often times change takes a fork in the road under the guise of advancement which is in reality a step backward.

This blog has already gone on record commenting on returning to the use of bells to signal class changes, and sees it as a step backwards.  There has since been another blog (see "Echoing bells") citing information about schools that don't use bells between classes, just as a reference point.  It isn't as impassioned as the original bell blog "Hells, Bells".

But this time our interest lies with what may have enabled Johnson Creek schools to dispense with bells in the first place - block scheduling.  That alone is a good reason to use block scheduling, a system set up to have fewer longer classes (typically four) per day and have the same classes daily for at least a semester.

On the upside of block scheduling, longer projects can be completed in science classes, shop classes, math classes... lets face it in all subject areas.  Generally schools appear more relaxed, classes are closer to the length of classes in post-secondary institutions AND they likely counter the short attention span fostered years earlier by the likes of Sesame Street.

Education World has a tendency to agree with the latter.  They say

When students attend as many as eight relatively short classes in different subjects every day, instruction can become fragmented; longer class periods give students more time to think and engage in active learning.

A schedule with one relatively short period after another can create a hectic, assembly-line environment;

A schedule that releases hundreds or thousands of adolescents into hallways six, seven, or eight times each school day for four or five minutes of noise and chaotic movement can exacerbate discipline problems.

Teachers benefit from more useable instructional time each day because less time is lost with beginning and ending classes.

I give block scheduling several 'charm factors' for providing an environment conducive to learning AND teaching,  but there are admittedly times when charm factors aren't worth the paper they're written on, just as many educational mandates make requirements in programs without taking into consideration funding or practicality, or space, or equipment, or...!?!

During the course of a four year experience in high school, students still attend sequentially difficult classes in a variety of subject matter.  With block scheduling, it is possible that a freshman taking an advanced math class requiring a prerequisite may take the prerequisite one fall semester, but due to a schedule only allowing four class periods per day over a semester,  the advance math class may not be available until that student's junior year.  A similar scenario can play out in foreign language classes, with an introductory class one semester, but the school or the student schedule not allowing high level coursework in that language until more than a year later - making it potentially difficult to retain information from the first class.

It is difficult for humans and computers alike to schedule students satisfactorily under these situations.

The initial reaction is to return to the eight period day, which is in effect suggesting that block scheduling was just a fad, and that may be the case.  However, it is up to administrators and boards to determine what characteristics in curriculum development are more important, a solid learning environment conducive to learning or a schedule and curriculum tantamount to a checklist so that we can report, "yep, we touched on this subject, this subject, this subject and this subject..." without a chance to savor or go into depth at any one point.

How many of us grown-up type people actually do eight different things in a day?  All of us are busy, and while I am writing and doing research  for this blog and have written two other articles on separate subjects today, it often comes down to listening, reading, taking notes and writing.  Different topics, but the same work.  Yes, I may run to the grocery store, and have the tires rotated on my car, but adding those two things to the one thing I do ends up sounding like an incredibly busy day.

I think the "out-of-school" equivalent of an eight period day could go something like:

1. Go to work where you bake muffins and plan a menu before your boss has you

2.Go to your church or synagogue and translate a few pages of scripture from original languages prior to

3.Running to a lumber yard to finish blueprints that you picked up from the building inspector after proving geometrically that the structure is sound according to the codes and principles of engineering which needed to be done before you.

4. Write a legal brief using historical context with proven research sources and then it is time when the company requires the arts so you

5 Haul your instrument to the local chamber music society to practice with an ensemble for the inter-corporate competition, after which you play

6 Play a mandatory game of dodgeball to test a new product - but your job description says it's your day to

7. Collect water samples from bodies of water to check for contaminants and record that day's weather observations, but before that you are expected at the company conference room to

8 Solve some advanced algebraic equations just because they are there, and everybody else does. 

At that point you just can't wait to go home and zone out mindlessly in front of the television...

Granted most of us grew up with an eight hour set of classes, but one begins to wonder if the increased incidence of ADD/ADHD is not induced when requiring some to approach new concepts and consider the meaning of a Shakespeare play during a portion of one hour, then switch to plotting solutions to problems in multidimensional differential Calculus (which isn't related to anything tangible) during a portion of the next hour.

It is a tough choice, because schools are charged with providing so many hours of core curricular classes in a sequentially advancing curriculum.  BUT there is nothing in Wisconsin State Laws that say students MUST learn anything.  It requires an amount of school time to be offered or attended and curricular areas to be approached.  Individual districts decide on what constitutes a credit, and how many credits are required to graduate.  (Current standardized basic knowledge tests aren't intended to test students, but to evaluate schools and attach that to public funding, BUT that is a subject for another blog.)

So it isn't a clear choice, block scheduling offers many optimum learning situations.  One wonders if absolute sequential courses could be offered ONLY in paired up schedules e.g. "If you take Greek I first semester YOU WILL take Greek II second semester." essentially making it a one year class.

The eight period day allows for a schedule where one can say 'we met the spec and touched on everything required.'

In an effort to find materials on both sides of the issue, it appears that there are a variety of issues involving many variables.   Read through the research and you will find favorable and unfavorable findings.  One reason for this lies with the fact that not all block schedules are the same. Several studies in individual schools in Iowa say that grades decreased with block scheduling along with ACT and SAT scores, while Minnesota and Wisconsin finds the opposite to be true.

If local indicators are that it works, then it would behoove administrators and officials to stay with it using education as the primary rationale.  If grades and any other school characteristic are declining then it may be time to consider something else.  But it may not be an all or nothing situation. 

Then it is time to simply find what works,and do what works and not lock into an inflexible model that will prevent the best education for everyone. 

1.  What characteristics are positive about block scheduling according to teachers, students, administrators and statistics and studies? 

2.  What characteristics of the traditional schedule are positive or beneficial according to teachers, students, administrators, studies and statistics? 

Find the commonalities and expand on those commonalities to fit the needs of the students and the district.

Hells, Bells
---Sometimes less really is more...
(Commentary/Editorial)

Today was the first day of the 2004-05 school year. The time when teachers and students gather for the first time since departing on the unknown adventures that summer would hold.

The last moments before the first class are a time of anticipation and excitement triggered by the smell of freshly waxed floors, newly painted areas and the aroma of the ink wafting from new textbooks, almost as if the information and ideas within had vapors of their own making the air heady with ideas for potential treks of the new learning experiences that lay ahead.

But that special time of anticipation before launching into a new year was shattered at the Johnson Creek upper school by an annoyance, a new bell system signaling the beginning of classes. After asking about it, hoping that it was some sort of mistake, it was most dissappointing to hear that a noise had been implemented to signal class times.

If I haven't written about it, I know that I have talked about an unquantifiable yet very tangible characteristic of institutions like Johnson Creek Schools, one I call the "Charm Factor."

The charm factors at Johnson Creek Schools include the fact that grades K through 12 are on the same campus, which has promoted the use of upper class mentors and student aides at the lower grade levels. It has minimized class rank issues and streamlined the students' vision in understanding the route through the grades.

Johnson Creek school charm factors include situations held unique where a student can be a successful athlete, musician, thespian and maintain an interest in agrarian roots by belonging to and being successful in FFA.

Another is a built in support system, where everyone knows everyone in the school, with an enrollment of fewer than 600. That support system includes parents knowing parents and students knowing all the district families and realizing that a lapse in behavior will be addressed by all levels of peers and families in addition to school staff. This has kept the need for pre-emptive excessive rule making to a minimum. It is also the type of built in support system that held the school together a few years ago when a student perished in an auto accident, where in a larger institution the loss may have gone unnoticed by the majority.

And of course the small student to teacher ratio is what education experts dream of and dream for getting closer to the goal of individualized education (although with ongoing budget constraints this becomes more difficult to maintain as the old solution of consolidating schools becomes more like herding cattle to go through the motions of providing an education...).

Last year I remained silent as "security cameras" were installed in the hallways of the upper school. Reports indicate they did catch perpetrators of ongoing vandalism, as they record images from those hallways for days at a time. However one wonders if the cameras have deterred any acts vandalism or misbehavior. I sighed at their installation as they had the potential to undermine the charm factors that reinforce what the school stands for. But one also wonders how many events may have occurred in an attempt to outsmart the intrusive cameras, easily construed as a general vote of no confidence.

Today, disappointment killed the excitement of the first day of school when the evidence of the school schedule bell system became apparent, knocking the legs out from under the charm the school once held.

Across the nation, new schools are striving for characteristics like the ability to have class changes with no bells. The Scholastic Administrator website-

http://www.scholastic.com/administrator/novdec03/articles.asp?article=spotlightschool

-describes a new school in the Napa Valley, California as having "an open school culture" and a "celebrated model for replication."

The first part of a description of the New California school says it is,

"...AN OASIS OF LEARNING
Walk through the doors of New Tech High's low-key building and you'll find a welcoming environment. With no bells to signal transitions between class periods, the hallways are peaceful and unhurried."

And they are replicating what we used to have. These are characteristics leading schools are striving to have, and we are letting those characteristics dwindle.
Flexibility has been a key to the success of the Johnson Creek school district. In every instance where one has compared the local schools to a larger district, I have been able to counter with a plus directly related to the intimacy and adaptability of the district.

The class size coupled with a block schedule, allowing four 90 minute classes during a day with time for lunch and co-hort or homeroom activities, while having some bugs has the advantages first of being a relaxed atmosphere more conducive to learning. It allows for entire cooking projects to be completed, impromptu field trips to collect samples for science classes, time for lecture and lab work and precious time for rehearsals. There are some shorter classes creating a modified block schedule, but as a whole as reported in previous school board meetings, grades have gone up and the number of people on honor roll have increased while using this system. It has allowed students to concentrate on four areas of study at a time instead of the typical eight in a fragmented schedule of bits and pieces.

Up to this time, everyone has presumed that students and teachers could tell time. And when it was time for classes to change, students changed classes BUT it was done after a teacher completed a thought or an assignment, or a group returned from an impromptu outside lecture or fieldtrip.

These are among the things we are teaching students to understand: When they get to college there are no bells, they must figure out how to be where and when on their continued journey through education and life or they miss out. There are no bells out there. Yes there are deadlines, the trains, planes and busses leave on a schedule, taxes are due April 15 and the curtain goes up after the overture. And some people miss out...

Are the class bells an effort to have fewer tardiness reports? I hope not, because tardiness exists, has existed and will exist everywhere in this nation's schools. It isn't something that can be stopped with bells. Go to any school and it will be a concern of a few people, but an accepted fact by most educators. This is not to say that chronic tardiness is acceptable in schools if for the only fact that it disrupts classes and staggers the momentum of all of the students.

One of the chief factors, a charm factor if you will, that I used to brag about regarding Johnson Creek Schools was that there WERE NO BELLS signaling class changes. It was as though they were making the effort to raise the students' level up to accepting and understanding schedules, leading by example instead of forcing through a mold. In fact I used tell people that the only thing resembling a bell or signal, when it worked, was a large grandfather clock in one of the upper school hallways.

Now we have another vote of no confidence tossed at students, students who are becoming more sophisticated every year.

Why must we head for the lowest common denominator? Sure all area schools may have bells. But hasn't Johnson Creek maintained a standard that says we don't need them? The ongoing the assumption that the majority of students will do the right thing at the right time is the reason tour companies, transportation firms and hotels have written to the schools regularly to compliment the school and the students for their exceptional behavior compared to student groups from other schools when on trips and performing tours.

It is dismaying that the importance of students' timeliness has begun to supersede what they do after they arrive, because only a fraction of learning happens within the set time frame of the classroom. Students follow good teachers out on their own time to test the thermo-dynamics of shelters they built as part of a science project. They make the extra effort to attend rehearsals of musicals nightly, taking the energy of pros as teachers provide examples, often not realizing where the time has gone. They work between classes to gather resources for international humanitarian efforts. Students clammor to see Shakespeare performed in a setting realistic to the Bard's lifetime. They represent the young people of potential career choices who take part in competitions across the state and nation with the extra time and guidance from teachers. It is continued proof that school is and should be a verb - not just a place, or a building where one goes for a specific period of time.

The class bells will have a limiting effect, and have already diminished what remains of the district charm factors. They are the factors in a school system that can make people invest in a home and relocate a family -as our family did. It could have an impact in the future growth of the schools as other families make decisions on moving...or maybe not.

Once a gem is covered or lost no one knows it was there.

There are times when people familiar with what exists don't recognize the glowing and positive facets as assets until they are gone, and that is a shame.

-Lloyd Schultz
2SEP04