Have you ever wondered how school would be if classes were doubled, or what if they were halved? Some people have even been through both, with some students liking 40 over 80 minutes or the other way around.
Jamil Lamarre-Bey is one of those people who prefers 40 minute period to eighty minute blocks..
“I really think that periods are better than blocks,” Jamil said. “Yea there are many benefits to blocks like not feeling rushed sometimes with work… but even with all its benefits,s I still think blocks are a horrible idea that will affect everything about a student.”
Despite this being a bold claim Jamil still has reasons on why he dislikes long blocks. One of the reasons is the attention span that is needed in order to focus 80 minutes in a boring class.
“It’s like the blocks were designed to make me sleep during class,” Jamil said.”If the student cannot stay focused in class then everything will go down like the snowball effect all because the blocks were 80 minutes instead of 40.”
With the complaints mostly being about the attention and focus needed to be in a class for 80 minutes but Lucas Jacobs a junior said with periods he would feel like he was rushed especially with test
“There is no need to feel rushed and everything such as tests and essays can be taken without having to constantly worry about the time and affect your essay grade,” Lucas explained.
With stress being a really big problem with students today, this is usually the argument used to show that blocks are better than periods, but Deyanei Diaz, a junior in the Bronx, thinks,“The teacher could simply just move the thing into two days and it would no longer be a problem.”
Deyanei is saying that instead of making the students and everybody feel rushed, the teacher could simply split the class into two days as class goes on for all year instead of just one semester.
“I would only have two semesters to keep my classes grades up, so if I mess up in one semester I’m cooked,” Deyanei said.
Deyanei makes a valid point when talking about the stress a student would feel during the school year. Students would stress over a test that they might not have time for, but with blocks students only have two quarters to get their grades up compared to four quarters. Students can makeup and fix that one bad test grade over a longer period of time without having to stress about the classes semester ending.
“Although the use of block scheduling is widespread in the United States, its effectiveness is still unclear…The body of contradictory findings in this area suggests that what works best for one school system does not necessarily work best for another,”reported Charlotte Gruber and Anthony J Onwuegbuzie, who looked at the differences overall with research done supporting both sides of the argument.“Although the use of block scheduling is widespread in the United States, its effectiveness is still unclear.”
There were many valid points and arguments for both sides, periods and blocks. In my opinion there are many more benefits to having 40 minutes classes over 80 minutes classes for students. Despite change usually being a good thing, this aspect I think scheduling using periods over blocks is better for students.
