GILROY
– Changes to Gilroy High School’s block schedule are sparking
discussion among students, parents and teachers – one of whom will
even research the issue for his master’s thesis. Some say the
two-hour classes are too long, however, the added time is a plus
for teachers trying to squeeze in la
boratory activities.
GILROY – Changes to Gilroy High School’s block schedule are sparking discussion among students, parents and teachers – one of whom will even research the issue for his master’s thesis. Some say the two-hour classes are too long, however, the added time is a plus for teachers trying to squeeze in laboratory activities.
“We looked for research from places that had done (long blocks) for many years,” Principal Bob Bravo said. “The best research we could find tended to say it didn’t matter … no schedule is the winner.”
Class blocks are a half-hour longer than last year. Students at GHS attend just three classes a day, each about two hours long. The classes meet on alternate days each week, so periods 1, 3 and 5 meet three times this week while periods 2, 4 and 6 meet twice.
Other changes this year include removing Monday’s traditional schedule that had seven classes of 50 minutes each and eliminating a half-hour long “tutorial” period from the other four weekdays. Tutorial was a designated study hall, in which students could get help from any one of their teachers, make up tests or work on their homework.
Both GHS administrators and teachers wanted to remove tutorial because they felt the time was not well-spent.
After putting several schedules to a vote, this year’s schedule was the overwhelming favorite, Bravo said.
Longer classes could make it more difficult for students to stay on task, some say, particularly in a subject they find less than intriguing.
Educators have yet to reach a general consensus on which schedule works best on both sides of the teacher’s desk. Some advantages to a block schedule, which many high schools began to employ in the mid-’90s, are: fewer classes for students and teachers to worry about each day; more time for a range of activities; more one-on-one time; and, a particular concern at locker-less GHS, fewer books to carry.
The two departments that have been most wary of block scheduling are math and foreign languages.
“As a group, most of them tend to say they’d rather have more of the traditional schedule,” Bravo said.
Math teacher Colin Bross, who is conducting his master’s thesis research on the subject, agrees.
“I don’t like it. I just think it’s too long,” he said. “I feel myself actually more tired at the end of the day or the end of the week than I did last year.”
Bross, who is earning his master’s degree in education from National University, is most interested in how perception of the schedule affects student performance and feelings toward school in general.
“If kids don’t like the schedule, then they’re probably not going to like coming to school,” Bross said. “And they’re probably not going to like coming to math or English, what have you.”
This year, Bross sees students, especially freshmen coming from a traditional schedule, fidget and act up more in class. If someone is absent one day, it can be difficult for them to catch up.
However, at this point in his research, Bross agrees that he sees pros and cons to the longer classes.
“There’s a lot of advantages to block scheduling, there’s a lot of advantages to traditional scheduling,” Bross said. “So it’s almost awash … It basically comes down to what’s going on in the class – what are teachers and students doing with their time?”
