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Stifled by block scheduling

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I’m surprised there haven’t been more stories like this:

The Middletown High School vocal ensemble has qualified to participate in the state choral festival in May, but practicing between now and then will be a challenge.

Students and choir director Lori Bower have started scheduling after-school rehearsals, but it’s been difficult.

Senior Timmy Huth said the ensemble’s May performance will suffer because the 20 members might never practice with everyone in the same room.

The school’s daily schedule consists of four 90-minute blocks. Students in the ensemble agreed it was a pain being limited to four classes each semester, but senior Sarah Engle said she prefers the 90-minute classes.

Junior Jason Spiegel said the four-block schedule halts the vocal ensemble’s progress because the group cannot practice year-round and makes life difficult for all students interested in the arts.

I don’t teach in public schools, but it seems like the block-scheduling thing pits discipline against discipline. English and history teachers prefer the longer classes so they can discuss subjects more in depth, and they can assign longer reading assignments between classes. But subjects which benefit from more frequent repetition of smaller skill sets, such as foreign languages and math (not to mention music) do better with conventional daily schedules.
 
Somebody somewhere must have devised a hybrid schedule to accommodate these different needs, for example starting each day with two big blocks and then continuing with a handful of standard one-hour periods. That would be great for students, but impractical for staff, since each teacher could only teach a half day. Maybe you could mirror-image the schedule for half the students. With a big enough school, that might work.

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  1. Allen et al.:  I don’t teach in public schools either, although many members of my family have and do.  But just to state the obvious, maybe for schools whose administrators have bought into a strict block schedule participation in festivals and competitions should no longer be considered an option! 
     
    And thanks for bringing up foreign language instruction, which requires exactly the same kind of daily repetitive study and drill that the performing arts do.  Strict blocks must be hell on earth for dedicated foreign language teachers!  (And my mom was in both music and foreign language and probably would have quit before adopting a block schedule!)
     
    At the college level I have enough problem adjusting from a 50-minute MWF schedul to at 75-minute TTh schedule, because you have to completely rethink your presentations.  I can’t imagine filling 90-minute periods, except of course for rehearsals.  But not in a classroom setting.  I’ll have some 75-minute classes this semester, and I’ll be uncomfortable and probably release the students early more often than not–an option not available in the public shcools.
    All the best,
    John

  2. Not all block schedules work the same way.  Our school has a conventional six-period day on Mondays.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, periods 1, 3 and 5 each meet for two hours.  Wednesdays and Fridays, periods 2, 4 and 6 meet.  The idea is that it provides a kind of compromise between the needs of classes that would benefit from different time lengths.  All six periods get to meet throughout the year.  The block scheduling at my school presents problems for me in terms of class management and lesson planning, which I suspect would be less of an issue with shorter rehearsal periods that don’t tire the kids out and challenge their attention spans so much. And also, the administration has to do some juggling of the calendar to make sure the “even day” classes don’t get short-changed by three day weekends. But in any case it is far less problematic for me than the kind of block schedule described in this post.

  3. We have a number of posts here on ChoralNet (dating almost all the way back to the beginning of Choralist) mentioning and discussing block and modified block schduling. A “pure” block, with only 4 classes per term does seem pretty hazardous to music programs, IMO, as I’ve always advocated for more, not less choice for students, who need to be free to explore their many talents and interests.

  4. I taught public school for 6 years on the block schedule. I’ve never heard of a block schedule in which only 4 classes were taken per semester. This story is an exception, not the rule. Most (if not all but this one) block schedules are actually 8 periods–4 per day and alternating days. So one week you have your “A” classes on MWF, and “B” classes on Tue/Thur, and the next week the opposite is true.
     
    The end result is usually longer total “seat time.” I loved the block schedule in this format. It allowed for ample time to sight read, warm up, work craft, learn theory, etc… and still have a good 50 minutes left after all that for a solid rehearsal. That said… when my school switched to a regualar 6-period day a few years ago, I did find it to be a much better situation. While my class sizes were reduced in HALF (going from 8 periods to 6, basically cuts 2 electives), the retention rate increased exponentially. Meeting every day allowed students to remember things taught the previous day and they learned much faster.
     
    While I’m not against the block schedule, I did find that the 6-period day served “choir” purposes better.

  5. For the past eighteen year, students at Blue Earth Area High School in Minnesota have used the block system.  With a graduation class of only 100 students, the solution was to split a block between instrumental and vocal music. Each group has a forty minute rehearsal each day – students not participating in both areas have study hall or lesson time scheduled. The first block of the day contains music offerings for grades 10-12, while the second block has the freshman music offerings. The rehearsal has to move quickly, but working with the students every day is worth the adjustment from a traditional schedule. While there has always been a tradition of strong music at Blue Earth, enrollment increased when this school moved to the block system. All in all, it was a positive change.
     
    Best wishes,
    Mike

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