When I first told my friends that I would be writing this
column, they immediately suggested that I write a column expressing
our displeasure with the new schedule. Over the summer, we all
heard rumors of just what our new schedule was going to be
like.
When I first told my friends that I would be writing this column, they immediately suggested that I write a column expressing our displeasure with the new schedule. Over the summer, we all heard rumors of just what our new schedule was going to be like. When I first heard that we would have all of our classes on Mondays, and block schedule the rest of the week, I flipped out. I thought it was ridiculous, made absolutely no sense, and would never work. I remember my mom telling me to calm down, to give the schedule a chance before I passed judgment on it. Well, I can now say that I have given it a chance.
The schedule this year is a stressful and overwhelming. Having all of our classes on Mondays means that we have to do homework for all of six classes over the weekend. The weekend used to be time for us to relax, but now it is just another opportunity to do more homework.
Sometimes on weekends I will have up to 5 hours of homework for a single class, and with 6 classes….well, you can do the math. One three-day weekend, about month or so ago, I spent 4 hours a day on flashcards for my AP English class. That’s twelve hours of homework for one class, and when you add all our classes together it is a lot of work. With the block schedule, we would only have to do half the amount of homework at a time.
The new schedule of having all of our classes at the beginning of the week has been putting a lot of stress on the students. Some students have felt so overwhelmed this year that they wanted to just break down and cry. Several of my friends have often come to school dead tired because they stayed up until 2am, 4am, or even 5:30am, just to finish homework.That is just not normal, nor is it healthy.
The new schedule doesn’t just put strain on the students, but on their backs and their book bags. Looking around school, you can see students walking hunched over to support the weight of their backpacks, or if they carry tote bags, like many girls do, leaning to one side to accommodate the weight. On Mondays, my book-bag weighs approximately 14 pounds. Yes, I really did weigh it. Imagine having to carry that weight around all day. Better yet, imagine trying to find a book-bag that will hold three binders, five notebooks, a workbook, approximately 500 flashcards, and your lunch. The straps on two of my book-bags this year have broken from the strain.
Although it has been difficult to manage the new schedule, the teachers have been helpful regarding the schedule. Many of my teachers have gotten us a class set of books so that we do not have to carry around the additional weight of textbooks, and thankfully, in my classes that do not have a class set of books, my teachers do not make us bring our books on Mondays.
It is also a lot harder to get things done when you only have half the amount of time you are used to having in a class. In my AP Biology class, we often have difficulty finishing labs in a two-hour class period, much less in 55 minutes. Similarly, in my Foods and Nutrition class, we cannot make food on Mondays because we simply do not have the time. I imagine that this is the same for all classes that involves labs or other hands-on activities. Once, my AP English teacher spent 45 minutes of our 55 minute class assigning work and giving out deadlines to turn it in.
I guess it is hard to find a schedule that works for everyone. Last year people complained about the block schedule. The school decided to change the schedule to try and find a better solution, and now people are complaining about the new and “improved” schedule. Some people liked the old schedule better, and some like the new schedule better. I know that the school is trying to find a schedule that is a good fit and works for the teachers and students, and that not everyone is going to like it, but I would much rather that we go back to the old block schedule.
Deena Morsilli is a Gilroy High School student who writes a bi-weekly column for the Dispatch. Reach her at Mo************@ao*.com
