As the juniors of Quartz Hill High School go through state testing, the school gets put on a “block schedule.” On regular days, students go to all of their six classes for about an hour. During block schedules, however, students only attend three of their classes, with each class lasting twice as long. Despite the complaints about the newly instituted schedule, it may not actually be such a bad idea.

In a New York Times Article, Ray Willis, Assistant Superintendent for Communications for a New York school, expressed his views on block schedules: “It increases uninterrupted instructional time. It is widely heralded and accepted around the country. There are some challenges and kinks, but we feel it is far superior to traditional scheduling.” Willis is correct because block schedules limit distractions, allow students to have extra time for homework, and serve as a fun modification from our traditional repetitive schedules.

This schedule allows students to focus on one subject for a long time rather than having to leave class just when they are about to focus on the subject. After about thirty minutes of work, the brain is able to fully understand what it has been learning. With the regular schedule, just as people are about to get used to that subject, they are given a seven minute break to go to another classroom and learn something completely different than what they were a few minutes ago.

Not only is one hour too short to fully learn important concepts, but it is even worse when students are forced to keep jumping from one subject to another without fully learning any of them. Two hour classes, on the other hand, resolve this issue. The student is given more time to fully learn, practice, comprehend, and complete the homework. Learning only three subjects a day allows the student to fully master all three rather than going to six different classes while not comprehending any of them fully.

On block schedules, students are given an extra day to finish that night’s homework. Many high school students are involved in many after school activities such as sports, band, or clubs. Oftentimes, they find themselves tired when they get home and are overwhelmed with the amount of homework that is due the next day. Having that extra day to do homework assignments encourages students not to mindlessly rush the homework for the sake of turning it in. This extra day will allow students to turn in better assignments and learn the material more.

In essence, block schedules are a fun alternative from the regular schedule. Every once in awhile, students need something new to try, and these blocks schedules could definitely be it. Hopefully, the two weeks QHHS has had under this new arrangement will convince students, teachers, and administrators to incorporate it permanently.