Contrary to the TGIF sentiment that most Americans share, I detest Fridays.
The reason for this uncommon distaste is the all-hour day held on Fridays in the Blue Valley district. Find me on one of these all-hour days, and without fail, I will be whining about my lack of sleep and energy or the amount of work I still have left to do.
Besides my pessimistic attitude, these complaints are directly correlated with the seven-class structure set at the end of a five-day school week. The all-hour day has an awkward amount of time set for each class, has no breaks in the day for students to rest their minds and creates more work for students to do over the weekend.
Each class on a Friday is 53 minutes, which is not enough time to dig deep into a subject or even take a test, especially for more challenging classes.
Fitting a chemistry lab in little under an hour was one of the more stressful experiences as a slow-moving detail-oriented kind of worker. However, 53 minutes is also too much time for teachers to plan a small activity. Many a time I have sat in a classroom bored out of my mind because the only activity planned for that class took 20 minutes.
The typical 90-minute class length used for the rest of the school week is much more productive in my eyes. A teacher can introduce, lecture and hold an activity on a topic whilst still giving students adequate time to process the information and ask questions.
I find myself staying much more engaged with the material, the increased amount of time giving momentum to my thoughts and allowing for a more thorough analysis.
A concern with block scheduling is that students’ attention spans cannot last a full 90 minutes and are more aligned with the traditional seven-hour schedule. Be that as it may, the majority of teachers do not lecture bell-to-bell without a single break, especially not the teachers in our district.
Every teacher I have this year structures their class in a way so there are multiple activities which break the hour and a half into shorter, more manageable chunks. In fact, I find the activities on Friday are more difficult to concentrate on because there is only one 40-minute lesson.
Another reason for my enmity toward the seven-hour days is the lack of a proper break for students. Odd days of the week have a 30-minute AST built in for students to catch up on their work and communicate with teachers. Even days have a whopping hour for students to rest. Fridays have nothing, unless you want to count lunch as a break.
My freshman year, Fridays were not my favorite because of the onslaught of all seven classes, but Tiger Paws made that time manageable. Now, despite Fridays being the day where I have to turn in the largest amount of homework, there is not one time to catch up.
According to an article from the University College London, breaks reduce stress, increase energy, improve memory and boost creativity. Our Friday schedule desperately needs time scheduled to rest.
Fridays create more homework compared to the block schedule days. Simple math: there are seven opportunities for students to get assigned work instead of three or four. The short class schedule also demotivates students to get work done in class. What’s the point of bothering to do the homework when there is only 10 minutes left? This combination of many classes and little time is the perfect breeding ground to send students home with bucketfuls of homework to do over the weekend, or if you are like me, on Sunday night.
Friday is undoubtedly, the most detestable, least desirable, most miserable day of the week. That I can say with perfect certainty.
The short classes, the barrage of homework and the lack of a break are enough to make me want to cry.
