Build it, and they (won't) come

[PSUFAN]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08060/86 ... lstate.xml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

sad.

[BSmack]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08060/86 ... lstate.xml

sad.

Yet very typical.

[Mister Bushice]

Block schedule teaching sucks, and will result in shitty below average test grades for HS and college entry exams, dropouts and a significant lack of retaining core subject matter for most students.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

Block schedule teaching sucks, and will result in shitty below average test grades for HS and college entry exams, dropouts and a significant lack of retaining core subject matter for most students.

It depends on the subject and how adept the teacher is at using the time allotted. If the teachers are idiots and basically just teach two days' worth of material each day, well, then yeah, the kids will do poorly. But that's NOT how you're supposed to teach in a block schedule. You're supposed to mix up teaching strategies, break things into smaller chunks, etc.

For science courses, block is the ideal, since it allows you to teach a complex concept gradually, reinforce the concept with an activity/lab, and then give a formative assessment all in one day. I can't even imagine trying to teach complex biological concepts in a meaningful way with only 40 minute chunks of time.

My district has been using a 4x4 block schedule (classes meet 5 days a week for 84 minutes a day, for one 4.5 month-long semester) for at least six years and we have great results. I have had a 100% passing rate for years for average and above-average students and an almost 100% passing rate for classified kids (my passing rate with classified kids is so good that other districts ship their kids to my class via BOCES). As far as retention, I have many of the same kids from the semestered bio class come back to me two or three years later in AP Bio and/or my infectious diseases elective, and I can see that they retained the material from the initial class. Our other science classes have similar results.

I don't place ANY stock in alleged "educational studies" purporting to show that block scheduling fails across the board. There are far too many confounding variables to remotely describe any of the alleged studies as meaningful. I also believe that block scheduling/semestering better prepares kids for college, since that's pretty much how college schedules operate.

What it comes down to is a commitment on the part of the teachers, administration, parents, and students to change their mindset and strategies. Too many damned teachers are so set in teaching in the same way that they are used to that they fight new schedules tooth and fucking nail and sabotage new efforts. Teachers have to be willing to innovate and change their lessons, administrators have to be willing to give the teachers professional development time to do so, students have to be willing to work to do the increased homework and study load, and parents have to do their frigging jobs and check their kids' work for completion and quality (and hold the kids accountable if either is below expectation).

[Diogenes]

At least they're trying something different.

Two questions:
Is the Hill district in the hood or the burbs?
Was the meeting at night or in the middle of the day when all the parents were at work?

Just curious.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

The article states repeatedly that the meeting was held at night, but neglects to state the precise time. Additionally, the article states that a "neighborhood leader" cited the "residents' nontraditional work schedules" as a possible reason for low attendance at the night meeting.

I'm not sure if I'm buying it. Parents seem to talk a good game when it comes to supporting their kids' educations, but when push comes to shove, they usually pussy out.

For example, the teachers in my district who teach the 9th and 10th graders decided that we wanted to celebrate the academic achievements of the kids. The parents and staff go all out for the athletic awards banquet, so we decided to hold an academic awards banquet.

The half-dozen of us got together to obtain the honor roll listings for the previous semester and determine which kids in the 9th and 10th grades made high honor roll and/or honor roll and how many times, print out the certificates, get the appropriate administrators and school board members to sign the certificates, coordinate a dinner with the cafeteria for the ceremony, get the PTSA to help fund some school-related prizes (car magnets, etc.), send letters to the parents a few weeks in advance to invite their families, and then coordinate the RSVP responses & report back to the cafeteria and PTSA with the final numbers. We also call the local paper to have a brief story and pic for publicity (we also put a blurb/pic in the district newsletter).

The response? Less than half the families bother to RSVP, and many of those who do tell us that they honestly don't want to haul themselves to the school just for a free spaghetti and meatballs dinner and a "piece of paper" for their kid. They just don't seem to want to take the frigging time to recognize their kids' efforts in academics.

There's no frigging excuse. Yeah, they work, they're stressed, and they're tired. Boo-fucking-hoo. Got news for those folks - same stresses and fatigue apply to the teachers, and we turned around and ON OUR OWN, tried to organize a way to recognize their kids for their hard work. We carved chunks out of our own personal time/family time and our own budgets to honor their kids, and the parents just couldn't be frigging bothered (by their own admission) to take an hour to celebrate their kids.

It's frustrating, but we're going to keep doing it, because the kids deserve to be recognized for doing the right thing and working hard. The parents who did show up always tell us how much the night means to them and their kids. I hope that they spread the word to their slacking "colleagues."

I refuse to stop encouraging the kids and pushing them to do better. Someone has to do it, especially if their parents won't.

[Mister Bushice]

Mike,

They tried that concept where my kid used to go, and it failed.

They had 3 classes from sept to Dec, and 3 from January to May.

One semester my kid had PE, English, and Math and a 90 minute study. Never any homework.

The next Semester, it was History, Science, and keyboarding, and a study class. Rarely was there home work, except for a science project here and there.

By June the kid forgot pretty much everything about the English and Math classes, so the next year was like starting over. We pulled her out of there because clearly she was not absorbing, she was bored out of her skull with 2 hours of english every day for 4 months, then 2 hours of math every day for 4.5 months.

They stopped the program when two consecutive graduating classes ranked in the lower 30 percentile statewide on their competency tests.

two years later, under a normalized school curriculum, the students ranked in or near the top 30, it was that dramatic a change.

Also student absenteeism dropped after the program stopped. Under the block program, the kids were so bored and the classes so easy to pass, they skipped out a lot. It cost the district thousands of dollars.

That's the block program I witnessed, and saw fail miserably.

I've taught kids guitar and piano in the past and when they broke continuity by skipping the summer months completely, it was like starting from square one when they returned, and that includes both the physcial playing ability AND the theory comprehension.

[Mike the Lab Rat]

One semester my kid had PE, English, and Math and a 90 minute study. Never any homework.

...The next Semester, it was History, Science, and keyboarding, and a study class. Rarely was there home work, except for a science project here and there.

...she was bored out of her skull with 2 hours of english every day for 4 months, then 2 hours of math every day for 4.5 months.

The problem wasn't block scheduling per se, but the piss-poor implementation of it. The fact that no homework was assigned for a year is a serious problem. It's obvious that the decision to switch to a block schedule was poorly thought-out by administration and not supported by the teachers, who deliberately sabotaged the effort by refusing to assign homework. I assign homework 3-5 nights a week at the freshman level and have a 95% compliance by the end of the first 5-week quarter (it's always 100% by the end of the 2nd quarter).

Blaming lack of retention on block scheduling itself doesn't fly. The fact remains that colleges work on a "block schedule" and yet, somehow, those students somehow manage to not only retain the material, but go on to academic success. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that professors assign homework, which the students [gasp] are expected to do.

Yes, there is a difference in cognition and overall maturity beyween adolescents and college-age students, but there are high schools (including my own) in which block scheduling works just fine. Just like any program, if the top folks involved with implementing it do a half-assed job and the staff undermines the effort, it'll fail. Sounds exactly like what occurred in your kid's school.

[PSUFAN]

The Hill District is PGH's most storied 'hood. The "non-traditional work schedules" is baloney. What community doesn't have that? In a hood like this, the fact is, little family structure remains. Most folks who look to make something of themselves pretty much leave the Hill ASAP. There has been yet another urban renewal program there, mixing public housing with market-value housing. I think that some 'burb type African American families have moved there.

The galling thing is that Hill leaders do little to encourage community involvement in a positive sense...that garners few headlines. When there is a chance to rail against The Man, the carpet is thick with community advocates.

Here we have an opportunity for involvement with neighborhood educational resources. Look out for the tumbleweeds.

Sad.