One thing that no high school student likes is work. At times, the workload can feel very overwhelming and stressful. Most students would much rather never have any homework. This is obviously an unreasonable request. However, there are several scheduling changes administration can make to help students achieve the best academic success possible.
Firstly, expanding Wildcat Wellness would be great. Almost all students love it. It gives students a time to catch up or get ahead on schoolwork – once a week. And that’s the only problem with it. If Wildcat Wellness lands on a day in the week where you barely have any work, then it doesn’t do much good for you. If we were to have Wildcat Wellness several times a week, it would be even more beneficial than it already is.
The way Wildcat Wellness is currently scheduled proves that it would not be hard at all to make this happen. Wildcat Wellness itself is 41 minutes. As a result, each of our class periods are shortened from 46 minutes to 42. This is hardly a significant change. Teachers and students could easily adjust to class periods that are 4 minutes shorter; it probably would not have a big effect on instructors teaching their content. And it’s not as if this is something radical. Lots of schools across the nation have daily study halls. Given WJ’s intense academic culture, why not us as well?
Another change that WJ should consider is moving from a seven period schedule to a block schedule. This would be a pretty big change, but a very helpful one for students. This semester I have physics and Calculus back to back to end the day. These are classes that require maximum attention, but it’s very hard to function at your best after already going to five other classes. It truly is a miracle that we manage to make it through seven classes every single day, five times a week. With a block schedule, students would only have three to four classes a day.
Now, the classes would be much longer, but students would still likely feel a little more fresh knowing they don’t have as many classes to go to. Most importantly, students would be able to manage their homework load a lot better. Having a block schedule usually means you don’t have the same class two days in a row. If you get homework for one class on Monday, it wouldn’t be due until Wednesday. Students would be able to chip away at their work in a productive way, rather than doing everything the night before.
In addition to making high school more manageable for students, a block schedule would also help students better prepare for the future. After all, most colleges tend to use block schedules. Why not give high school students a small idea of what their college experience might look like?
There have been a lot of great steps taken by administration to make life easier on students. Hopefully, they can expand even further on what’s been done so far to ensure the best possible learning environment for students.
