Let me paint a picture for you- you wake up, your alarm is blaring, it’s 6:00 AM (If you’re lucky), and then it hits you- the worst realization of all- it’s Thursday. 

This year had a weird start for everyone, as most years typically do. Everybody had to get used to their new classes, new students, new teachers, and all that new stuff. However, a new form of scheduling made the start of the year much more awkward.

Block scheduling- Everyone’s favorite method of scheduling. I have to give it to the district- they managed to make school even more miserable. That’s impressive. You have to appreciate the amount of research that went in- high schoolers have short attention spans? Let’s extend the amount of time they have to pay attention. High schoolers enjoy talking with their friends in the hall and at lunch? Let’s have less transitions and antagonize people who talk in the hallways. On top of that, let’s split lunch into 4 small lunches, meaning that you don’t get to talk to friends at lunch either.

You can really feel the effects of this bad decision when you see the kind of stress that comes from the teachers needing to cram in an entire year’s worth of content into a semester. On the bright side, you normally have to wait for the end of the year to forget all your classes. Now you can do it in December. Amazing! Now imagine my face when I rolled up to school on Thursday due to mysterious circumstances, and I had to get used to this garbage system the hard way.

For each class, I received the work due Friday, but also the work from the rest of the week, meaning I had 3 classes worth of work to do in one afternoon. Oh, did I say 3?

I meant 6, because block scheduling made each class double its length, and in turn, double the work, and double the homework I need to make up. I left this great building on Thursday needing to read 4 chapters of Lord of the Flies, having to watch 3 45-minute lectures, do 25 math problems based on the lectures as well as a quiz, and that was just from Math and English! 

Not only that, but the classes were confusing. In English, we discussed chapters from a book I had never read. I had math concepts thrown at me without any knowledge of what came before, I had projects being presented without knowing why, it was overall a mess.

Don’t even get me STARTED on freshmen coming into the school for the first time! At least I, a sophomore, know my way around the school after a grueling year that taught me where everything was. Imagine being new to the school and being too sick to learn where everything was! The expectation is that people have a general idea where everything is on day 4, but some people just didn’t.

And that is why starting school on the 4th day is a disaster. Block scheduling alienates people new on day 4 even more than without it. But, I’m sure the 3 people that think it’s a good idea are ecstatic that it exists.