I think it's been well-established (some twenty years ago IIRC) that 45 minutes is about the max attentiveness - after that it's diminishing returns.

When I was giving tech talks to customers that's the schedule we used. Now that I work from home I try to do that - 45 or so full blast, then a break.

Rinse and repeat. Gotta go with the manufacturer's original wiring!

Off topic, but unless you're on a European trip, you seem to
have hit July 1 well before the rest of us.

Class periods used to be 50 minutes in schools in the US for a reason.

Then about the time my kids got into high schools, block schedules became all the rage.

Kids were trapped in the same class for an hour and twenty minutes every other day, with text books broken up in lessons for a 45 minute period.

I believe a lot of potential instruction time was wasted this way, but the teachers and the unions pushed for it, because it gave them a shorter work day.

Whenever they do military tech schools it is 50 min class and 10 min break. It usually is closer to 14 minutes as we get back and sit down.

That always seemed to work well for us.

I am actually a huge fan of the block schedule *because* of this issue, so I was surprised to see that it served your kids so poorly, Isab. I hated the 50 minute classes at one high school because it felt like you never got a break---teachers rushed through the lesson, then you rushed to get your stuff together, then you rushed across campus to your next class. It was worse in classes like PE and band/orchestra with significant chunks of time needed for changing clothes or setting up instruments. Good luck asking for a pass---the teacher would say (rightly!) that in a 45-minute class, there are no breaks. When I switched to a block schedule school, the teachers pretty much taught/lectured the first hour of class (after the initial settling down/attendance/announcements) and then we'd get a break and a chance to work independently and ask for help, if we needed it. We still had 8 classes per semester, but we were allowed to have a break (a real break rather than a rushing transition) and a guided study time after each 45-60 minute block of instruction.

Then about the time my kids got into high schools, block schedules became all the rage.

We had modified block scheduling at my high school. Mon, Thurs and Fri were the normal eight 45-min classes. And on Tues and Wed, you had 90-min blocks.

It worked out great for science classes because the 90-min days were always lab days. You could do longer, more involved labs and not have to rush. Great for art classes too. And for orchestra, where we could actually play all the way through the longer pieces more than once per class.

But it was pretty awful for language classes, English, history and math. Lots of time wasted because teachers struggled to fill the time after our brains stopped working and often just gave us glorified study hall for the last half hour or so.

But it was pretty awful for language classes, English, history and math. Lots of time wasted because teachers struggled to fill the time after our brains stopped working and often just gave us glorified study hall for the last half hour or so.

Posted by: sofar at June 30, 2014 9:27 PM

Yep, that was our experience also.

All standardize testing seems to show that schools are doing less well educating kids, than they were forty years ago. There are a number of skills that we learn better practicing a little everyday, rather than a lot every other day. For those subjects, a block schedule, really cheats the students.

Science labs are fun, but they don't teach much. They mostly, when done correctly reinforce concepts learned in the classroom, but they are rarely used that way.

JHAC, I think if you looked at it from a less personal perspective, you would see that the block schedule is particularly hard on boys, who often have shorter attention spans than girls do.

That rushing around thing between short periods of instruction, is down time for your brain, and good for your physical well being. It gets your heart rate up, and stretches your legs.

I dunno. I have ADHD myself and the block schedule worked better for me and seemed to work well for lots of others. My school had been doing block schedule for 10 years when I got there, so I imagine the teachers were just used to the schedule by then and had had time to realize that, no, all hell doesn't break loose if you let kids actually have a real break to talk, read, listen to music, walk to the library and back, etc. I definitely agree that it wouldn't have been as positive if the teachers had been trying to fill the whole 90 minutes with instruction. We still got periods of rushing around (though at both schools, the rushing wasnt really physical enough to get your heart rate up; it was more mental rushing of remembering which books you needed from your locker, which bathroom was most likely to actually be available without a line, etc) so there is that.

I guess it's just further confirmation that there isn't a one-size model for schools, which is another pet issue of mine. I don't doubt that a lot of kids do better with 45-minute classes, was just sharing my experience.

What is the "block schedule"?

I didn't have block scheduling in high school, but some friends did, and it works more like College classes, where you have certain classes for two hours, with a break in the middle of the classes, and take maybe 3 classes a day, instead of the traditional 6 or 7 period schedule.

" I think if you looked at it from a less personal perspective, you would see that the block schedule is particularly hard on boys,..."

Probably why the Educrats like it.

Amy, block schedule is a system of ~90 minute classes used in some high schools. My school did a rotating block--- you'd have four classes on one day, then a different four the next, so you still took 8 classes per semester. Some schools did the same four classes every day for one semester, then took a different four the next, attempting to cover a full year in one semester by doubling up on class time. Other schools did the modified block, where they'd have two or three long class periods and the rest were the traditional 45-50 minute classes. I think all the forms of block schedule have fallen out of fashion now; it seemed to be mostly a 90s thing.

@jHAC

If you were in one of those schools where the instructors were already so poor, that the block schedule made little difference to you, or actually helped, than I sympathize.

All objective measurements of how people learn, and how long their attention spans are, indicate that it benefits no one but the teachers and the unions.

"That rushing around thing between short periods of instruction, is down time for your brain, and good for your physical well being. "

I don't know... The high school I went to had 50-minute classes with 10-minute breaks. I always found the breaks stressful because of the difficulty of getting to the next class on time. When I first started there the classroom building was really old; the corridors were narrow and poorly lit. You had to push and shove your way through everywhere, and some of the upperclassmen took great pleasure in doing whatever they could get away with to delay the freshmen in the hallways. And the school was a stickler for everyone being in class on time. If you were more than a couple of minutes late, you could be locked out, and then you'd be stuck with an unexcused absence. In my junior year, we moved to a new building that solved the crowded-hallways problem, but I never managed to get out of the mindset of dreading the rush between classes.

In the college I went to, the schedule at the time worked like this: Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes were 75 minutes per period. Tuesday-Thursday classes were 2 hours with a 10-minute break in the middle. I must admit that I actually preferred the Tuesday-Thursday classes and took them in favor of the others whenever I had a choice. It was a good 50 minutes, then you'd get a few minutes of downtime, and then come back to the same subject and finish off. Tuesday-Thursday classes usually ended at a good breaking point, whereas the instructors in the Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes often had to stop in the middle of a topic when time ran out.

When I'm working a specific task, like coding, I can go for much longer -- 4-6 hours without anything other then a quick bathroom or water break, and I actually prefer it that way when I'm concentrating on something. But that's individual work, not a classroom.

Whenever they do military tech schools it is 50 min class and 10 min break.

Back when the US Army actually used to move infantry from place to place by foot, rather than by truck or aircraft, the orders called for 50 minutes of march and 10 minutes of rest every hour. Combined with a 28-inch step length, 90 steps per minute, and you could calculate the distance a battalion or brigade of infantry could travel in a day with a fair degree of precision. Trust the military to find some way of hanging on to a ghost of that old rule.

I wonder if block scheduling was inventing by someone with a lot of stock in whichever pharma company makes Ritalin or Adderall? :)

Science labs are fun, but they don't teach much. They mostly, when done correctly reinforce concepts learned in the classroom, but they are rarely used that way.

I guess I was lucky at my school, in that I got a lot out of the labs. I'm a hands-on-learn-by-doing kind of person. Plus, in the upper-level honors/AP classes, we were often required to design our own labs, which was great experience for those who went on to study science in college.

I think one of the worst uses of block scheduling, though, was when the teacher lectured for the first 45 minutes and then we'd take an exam for the last 45 min. After our brains were already tired out and we'd been sitting in the same spot for 45 minutes already.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/upshot/americans-think-we-have-the-worlds-best-colleges-we-dont.html?_r=3

This seems applicable.

And CousinDave, if you felt rushed in between classes, Your school was too large, or the breaks were too short.

Again, this is usually driven by a union contract which benefits the teachers, instead of the students.

Well actually, the block schedule school I went to was a well-regarded magnet school in one of the highest-scoring school districts in the country at that time. I don't know that I really need your sympathy, since I am happy with the experience and feel like I greatly benefitted from that school. Thanks for the sentiment all the same. If your kids had to attend a school with teachers so poor that they couldn't adapt, you have my sympathies as well.

I don't think it's accepted at all that there is one right way to learn or work, which is why I support school choice. Certainly some kids do very well with 45-minute classes, and their parents ought to be able to send them to schools with that set up.

Cousin Dave, you had ten whole minutes between classes?! We had five!

Sofar, I completely agree about labs. Hands on learning is just incredibly valuable in teaching science at the high school level.

I don't think it's accepted at all that there is one right way to learn or work, which is why I support school choice. Certainly some kids do very well with 45-minute classes, and their parents ought to be able to send them to schools with that set up.

Cousin Dave, you had ten whole minutes between classes?! We had five!

Sofar, I completely agree about labs. Hands on learning is just incredibly valuable in teaching science at the high school level.

Posted by: Jenny had a chance at July 1, 2014 9:25 AM

Most of us don't live in cities that can provide more than one or two options at most.

This is why home schooling is huge in rural areas.

My mother was a school administrator that specialized in tests and measurements, and academic placement. She watched and documented the downward slide in educational achievement as each new fad came along.

Jenny, I am happy you are a satisfied consumer of public education.

You have no way to compare your experience to what it might have been like if you had been educated in a system like Finland, for example or had graduated from high school at Bronx Science in 1965 .

I was already getting a second rate education by the time I graduated from high school in 1974 .

My children got a fourth rate education,

But most parents enjoy seeing those shiny A's on their children's report card so much, they don't much care, that college course level work in the US was being done in the 9th grade fifty years ago.

"Historically, lab experienceshave been disconnected from the flow of science lessons in U.S.classrooms, and this remains typical, the report says. Such labexperiences help develop some aspects of scientific reasoning and playa role in boosting students' interest in science, but they have littleeffect on helping them master subjects. These exercises are often narrow in scope and more focused on mechanical procedures than on meaning"

From :http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/08/050809065445.htm

I found this to be true even in college chemistry and biology.

It's funny, but even though I had the freedom to choose my class schedule when I went to college, I tended to set my classes back to back. Virtually every semester, I would have three classes in the morning and one in the afternoon MWF. Tuesday and Thursday, I typically had one morning class. However, I don't think either way had an impact on my ability to learn.

"I found this to be true even in college chemistry and biology."

I know exactly what you mean... in the one physics class I took in college, it was like the lab was a completely separate entity operating from its own plan. It was routine to have a lab on a topic that had not been covered in class. High school was much better because the instructor ran their own labs.

"I tended to set my classes back to back."

Funny how we all have our different preferences there... I wanted my classes spread out. Rare was the quarter in which I didn't take an evening class.

Cousin Dave, you had ten whole minutes between classes?! We had five!

And we had four! In a school that was horse-shoe shaped (and we weren't allowed to leave the building for security reasons, so no shortcuts). If you had a class on one "end" and the next class was at the other "end", you had to run. No time to stop at your locker. That's another reason I sort of liked block days -- I only had to carry a couple classes' supplies with me instead of, like, four or five classes' supplies.