Numbers and Blocks: My School and Classroom
I teach at Middletown High School in Delaware. The high school is part of the Appoquinimink School District, which, according to its website, is the fastest growing district in the state at the time of this writing. The district's growth creates unique challenges that will not be discussed in this paper; however, of late, the impact on classroom size and basic resources such as books, supplies, and classroom space has been negligible. According to the data on the "School Matters" website, the demographics of my high school, which straddles a rural and suburban mindset, is roughly 72% of the student population white, 22% of it black, and the remaining percentage a mixture of Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native. Of the total student body, about 11% is considered economically disadvantaged. The Muninetguide website lists the median household income of the three towns from which the district pulls students is $50,012 for Middletown, $63,909 for Bear, and $63,944 for Odessa; the United States median household income is $52,250.\
Last year, our school adopted a block schedule as part of an ongoing effort to improve its Delaware Student Testing Program (DSTP) scores, as previously the school had been failing to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP). This testing falls under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. While this paper is not the forum to debate the merits or shortcomings of block scheduling or the NCLB act, the changes to the school created a new set of challenges for both student and teacher. Within the English class, a block schedule severely impacts the time students have to read literature and process new information. The impact, then, has been that the English department found it necessary to trim content being taught in order to ensure the academic semester did not become a marathon sprint through material. Additionally, teachers decided that in order to give students more time to process information, concepts and skills would be introduced much earlier than the unit in which they were focused. This would give students multiple exposures to the big ideas being taught as well as an extended opportunity to ask questions, practice skills, and – most importantly – simply think.
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