By Yves Cotterill
In a little town about 30 miles southwest of Mount Vernon called Tiffin lies a high school swarming with teenagers. This high school happens to be Clear Creek Amana. They have a block schedule with four periods every day and one period that’s called a skinny or half block. CCA also had a mandatory half-block study hall at the end of every day.
With the block you have your seven or eight different classes, but you just have four of them every other day. Sometimes there are students who don’t have classes every period so they have what’s called a “skinny,” which is a half block. Skinnies are there for upperclassmen who don’t need any more credits or only need a few more.
The day starts at 8:25 and finishes at 3:20, which allows four 80 minute blocks and one 45 minute half block. The first block I attended was Spanish class, which sounds horrible; having Spanish for 80 minutes didn’t excite me at all. But I soon found out that they actually only had direct instruction for 40 minutes. This is how it went: for the first 40 minutes of block the teacher taught the kids, or they took tests. Then for the last 40 minutes the students had time to do homework, redo test, or just catch up on other classes. Just think with a basic seven or eight period day the teacher spends the majority of the period lecturing you and leaving you with maybe ten minutes to talk to them or get homework done. It’s more efficient for the students and teachers.
I went up and talked to the Spanish teacher about what she does for the last 40 minutes and what I heard was surprising. “I have time to interact with the students, before this schedule I had no time to help students after teaching them; but now I have a good 40 minutes to reteach and help them with homework.” (The teacher would like to be left anonymous). I seemed to notice that the teachers and students would say “in next class” as in the second half of the block period. They considered it as two class periods in one.
Staff and teachers put in an extreme amount of work so that at passing periods kids would have five minutes to get to the next class. That seems like a lot saying out loud, but students aren’t allowed to have backpacks in the classrooms; so that five minutes is used very efficiently by those students. CCA Sophomore Hannah Bormann stated that “Even with the five minutes no one just stands and talks, we all rush to our lockers to get next classes things and then we book it to the next class. It’s a lot of running and bumping into people.”
Block two was even more different. I was asked by a student what Mount Vernon’s schedule was like. When I told them they all looked shocked. They weren’t used to hearing about seven 49-minute periods all in one day. The class I attended was health, which actually had co-teachers. How it worked was one teacher taught the first 40 minutes of the block and did the teaching, then for the second 40 minutes the second teacher would go around and help with the homework or anything else the students needed. They switched spots every other day so that they both get the chance to teach the class. There were desks in every classroom, and there was assigned seating. Some people moved around a lot during free time and homework time, but the teachers didn’t seem to mind all that much.
The hallways were berserk–kids running around to get to class on time, groups of friends squeezing in a little time to catch up on all the new gossip, and lockers slamming. Students are expected to be in class on time every period because of having a five-minute passing period. Every time I went into the hallway there was someone getting knocked over, or shoved out of the way. It was never in a bully or mean way, it was just because everyone is rushing and there are so many students in one hallway that you’re most likely going to get knocked over once or twice.
Third block was by far the optimum period, it was Algebra 2. Algebra is probably the most boring class of the day to most students, but this class had fun ways of having the kids interact with each other. And it helped that the teacher didn’t care if phones were out. This teacher seemed to be the only one who didn’t care if you had your phones out. “It’s your fault if you don’t learn, they know that. It’s their responsibility to listen and pay attention.” stated Mr. Elliot. The students knew that too, most of them multitasked and had their phones out, but still paid attention to the lesson. Then there were some kids that didn’t have their phones out; I could tell they couldn’t pay attention with it out. It was a very different experience with the teacher allowing phones out so freely. Normally teachers won’t allow your phone out at all; it can’t even be out on your desk in some classes.
Going to Clear Creek was one of the best things I’ve done so far this year. It was such a wonderful experience, and having attended classes there as an elementary student, it was amazing seeing how much the school system has changed. The teachers and students were so accepting of me, and very kind about answering questions.There wasn’t one time that whole day I didn’t feel welcomed. The whole school gives off a really good feeling; everyone was so nice and kind to each other. The principal was interactive with the students, and actually acknowledged them when they walked by. Going to Clear Creek for this article was such a great idea.
