By Connor Hawthorne, Staff Writer
Is there any difference between having a class every day, or every other day but twice as long? The students and staff of River Hill think so. According to students and staff, having a class fourth period may be detrimentally impacting the learning of the students involved.
Evan Trost, a sophmore, explains why. “In fourth period the class has to be condensed and goes faster, it almost feels rushed sometimes.” Mrs. Allshouse, a RHHS math teacher, agrees: “There’s definitely a difference between how quickly material is presented.” She explains that, “Oftentimes the fourth period classes don’t get a chance to start homework in class, or they may not have as much time for classwork in class.”
According to many of the students, the subject of the class has a profound impact on the effect the fourth period schedule has. Caitlin Foot, a sophomore, agrees: “Especially with math it’s a lot harder to miss one day and recount all the content.” Among the students interviewed, math and world language classes are by far the most unpopular to have every other day. Mrs. Allshouse explains why they may be abhorred: “Those courses you need to practice every day to keep up your skills.” Learning math or a foreign language requires students to practice every day, a luxury not afforded with fourth period classes that meet every other day.
Senor Wolters, a member of River Hill’s Spanish department, believes that instruction is less effective during fourth period due to the attention span of students “The brain can only master an hour’s worth of content, whether you have an hour or an hour and a half [of time].”
If the fourth period presents such a challenge to both students and teachers alike, why do we even have it? For our current scheduling method, having a class every other day seems to be necessary to fit lunch into every student’s day.
Many students believe that they should be able to choose which class they have fourth period, since it affects their learning so severely. Evan Trost is in favor of having an elective fourth period, “we should have electives fourth period, because electives might not be as important as the core classes.” Mrs Allshouse agrees with this idea in theory, but says it would be realistically unfeasible. “They just can’t, there’s no way to get all of those classes out of the block.” In order to be able to fit lunch into everyone’s schedule, fourth period is a necessity. Unfortunately, it seems like the fourth period is here to stay.