As an international exchange student, I knew life in the United States would be different from life in my home country of Sakartvelo, known to the rest of the world as Georgia. Fundamentals that I assumed were common across the world, are extremely different here. This includes street life, relationships between people, cuisine, and even academic culture.
One aspect of school life in the United States, compared to the school life I’ve experienced in my country, is the scheduling system.
FHS currently has a quarter block scheduling system where students have four classes a day. These classes are either semester-long or quarter-long. Students take electives as well as required courses.
In my school, however, the students do not pick their classes. All the classes are year long and all are required. At the start of the year, the school provides a weekly schedule for the semester. After the semester ends, students receive a new weekly schedule, where they have the same classes but just at different times.
In my opinion, both of them have many advantages and disadvantages at the same time. At first, the system of the FHS seems great. Students and teachers have a lot of time to slowly go through the material. The students have more time to absorb the information and feel more confident in their knowledge.
On the other hand, because of so much time, the material gets covered quickly and the students are left with a lot of free time not doing anything. Filling those gaps with something productive can be very difficult for teachers, that’s why in most of the classes students just sit, waiting for the bell to ring.
Also, the quarter classes can be considered as a disadvantage. A lot of information gets covered in a short period of time, which leads students to forget the material at the end of the year that they learned in the first quarter.
Compared to the FHS system Georgia has much shorter classes which can be considered as an advantage, students don’t get bored, classes and teachers change every forty to fifty minutes, and the students don’t lose focus.
In contrast, short classes might not have enough time to explain the lesson fully. Teachers almost always take extra time and usually spend the break time. Students get stressed often and they don’t have enough time to get ready for the next class. Some students that have a slow learning pace find short classes challenging, due to the time limitations.
Taking everything into account, even though I’m Georgian I still prefer the FHS system better. Given the fact that I am a slow learner, I think that longer classes are more suitable for me. You have the freedom to study the things that you are interested in; such as drafting, medicine classes, marching band, journalism, mechatronics, and so much more.
