Schedules. Isn’t everything at least in some way shaped by a schedule? So then why are they so boring? If something is to be a daily occurrence, such as school, shouldn’t people try to make it at least somewhat exciting, somewhat different day to day? That’s what I want. No more going to the same classes every day at the same time every day!

But if I’m going to talk crap about our bell schedule, I should at least explain why. Furthermore, I should offer a solution. There are some pretty awesome bell schedules out there, in my opinion.

The 7 Classes A Day Schedule

Monotony. If I had to describe Chamblee’s schedule in one word, it would be monotony. We have seven classes a day, and each day we go to those same seven classes in the same exact order. Like what person thought this would be a good idea? I have a bone to pick with them. 

I don’t know about you, but doing the same exact routine every single day kills me. I wake up, I go to APUSH, and then I go to AP Lang, and then I go to AP Physics, etc…I think you see my point. This is every single day for an entire school year; it never ever changes. I know I already said this, but it absolutely kills me. I moved to Chamblee in seventh grade, and at my former school, we had a different schedule for every day of the week. One day, maybe two months after I had transferred, I was sitting in sixth period German, and I realized that for the rest of the year, I would always be in sixth period German at this time. I almost cried (thank God I sat in the back of the room).

When school is already pretty uneventful, the least they could do is give us an interesting schedule. Mix it up a bit, guys!

The Block Schedule with 4 Classes per Semester

I don’t like this schedule either because it’s basically the same monotony. There is only one change during the year, after winter break, but for the most part, you are going to the same four classes every single day, so I don’t really find this any better than Chamblee’s.

I do admit there are some good qualities to this schedule, though. Your classes are longer, so you can get more done in a day, and you also only have four classes worth of homework, which is amazing. Seven classes of homework is pretty impossible to manage no matter how you skew it.

But there is also a severe downside to this schedule, and it has to do with AP classes. The exam is in May, no matter when you had your class, so if you have your AP first semester, you have to wait another whole semester of forgetting the material before you take the test. You might not do as well, and it also adds on a lot of stress because you do not have class time to review the material with your teacher; you have to do it all by yourself.

The A Day, B Day Block Schedule

Okay, now we’re finally getting somewhere. Not so monotonous! If you don’t know what this is, basically you have two different schedules: an A day and a B day. On A day you have four classes, and then four different ones on B day. You switch every day which schedule you follow.

This schedule has a lot of benefits. First of all, you’re not doing the same thing every day, which already makes the schedule ten times better for me. It might still be sort of monotonous because it’s just every other day, but it’s a step in the right direction. It also means you have two days to do your homework because you only meet every other day. Last but not least it also fixes the AP class dilemma of a semester style block.

The ‘I Have No Idea What This is Called But I Like It’ Schedule

I’m going to start out by saying I don’t see a way this would be possible to implement at Chamblee, but it’s still pretty awesome.

The key to this schedule is splitting your electives from your core classes (in this we are going to be simple and say science, English, social studies and math are core classes and anything else is an elective). This schedule is really hard to explain, and you kind of how to see it in action to understand, but I will do my best.

On Monday you might have English first, then an elective, then science, then social studies, then another elective. You would end the day with math. On Tuesday it would flip. You would start with math, have a different elective, then social studies, then science, then another different elective, and then end with English. This is a super simplified version of this schedule. There are lots of other factors, but that is the gist of it: every day, your schedule flips so that you go to your classes at different times of the day, and you have multiple electives that you go to but only two or three times a week.

There is no monotony because everyday of the week is a different schedule. Again, I don’t see how this would work at a DeKalb County school because you do not have every class for the same amount of time per week, but maybe in the future, they could figure out a way to make it happen.

I Also Don’t Know What This is Called, So I’m Gonna Call it the A-I Schedule

I heard about this schedule from my friend who goes to PACE Academy, and I immediately fell in love with it. It has everything I want in a schedule and more.

In total, you have seven classes, and they are each assigned a letter A-I. If you’re smart you would notice that going from A-I is nine letters. “What are the last two letters for?” you might ask. The other two are for study hall or free periods, and these could be any letter in the schedule.

This schedule is super complicated and hard to explain but I’m going to try. Okay, here goes.

You only go to seven of the nine slotted periods a day. One day you might go to classes A-H but skip class B, and the next day might be classes B-I, skip class C. 

I’m positive that’s not exactly how it works, but the point is that you are never going to the same classes in a row. I think my friend told me it repeats itself only every three or so weeks. Pretty awesome! It may be hard to figure out at the beginning of the year, but pretty soon it would be second nature.

So basically this is my dream schedule. No monotony and even a study hall. Sometimes two a day! (Sorry STAR period, but you’re just not this good).

Now, unfortunately, knowing DeKalb this would be absolutely impossible to implement, so, for now, I can only dream. But I can’t wait for college where the schedule is so much more flexible.