Bulldog Times

School's Pointless?

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 By Amanda Cherry

Classes. There are so many different ones students have to take, but are some of them really necessary for the future? Certain students think there are irrelevant classes and that BHS students should be learning something else. Studies show that in 2007 about 6.2 million students between the ages of 16 and 24 dropped out of high school. The reason for this large number could be because students feel they’re not learning anything important for their life after school. Junior April Rodriguez suggested that some BHS classes could be updated to reflect high school students’ needs for greater relevance. “ My Business Information class basically taught us how to type and use Microsoft Word; everyone already knows how to do that,” Rodriguez said. So what should students be learning instead? Texas law says that students must have four years of English, Math, Social Studies, and Science so those core classes have to stay, but suggestions definitely trend toward students’ futures. “ A business class, that would help with future jobs,” junior Na’miah Davis said. Or, another class suggested was a job search class. “Maybe a class to figure out what career path you would want to take,” freshman Nicholas Andreas said. Both of these classes seem pretty logical, but could another reason the students feel like some classes are irrelevant is because they clash with their teachers? “Teenagers are at the ‘rebel’ type stage and we rebel against (teachers’) authority so the teachers get aggravated," Rodriguez admitted, acknowledging another difficulty facing all high schools. Some students have suggested that the students use a petition to argue for these more career-oriented classes. “Well that’d be great but I honestly don’t think it would work,” Rodriguez said. Editor’s Note: BHS does offer a variety of career-oriented classes, including: Architecture, Desktop Publishing, Theatre Production, Culinary Arts, Ready, Set, Teach, Sports Medicine, Agriculture Mechanics, Sculpture and Video Game Design to list but a few. However, these upper level courses generally have pre-requisites that limit their availability to those students who have chosen to pursue these fields from early in their high school careers.