By Staff
Our current education system places heavy emphasis on general education classes—English, History, Math and Science. Though these courses are helpful (when actually made to be mentally challenging), the emphasis on general education has forced elective classes to be deprioritized.
This poses an issue to students all across America, because deprioritizing electives is ingrained into many schools. Even here at Benicia High, we are starting to see elective course options being cut. We, as students, are told that school is preparing us for the future—that without school, we’d be ill prepared for the “real-world.” There is some truth in this. Chemistry may help students avoid mixing certain cleaning products in the future because they remember a reaction could occur. Math can be helpful when figuring out a budget. Still, many of these general education classes don’t provide kids with knowledge that is going to be used on a daily basis as an adult.
Unless a kid finds intense interest in becoming a math professor or statistician, high-levels of math aren’t going to help file taxes. The same ideas apply to science. Unless a kid finds intense interest in that one field—Chemistry, Biology, Physics, etc.—the chances it applies to a student’s everyday future is slim. The general education courses can still build soft-skills (critical thinking, work ethic, common sense, confidence, communication, etc.) and help diversify our students’ ability. The issue we currently see, though, is that electives have benefits that general education classes cannot provide, and we are losing such life-altering benefits because we have deprioritized elective courses. Such deprioritization has infected society’s mindset, and it has altered the road students must take.
Here at Benicia we have the typical electives like drama, band, and art classes. However, our school does offer some more unique electives like auto shop, robotics, medical classes, and graphic design. We even have “Geometry and Construction” where kids learn how to apply math in the real world. Benicia High is truly offering some great elective classes that have the potential of helping students find a deeper passion and path towards the future.
However, electives are often last-thought classes. Kids pick the easiest ones or pick a class randomly because the courses offered don’t match any of their interests or because they need those elective spots to be attractive to colleges, which prefer AP classes. There are elective AP courses, but here at Benicia High there are very few options in that category. AP Psychology is one of the only courses offered. This turns kids away from exploring courses that could potentially spark an interest in favor of trying to get accepted into a good-ranking college. If a student is loading their schedule with AP classes to look more attractive to colleges, they will be more likely to pick a class they don’t have any interest in because they’ve heard it’s an easy class to pass. The student simply wants the elective credit so they can gain more “beneficial” courses (according to the education system standards). Though the class picked for its ease still has the potential to spark interest, since the student is entering with a mindset of ‘easy A’ there’s less of a chance for true growth. The thought that AP classes are the most beneficial when applying to colleges is an ideology that is ingrained in our school system, so one high school offering more diverse elective courses won’t change that.
Still, the benefits of electives cannot be denied. We asked Benicia High School students how their lives have been impacted by elective courses. Mayala Austin, a junior who is part of the Colorguard class, said, “[Colorguard] has helped me with many things, such as being more confident. I’m so grateful the guard has brought me such wonderful people I can call my friends.”
Bella Cannon, another junior, said that her Leadership class has “definitely shaped what I want to do in the future. I am now sure I want to go into politics and law in the future. [Leadership class] has also helped me discover my love of volunteering and helping people, and I hope to continue that in the future.”
Elective classes should still be as diverse as possible to give students a chance to explore. We must not forget that as much as colleges love academically advanced students, they also enjoy unique and well-rounded students. Diverse elective courses help provide such a trait to our students. Elective classes should not be deprioritized to general education courses simply because students get to choose them. In fact, student’s choices should be valued more about what is forced upon them. That is why elective courses are just as important if not more important than general education classes.
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