High level classes are hard. That is a fact, a hard truth, but that shouldn’t mean students shouldn’t take them. In fact, they should be the classes that teachers are pushing students to participate in. Hard classes challenge students and invite them to learn about subject areas that they may have never heard of before. Though difficult, students should be encouraged to partake in these higher level classes.
In a world that seems to be fond of taking the easy way out, teachers should be encouraging their students to do the opposite. They should advocate for looking for challenges, making mistakes, and taking the road less traveled.
Recently though, at Hellgate, many teachers of advanced classes seem to be going in the opposite direction. Many students starting these classes have reported overwhelming feelings of anxiety just after the first day. This is a new trend at Hellgate, as in years past many teachers have been insanely supportive of students attempting to take higher level classes.
Anxiety in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but so much of it that students are dropping classes before they’ve really even started? That’s the opposite of what teachers should be trying to accomplish.
Telling students, “If just going over the syllabus is overwhelming to you, you should drop this class,” after purposefully making the syllabus sound much harder and scarier than it actually is is just asking students to leave the class. This makes fewer kids attempt these higher level classes, thus reducing their learning experience at school.
Supporting kids through an attempt to challenge themselves and delve deeper into topic areas that interest them should be something that teachers strive for. Their job is to help kids learn, even if the student is struggling. Actively trying to get them to drop the class and not even attempt the hard work is the opposite of what they should be doing.
This mindset seems to come from college-level “weed out” classes, where the professor would be attempting to find out which students are serious about their career path. This is still not a great way to teach but at least it has a solid reasoning behind it. But, this is high school, and students are still figuring out what they want to do. So they shouldn’t be scared away from learning about new and interesting topics.
High school is an important time to try new things, because the stakes are low and students are meant to make mistakes. But if teachers take away that ability, students will never try new things and will stick with what they know they will succeed at.
So, with teachers at Hellgate trying to scare kids out of classes, they are preventing students from learning interesting new things that they could adore. Not promoting taking a chance is detrimental to young minds and the future of the world.
