Raveeha Rabbani - Week 12 - Powerless.
Power is an extremely complex topic, and one cannot fully explore it without acknowledging the lack of power in many aspects of life. Where we, as teenagers, do have some autonomy over our own life, there are many things which we do not have control over.
Being a teenager nowadays means being bombarded with assignments every day. These tasks continue to add up until one no longer has any time to do anything other than schoolwork. The worst part is that some of this work is actually from classes that we never chose or wanted in the first place. Our school's way of building schedules is so unfair because they have no transparency about how they actually choose who gets to be in the class and who doesn't. Plus, when they make a mistake in the schedule, if you are in any grade other than 12th, they will not even listen to your complaint.
I went through this last year when instead of getting the class I chose, I was given 2-D Animation as an elective, even though it was never even on my course request form. Not only did this waste my 4th period the whole year, but it also negatively impacted my GPA.
I say that it wasted my 4th period because instead of doing 2-D Animation, I could have been in a class that actually contributed to my major, or at least something that I was even the least bit interested in. In my opinion, if they did not have any openings for the classes I requested, they should have at least asked me if I was okay with 2-D Animation or if I wanted a different elective.
This course also negatively impacted my GPA because I did not understand most of what they were doing in class. To be very honest, I did not want to be in that class at all and this led me to not take interest in much of it. Additionally, even though you might think animation is easy, the course taught much more than that, which I was not interested in at all and was unable to understand.
The whole point of me writing this is to point out how our school's schedule building system needs more transparency and communication. Otherwise, students will continue to feel powerless in regards to their courses and encounter multiple problems throughout the school year.
Hi Raveeha! Your blog was interesting and relatable to read, because I’ve had an issue similar to you before. Although I asked for physics as one of my junior year classes, I ended up with marketing, and I wasn’t able to change it because of how popular science classes are at this school. Although this has hindered my plan to complete all three sciences in in-school classes, every cloud has its silver lining. I’ve found that physics has been more beneficial and rewarding for me to complete outside of school because I have more freedom over how I learn the complex subject. Moreover, taking the class marketing has helped me realize that I’m passionate about business and marketing, and this has made me realize the importance of approaching every class with an open mind and without any biases. Although it can be hard to be interested in a class you know you won’t like, it can also teach you why you don’t like a certain subject and you might even be surprised by how interested you are by the subject. However, like your experience, it’s also possible that you’ll realize how much you detest a subject when you are forcefully assigned a specific class, and this can impact a student’s grades and GPA. Although I agree with your point that course schedules should be more transparent at this school, it’s also important to look for the best in unfortunate situations in order to discover new opportunities.
ReplyDeleteHello Raveeha! I can totally relate with your experience about the school messing up elective choices. It's surprising to see how badly they messed up, but I guess you can't ask for everything anyway. I wanted to take AP Environmental Science instead of AP Spanish. They kept me into the AP Spanish class anyway because they had to "fill" the class even though it was on the bottom of my course list. I haven't even completed Spanish 3, for Pete's sake. After a couple of emails and numerous in-person visits with my counselor, I am in no better of a situation and had to take a bad grade last semester, which is extremely stressful for me and because my parents berate me about it every day. As a result, my free time and extracurriculars have been cut short to make room for more Spanish study and I don't really know if I can take it anymore. I have only seen minimal improvements in my comprehension of basic Spanish and don't really know if it's worth it, but I feel pressured to complete the course and scramble for a B or A because Colleges are usually turned away by people who drop classes. Anyway, I can hope for better next year because we are given priority as seniors, but I still expect to continue mailing my counselor. This is a problem that I've been told has severe consequences for the rest of my life, but I'll have to wait and see. Thank you for writing about this.
ReplyDeleteHi Raveeha! I relate to your view on our inequality in the school system. In the beginning of freshman year, got Drama 1 as one of my classes even though it was at the very bottom of the elective list. Although I do not see it as a waste of time since I learned a lot from that experience, such as practicing makes you less nervous on stage and that making a character up helps me stop stuttering. Although I learned all these tricks I still stutter a lot as seen in today's POAS presentation preview. But still when it will come to my actual POAS presentation if I just practice enough I can make it through. My dad always tells me that classes I take no matter what subject, you will always be able to pick up useful skills that could be helpful in the future. Even if you saw 2D animation as a waste of time, I am sure some skills you learned from that class will transfer over to your major.
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