Since high school, we have been given a certain number of elective credits we need, in order to graduate. These elective credits are then split into different categories — financial, economic business, and entrepreneurial business literacy; health, safety, and physical education; visual and performing arts; world languages; and life and careers — which we must fulfill prior to graduation.
Electives are integrated into our education system as a way to explore various areas of interest — to find a field we are interested in.
While the intention of this graduation requirement is thoughtful, most students do not take advantage of this opportunity. Instead of taking electives they genuinely find intriguing, they take the classes that are known for being easy or something they can earn ‘an easy A‘ in. They take electives that can boost their GPA, to compensate for their grades in a core subject class.
In no way am I saying that I’m against electives, in fact, I love the idea of having them integrated into our education system. I think it’s a great way for students to get out and explore different interests, even if they claim they don’t have enough time for them. These classes are literally a part of their academic-course-plan, and they can explore them, regardless of how busy they are.
However, I hate the idea that students don’t try different electives because they are known for ‘being hard’ or something that will bring down their GPA. This mainly includes science and business-related electives such as mechanical/electrical engineering, computer science, economics, accounting, or graphic design.
These electives are put into place for the sole purpose of allowing students to explore their options! A concern as trivial as ‘how will this class impact by GPA?’ should not be a considering factor when selecting courses.
While most students would rather take Airbrush, or Fashion & Merchandise, or Sew Much More as an elective, there are a handful of students who are willing to try an elective that will give them experience in a potential future career. However, sometimes these students aren’t given the opportunity to take these classes.
Each school has a select variety of elective options. Some have a large amount of options, while some have only the basic few electives. This means not every child has the same exploration opportunities.
According to research, if a school’s funding is cut, the ‘extra’ classes are the first to go. In most cases, this means electives.
If the purpose of an elective is to provide an opportunity for students to learn about potential careers or hobbies, shouldn’t every school be equipped with classes in various different areas, in abundance?
I 100% agree with you that electives are taken advantage of way too much. I can attest to the fact that during high school, I did sometimes take an ‘easy’ elective rather than expanding my horizon and trying something new. I think that electives are really beneficial for students who are more introverted because if they pick an elective because that is their interest, they will be in a class with others who also share that interest. The stress of finding your people is decreased. In high school, one of my favorite elective classes was a class about the electoral college. I never thought I would like it, but I had always been interested in it. I think that my experience with that class is a great example of why funding should not be cut from school systems for classes like that.
I agree with you on your position regarding elective classes. My original idea to help fix this problem was to get rid of the ‘you have to have taken a certain amount of elective when you graduate’ requirement, but now that I think about it, that will most likely just turn students off from taking elective courses in general. What do you think should be done about this? I also agree with you that schools should offer a variety of elective courses from different disciplines. I wish my high school would have offered more, so I could have dipped my toes in other areas of interest and expanded my knowledge in subjects besides the typical core classes.
This is a great post! I totally agree that this is a problem that needs to be addressed within our education system. You bring up a great point about how students don’t really take advantage of the opportunity that they are given in high school to explore other interests, and then are left struggling in college to try new things and figure out their passions, which can be a lot harder since for some, they are encouraged to specialize as early as possible. I also really like how you brought up the discrepancies between schools as well. While some schools offer opportunities that students just don’t take advantage of, others don’t even have programs for students even if they wanted to take them.
I agree, electives should be used to figure out the passions for certain fields of study. Throughout high school too many people in my grade chose the easy classes to boost their GPA. It was frustrating to see them not take advantage of the the opportunities that electives provide. I typically took electives that I was interested in, however there were a few that I took just because they were easy in comparison to how difficult my classes were. Do you think that they should offer more options of electives?
This is such an important discussion and I am so glad you are starting it. The education system intensely screwed up in the way it influences us to chose to immerse ourselves in content what will get us higher grades instead of things we are pulled towards. I really wish there could be a way to pull the grading system out of electives so that students would enroll in them for the right reasons. There are so many classes that I would have taken if my academic status wouldn’t have been sacrificed for it and I know I am not the only one.