bene!
During the past week or so the junior class has been racking their brains over what classes to take senior year. Whether to take that free period, whether a fun, art-filled senior year is worth it in the end, and whether AP is where I really belong, are just a sample of the multitude of questions that have been plaguing many a mind. But let's look more closely at that last question, the question of AP, or advance placement classes. To understand this loaded issue I offer you a speech made by one, Dr. Eugene Baron, to my latin IIIH class on Wednesday. These are not his exact words because I just plain can't remember them, but the general idea is the same. Keep in mind the skepticm over open-enrollment.
The school is really pushing for everyone to load up on APs, for everyone to take as many of them as possible. And I don't think that is necessarily a good thing. An AP class is supposed to be a college level course, requiring a great deal of time. I think by forcing kids to take a lot of APs you can kind of dumb the class down. It's getting harder and harder to make your transcript look unique, to make it stand out from the crowd. The real problem is grade inflation. Unfortunately you have everyone from any Joe Schmo High School with a 5.0. So you look for new ways to make your transcipt stand out. So you have to try and build up a lot of extracuricular activities. You try everything from skydiving to swordswallowing. But then everyone has a bunch of activities, so now what do you do. The school is encouraging everyone to take as many APs as possible. I just don't think you can take more than a couple and do them adaquetely. There are just not enough hours in the day. I think the school should require anyone who takes an AP to take the AP exam at the end of year, but that isn't going to happen.....
You get the jist of what he was saying and it was hilarious at the time. I just wish I hadn't waited two days to try and write it down. I should have written it down right away, but hey, that's life.
By the way here's my proposed schedule for next year:
AP Government
AP English
AP Latin
AP US History
H War and Peace
CP1 Ethics
CP1 Stats/Calc
Acc Philosophy
posted by So it goes... at 11:59 AM
4 Comments:
ah... AP English with Fur-dog. Sounds good. If I could make one recommendation to you, it would be to take an AP test for every class... especially your language! They aren't as hard as everyone makes them out to be and are worth the credit in college.
Thanks for the advice. Actually, taking the AP tests is one of the main reasons I'm bothering to take those courses. By the way, how was English with "Fur-dog"? Was there a lot of summer work?
how are you taking accelerated philosophy? with who?
-johnson
I've heard that intro to western philosophy is taught by Roach or McDaniel, though who teaches what often changes. On the topic of it being accelerated I had heard rumor about the level being such and got it confirmed by Mr. Berger. (Hopefully he knows what hes talking about.)
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