This year’s students are settling into their schedules, with multiple classes being changed from previous years. How do students and faculty feel about the Liberty courses that haven’t changed over the years? The answer is simple: While the current course registry is great, it could be better.
Inside The Teenage Mind
When compared to other schools, Liberty High School is among the few with a widely diverse course catalog, especially when it comes to elective classes. This helps students obtain more variety in experiences and information, which seems to help them in the long run. For example, sophomore Amara Martinda expressed that, ‘This school really allows students to explore all aspects [of life], like with marketing classes, finances, and the heavy arts production.
While the student body generally favors Liberty’s elective classes, the same can’t be said for the core, or required, courses. Some students, particularly freshmen and sophomores, find these classes to be too easy-going.
However, upperclassmen seem to have a different perspective. Senior Bendan Skelcey mentioned, “[core classes] help with critical thinking in their respective areas. But I don’t think that the general idea of requiring classes and testing helps at all. It just encourages [students] to do the bare minimum and drift through classes.”
Students are, evidently, quite a bit divided on this subject. However, most students seem to agree on one thing: Liberty could do better. Students from all four grades have mentioned wanting to add a veterinarian training course to our Career and Technical Education (CTE) wing, along with home economics and cooking classes in general education.
As For Teachers…
A few teachers have also agreed with the idea of adding necessary courses to Liberty’s catalog. As English teacher Amy Scoggins explained, “I want to add a class called ‘Life 101.’ In this class, [students] would learn how to file taxes, boil an egg, make a meal, sew on a button, use an iron, and tie a tie. I try to teach my children that as a parent, but not every child has a parent who can teach them these things.”
Stagecraft teacher Esther Bartels added onto this idea, stating that she would like a social-emotional learning class added to the curriculum. She explained that, “people—especially teenagers—need to think about how what they say to each other affects the world around them. University has all these classes available, but at the high school [level], people think that’s the parents’ job. But we see you for eight hours a day, so we should also be teaching that.”
While many students think so, Liberty isn’t completely failing at delivering dreams. Many teachers at Liberty actually seem a bit envious of the choices students’ have, especially in the CTE and art departments. When asked what class Scoggins wished she could’ve taken in high school, she said, “I wish I could’ve taken a CTE class. It would’ve been interesting to learn about those pathways, like Nursing and Automotive Repairs.”
Bartels shared some of Scoggin’s curiosity about the Automotive class but leaned even more into the art department. She had multiple answers to this question, and said that, “I would love to take jewelry making, ceramics, photography, and graphic design.”
