When I went in to have my senior meeting with Ms. Luksan, I was suprised to see that I had an empty slot for where my first period should have been.
Whoo-hoo no first period.
What actually happened was that my schedule was so fixed that all of my choices for a 6th subject class were unavailable.
The reason for this inflexibility in schedules is that this year the senior class is so small that there are often periods with classes fixed to them.
EX.
1st period: Spanish HL or French HL
2nd period: IB History
3rd period: either TOK or IB English
4th period: either TOK or IB English
5th period: IB Math Studies or IB Calculus
6th period: IB Biology or IB Chemistry
*I am fairly sure that the schedules are set with this framework, however I may have confused some of the classes.
Anyways, since I had already tested out of my Language and 6th subject period, that left me with two empty periods and one of those slots being taken up by the TOK class.
Yet, my schedule left me with only a first period slot opening, with my 2nd to 6th periods set, completely set and inflexible.
What I choose last year as my 6th subject (Physics) was not offered first period. My second option, taking the junior year level Chemistry was also unavailable for first period.
The only options that I had to work with was taking a forth year of Spanish; picking up a 7th period class and run a 2nd period-7th period day (Dance or Theater); or taking a non-IB class such as yearbook, home economics, journalism, or teacher's assistant which would be graded off of a 4.0 scale as opposed to 5.0 ib classes.
To be honest none of these options were very appealing to me. I had no desire to take another year of spanish (even with all of the benefits of having a second language..sorry), and I did not want to take dance or theater. So what I worked out as a reasonable option for myself was possibly being a teacher's assistant for the new pre-IB music appreciation class that is now required for all freshmen.
*a little sidenote: There is no longer an Inquiry class. It is now replaced by half a year of IB music appreciation and a half year of PE.
So I am going to end this post with a little survey. If we could have another IB class (one that was not yet offered at Franklin) what would you like:
1. Another language class (Japanese, Chinese, Latin, Russian, German, Latin, etc.)
2. Business and Management
3. Classical Greek and Latin
4. Computer Science (I am only including this because we no longer have the class)
5. Design Technology
6. Economics
7. Environmental Systems and Societies
8. Film
9. Geography
10. Human Rights
11. Information Technology in a Global Society
12. Peace and Conflict Studies
13. Philosophy
14. Politics
15. Social and Cultural Anthropology
16. World Religions
You can submit your top 3 preferences in a comment.
Well that is all.
I hope to see you all on the first day of school.
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14 comments:
The classes I wish we had:
1. Another Language (Japanese)
2. Social and Cultural Anthropology
3. Peace and Conflict Studies
(also wouldn't mind World Religions, Human Rights and Business and Management)
Hmm - ALL OF THEM - well.... hmmm - just three right?
Okay -
1- Film
2- Philosophy
3- Classical Greek and Latin
(but also: World Religions, Design Technology, Politics, Peace and Conglic Studies, and German)
Alright the whole FHS only offering 2 languages - this drives me nuts!!! At Mira Loma HS I am almost as positive as a proton that they offer many, many more choices. Spanish and French are great, but what about Mandarin, German, and Japanese or even Italian and Arabic? Our language department seems rather limited for being a "World School". On the flip side both sides of the language department are well established, get our highest scores, and are taught by fabulous instructors. So the question is should we break the mold?
Are you sure it is music appreciation? Because Mrs. A told me that it was theatre and that they are bringing in the kids from the K-8 PYP/MYP schools for an hour three times a week or something like that, and they are rotating... that was two months ago so I don't know anymore. Paffdaddy do you have the answers?
ok. well it was mrs. t that told me. she said that there is a music appreciation class and that it would rotate between two freshman classes during first period. so im guessing it's a rotation between music and pe.
maybe the freshmen have options for their arts credit as in between theater, music appreciation, and art? so they can pick the class they want to rotate with pe?
business and management, design tech, and film would be awesome.
how do we get our schedules if we did not meet with Counselor Luksan?
Here are likely reasons why we don't have more languages:
-money,resources
-appeal to teachers
-location
Yeah - thank makes sense
Ms. A made it seem like they were busing the kids in from the other schools... which would be cool to a point... and that those kids would be there for the arts stuff but not the PE - I also thought it was a rotation between art, music, and theatre... and then dance and PE - that would be cool if they did that because it would be a sample of all the IB arts classes. That way they were more prepared for picking classes in the 10th grade - because the only other option is physics, so if they didn't like the others they could choose that.
Yeah - location would be a big thing I suppose (the other reasons are right up there)
I don't understand... is it a generational thing, because our peers think other languages would be cool to learn, but I had to fight my parents just to take french
I am right there with you about film - but isn't it still a pilot class (like dance) - scores could be risky, and I am sure the $$$ required to teach that would be big time!
film would be expensive at the beginning to buy all of that start up equipment.
As technology progresses and digital camcorders become less expensive, i think this is a very feasible option.
I don't know if the IB syllabus is online - but are you positive that they would teach off of digital? I know (since that will be my major - 99.2% sure) that at most colleges they make you start with 16 or 24 mm anyway, before they let you use digital.
how about a culinary class? we all have to learn how to live on our own once we move away to college, and learning how to cook on your own sounds appealing...
food sounds good anytime of the day.
=]
*Abyssamba... on my blog soon maggie and ib will be helping me post cheap easy recipes for you to take to college.
i'm in the same situation. i wish we had more science options and had super knowledgeable teachers in the sciences. the classes that u listed are more arts oriented, and i would like to go more into the sciences. i dislike that we have to deal with such inflexibility in our schedules. i wish there were more options. i don't mind taking spanish though. i just hope i score higher in HL than i did in SL
As far as the sciences go, the Group 4 only offers five courses; biology, chemistry, design technology, environmental systems, and physics.
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