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Administrators, students reflect on relevance of curriculum

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Photo Credit: Kelci Weber and Kristy Johnson

Senior Drew Pragman enjoys the last few minutes before the beginning of a field biology final exam. Hands-on courses such as field biology combined academic content with real-world applications that kept students interested.

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May 7, 2010 • Scott Mullen, Reporter  
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Blue Valley is often ranked among the top school districts in the country. Academically, a better education is hard to find, but not everyone is sure that any high school is able to teach young adults everything they need to know to be successful later in their lives.

Many high school teachers say that the primary purpose of high school is to prepare students for college.

“The district really seems to focus on preparing for college,” Dr. Verneda Edwards, executive director of curriculum and instruction, said, “but it could end up being military school, technical school, or even straight into the work environment for some students.”

The Blue Valley district is no different, and does a fairly good job of teaching students the things they need to know from an academic standpoint, however, there is more to college, and life in general, then knowing the course material.

“Blue Valley schools are good at teaching academics and preparing people for college,” senior Sasha Hurst said, “but we need to get away from only wanting to make money and get back to doing more of what makes us happy. Money isn’t everything.”

The Blue Valley curriculum was created based on requirements set by the government. The federal government sets certain guidelines, the state government makes requirements based on them, and the district creates its curriculum based on these mandates. The Blue Valley curriculum goes beyond the expectations of the state.

“Our curriculum exceeds most of the standards set by the state,” Edwards said. “It covers the state requirements, but the depth at which we teach the skills exceeds them. It’s not just the list of skills you teach, but also how deep you go with them.”

The Blue Valley curriculum is one of the best in the area, but it isn’t perfect.

“We’re typically a grade level above, skill wise,” Edwards said, “but there’s always room for improvement.”

Learning the skills needed to graduate is not the only part of being successful after high school. A student needs to make it through the rest of their lives.

“There’s a lot that goes in to being a successful student,” Edwards said. “You have to be well-rounded. You have to be involved in more than academics, because other activities push you to achieve. Of course you have to be academically strong, but you have to balance your personal and academic goals.”

This can be difficult for some students. Blue Valley offers programs for some students that involve traveling to other districts to study auto mechanics and fashion design. These programs can help students get instruction in fields they are interested in that are not normally offered in a high school setting.

“Last year I went to Broadmoor Tech in Shawnee for training in fashion design,” Hurst said. “It taught me so much more than I learned here.”

These programs can add to students’ education, but some people still feel that their instruction is lacking in some aspects.

“What is really important is finding yourself and what makes you happy,” Hurst said. “If you have an opportunity to find yourself, you should take it.”

The district has tried to implement the teaching of life skills into school through things such as Advisory. Many students, however, consider this class ineffective.

“It’s just a big waste of time,” Hurst said. “They try to teach us life lessons, but people don’t listen to what the teacher is saying.”

Despite this, the administrators still believe that they do a good job of teaching life lessons and values.

“We really stress the virtues here,” Edwards said. “There is a strong emphasis on how you treat others.”

The ultimate goal of high school is to make sure that young adults are capable of taking care of themselves as they move into a more independent environment. While there are differences in opinion over whether or not it does this well, there are people who feel like it worked for them.

“I think high school adequately prepared me for college, but only because of what I did in high school,” 2007 graduate Sarah Morefield said. “If I hadn’t been so involved, and if I hadn’t been in AP classes or classes that challenged me, then I don’t know if high school itself could have prepared me for college.”

The district believes that students should be prepared no matter what classes they take.

“Our expectation is that students will be prepared for whatever comes next for them,” Edwards said.

The hope is that students leave high school ready for college, and most students believe that they are when they leave, but to say that they are prepared for the rest of their lives is a different matter completely.

“Do I think high school prepared me for the rest of my life? No, but I don’t think it’s supposed to,” Morefield said. “I think it prepared me for the next step: college.”

And, in the end, that’s really all that can be expected of high schools.

“The world is constantly changing, so high school experiences change,” Edwards said. “We just have to do our best to change with it.”

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