School. Many kids have a love-hate relationship with school. I know that I do. I am in the IB (international baccealuriate) diploma program, which is kinda cool. In very simple terms, we don't memorize facts (which is what a lot of AP is), but we learn how to apply facts we are taught. We also have to write the "extended essay" and do CAS hours (creative, active, and service hours).
Anyway, the classes I'm taking at school this year are unique but also a lot of work.
I am taking a religion class. Last year I took New Testament and this year is morality. Basically, we learn what is right and wrong and how we know what we know is right and wrong. It is required that we take religion at my school for all 4 years.
I am taking spanish 9/10 in preparation for AP spanish my senior year. We talk, listen to, and write in all spanish.We talk and write only in Spanish. Most of the conversations we have are on general, every day topics, such as our family and friends. We read books and watch movies in Spanish, too.
And of course, I am in marching band! I also take jazz band as a 9th hour class (after school class).
All my other classes are AP, or college level, classes:
AP Statistics is the class which I am doing the best in. I've always prefered math class than any other class because of how logical it is. There are a certain number of steps you follow to do a certain number of problems. The end. In my mind, it doesn't really require as much thinking as writing a three page essay like we do in other classes.
IB Biology is a 2 year course in which we do many, many experiments. It goes very deep into the many layers of biology. It's a very intense course as we cover a lot of material in a very short amount of time.
IB English is also a 2 year course. We study how we interract with other people through different languages and dialects. We also improve our writing skills. Apparently after this class, everyone learns how to write a drop-dead amazing college application essay.
IB Economics. This sounded incredibly boring to me when I signed up for it last year. However, it is actually sort of interesting. In this class we learn about how businesses work and how customers react to different things such as sales and price changes.
Theory of Knowledge. This is a course required to get the IB diploma. It is by far the weirdest class I've ever taken. We walked into class on the first day and the teacher (who is an elderly priest) asked us "how do you know? how do you know what you know? and how do you know what you know is true?". This sounds confusing but my answer to the first answer was "We know because of what we are taught" but then the question arose, "well how do you know what you taught is true?". We talk about simple questions for ages. Another question he asked was "who are you?". Simple question right? But if you really think about it, who are we really? Do our bodies, per say, make up who we are or is it just our minds who make us who we are? And what makes me different from anyone else? Anyway, I am very excited for this class because it's hardly any written work but mostly just a class in which I show up with 9 other people and talk about subjects such as the meaning of life, how the mind works, and how we interract with each other.
Many people may think that school is "boring". That is very, very true at times. However, I think that we should make the most of it while we're there and challenge ourselves. Afterall, "The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you," (B.B King).
