NHS’s Hidden Curriculum

Course selection is right around the corner. It is the time of year where ninth through eleventh graders  decide what classes they want to take in the upcoming school year. Many students also take the time to discuss course options with their friends or peers. I, as a rising junior, for example, have talked to numerous sophomores and juniors to try and get a sense of what classes will be most appropriate and beneficial to me in my second to last year of high school. 

When holding these conversations, students often brought up AP classes. Previously, I had thought that AP classes, specifically AP U.S. History, AP Lang, and AP Art, were the first AP classes available to NHS students, specifically juniors. Through these conversations, though, I began to hear other answers, with students stating that as   sophomores they were taking AP classes, and  even knew of ninth graders  taking AP classes. I was completely unaware that taking AP classes, specifically electives, was an option for students below junior year at NHS. These new revelations caused me to talk to the students taking these AP classes to try and achieve a better understanding of how they were able to enroll in those classes. 

For instance, AP Seminar is a full-year elective that sophomores and up can participate in, but few sophomores even knew it was available to select for this year. Shiki Kitamura, a sophomore taking this course, discussed how she heard about the course: “I heard about it from friends and also an email from the office. I went to an info meeting where people who had already taken it talked about the class.”

I also asked Shiki how many sophomore students were in the class, and she said that there are four others alongside her, and the rest are all juniors. 

A student in my English class this year asked about the course recently, and was told it is a two year course, so it only runs every other year. Since the information about it was not widespread in  my grade last year, all the sophomores who did not get the chance to sign up for it this year missed out on the opportunity of taking the class because it will not be available until  our senior year, and therefore we  will not be able to complete the full course. This is super important!!

Similarly, AP Computer Science is usually not open to ninth graders  because a prerequisite  of the class is to take Intro to Computer Science, and even if you’re a sophomore that has taken the intro, juniors and seniors are allowed into AP CS first. 

Ilan Bernstein, a first year student taking AP Computer Science, informed me how he was able to take this class without the prerequisites: “I heard about the class through the Program of Studies. I hadn’t completed the prerequisites to get into AP CS, so I needed to create a project demonstrating my understanding of the material taught in previous classes. I also had to complete some summer work assigned specifically to students who had not completed the prerequisites, and fill out a form about my previous experiences in computer science and why I wanted to take this course.” 

Ilan’s experiences goes against what many of the school guidance counselors tell NHS students.When I posed these questions to a guidance counselor about taking AP CS as a ninth grader , I was told there was no way that was possible without the intro course, but Ilan proves that to be untrue. While this course should be left relatively open for older students,  there should also be more widespread information that these harder courses can be available to someone who's interested in them if they are willing to put in the work. These AP courses are integral for many students, and can be beneficial for college. These courses can also grant students interested in a certain subject matter another chance to take a course that will challenge them in their discipline  of interest, and it makes me curious that if the information had been more widespread, would I have considered taking some of these courses or recommended them to a friend? Even more so, many other public high schools in surrounding areas, such as Belmont, Lincoln Sudbury, and Watertown, allow their younger students  students to take multiple AP courses, so the question is, why does NHS have misinformation and limits on these courses? 

In addition to limited communication about the availability of these AP’s, there is also a miscommunication about taking more than one class of a certain subject in one year. For example, at the beginning of the year I started to hear about some freshmen students being in sophomore geometry classes. I was confused about how these students were able to achieve that, because I had thought that was not allowed. Had these students somehow already taken algebra so they wanted to jump to geometry? Or were they doubling up on math?

I talked to freshman Arya Chavan, who is taking accelerated algebra with other 9th graders, alongside taking accelerated geometry with 10th graders. When I asked Arya how she was able to achieve this, she said, “I actually didn’t know geometry was an option until my friend told me about it.”

Arya also went on to say that she thought that taking extra or double classes like this should be more advertised instead of having to scroll through the many options in the course guide. Having this option  was especially important to her because previously she has not felt challenged in math because she takes \ math courses outside of school, and if her friend had not told her about this opportunity, she would have continued to feel bored in math this year.

Math is not the only subject students can double up on. Apparently, juniors can take AP Bio along with their regular chem class, despite students frequently being told that only AP English, art, and history, and some elective AP classes are available. 

Many students love to be challenged, and they also are driven to find courses suited to their interests. AP classes and doubling up on classes is a great way for students to achieve this goal, as well as get ahead of other students. NHS is a competitive place, just like many other schools. Students will do all they can to make sure they are as set up as possible for their post-graduation lives, and many believe that these more intense classes will help them have more success. Although, if very few people are aware of these opportunities to take more classes, and students are consistently hearing misinformation or the information is not communicated effectively, how will they ever obtain the ability to take all these courses they want to take?