While students still have about three full months remaining in this school year, March is marked by course selections. Already, students are being asked to make careful decisions about their schedules for the 2013-2014 school year.
In addition to traditional graduation requirements and electives, Aragon will possibly be offering The Art of Video (detailed separately), AP Music Theory, Yoga/Pilates, Peer Helping, Personal Finance, and Career Choices.
AP Music Theory, an intensive year-long course for juniors and seniors, will be making a comeback after being absent from this year’s course roster. It will be taught by band conductor and music teacher Troy Davis. However, AP Music Theory’s return is not based on student popularity, but on tradition.
Davis comments, “We’ve been offering it every other year. We have a certain number of spaces based on the materials we have, but I also need to have a minimum number of students in the class to make sure it will run.”
Junior Chelsea Victor, who plans on taking AP Music Theory, comments, “I want to be a singer when I grow up. I think it’s good for me to know music theory and to know the history behind music. I think there’s a lot of students here at Aragon who are dedicated to music, so I feel like those people would take AP Music Theory.”
Many students have expressed excitement over a new yoga and Pilates class that will be taught next year by current health and PE teacher, Barbara Beaumont. According to Beaumont, the semester-long class will be titled “Mind, Body, Fitness.”
Beaumont comments, “Students have always said that it would be good to have this [yoga] type of class. The PE department is really supportive about it. I’m going to cater the class to however the students want it. If they say they want two days of yoga and two days of fitness, then I’ll do it that way.”
Junior Laurel Machak explains, “I really would like to do yoga outside of school, but I don’t have time for it. I’m really excited to be taking yoga during school.”
Although the class will be new to Aragon, yoga and Pilates classes are available in other schools in the San Mateo Union High School District already. Continues Beaumont, “I used to teach a class like this at Hillsdale, but it was an aerobics class. Because it already exists in the district, it didn’t need to be written up as a new class.”
Efforts to bring a peer helping class to Aragon have been headed by teachers Vince Bravo and Cristina Trujillo. The semester-long course, similar in parts to one at Mills High School, aims to teach students valuable skills in communication and problem solving while also preparing students to be leaders in the Aragon community.
Explains Trujillo, “After completing a semester of training in the fall, students can apply to be either peer helpers, peer tutors, or peer educators. This will allow them to help in mediation, tutor in classes, or pursue projects that they think will help the Aragon community.”
Even if students are not interested in being a part of the peer helping program after completing the semester-long course, Trujillo encourages students to participate to hone the skills that the class helps to teach. Says Trujillo, “Other schools have had programs where students participated because the class offered communication skills. Some graduates come back to teachers and tell them that they use the peer helping skills in the workplace. They’ve had to work with people that have very different personalities or belief systems, and sometimes that gets touchy. It’s good to have those kinds of skills to listen, communicate, and be open-minded.”
Adds counselor Steve Allekotte, “Peer helping is a fantastic course for students who are interested in becoming counselors or psychologists.”
Next year, seniors will exclusively have the opportunity to take two individual semester courses titled Personal Finance and Career Choices. The classes will both be taught by teacher Julie Suess of the special education department.
