As the colored pieces of paper circle the hallways of Miami Lakes Educational Center, students discuss what classes they’re considering taking next year. However, many students are oblivious to the fact that their classes are already predetermined before they even check off a choice.
Subject selection sheets have recently been passed out, and many students are excited about taking electives that they’re interested in or possibly getting a year off of a core subject where they’ve earned all their credits.
Yet all of your classes are already predetermined by the color of your collared shirt.
The idea of a subject selection sheet is equivalent to giving your younger sibling a controller that doesn’t work. It’s so that they could feel in control, as if we have a say in all of this.
To put it simple, your red shirt already holds your AP Biology and Anatomy courses before you can even sign off on it. Your light blue shirt has already received the syllabus to your AICE classes or Calculus AB, even if your math credits are done. We all signed away our fate from the minute we stepped on these school grounds.
Administration may defend this point by saying that you must take a math and science every year if you want to go into an Ivy League school. What the school fails to realize is that not everyone has the same goals for college.
“Not having a choice to choose my classes is personally awful,” said sophomore Samantha Medrano. “But I understand, to some degree, people with the 4 year plan like me need these type of classes to advance on the career we chose.”
As a result of this illusion of choice, it creates major traffic when schedule changes come around in the beginning of every school year.
“It’s just left over sophomore engineers that couldn’t be put in any other class and the rest are seniors,” sophomore Antonella Bermudez said when asked about her AP Human Geography class taught by Ms. Whitby. “All of us, if not most of us, didn’t even sign up for this class.”
Bermudez had originally signed up for Music of the World in hopes to finish her arts credit. However, the administration’s plans differed.
This is simply what the school does best: pretending to give freedom to its students while ultimately having a set path for everyone. Although MLEC does give students the opportunity to get ahead of the game, there comes a point where they begin to dictate the lives of their students.
