Choosing Science Courses for my kids
Choice is good, but there comes a point where too much choice becomes a problem. When the Integrated Math curriculum was introduced in Portage, there were so many choices for what math course to put our kids in that many of us didn't know what to do. I didn't know which choice would provide a better preparation for future coursework, and there wasn't much good advice available. Looking at how that turned out, some of us have kids that didn't take the right course for what they wanted to take the next year, and many of us had kids in classes that were either not challenging enough or too challenging. It would've been better to have known which class was more compatible with a college prep program and which was better for kids for whom math isn't their strongest subject.
With the new science curriculum, following the four semester courses in the first two years of high school, there's only the Junior and Senior years to figure out which classes to take. Two of my kids are really into science and the other two aren't, but my husband and I expect all of them to take four years of science because it's so important to us. A well-rounded experience in high school is also important so we don't want our budding scientists to forfeit any electives by doubling up on science either year (they can do that when they get to college). Similarly, so they don't specialize too much too young, we'd prefer to avoid the 2-year IB concentration and encourage them choose their two favorites sciences for further learning. However, if most of the other more academically capable students take the IB course, that leaves our kids in a class that won't be able to cover near as much material. That's a problem because they need to be ready for the hard science they'll be taking in college. Furthermore, we don't want to spoil the zeal they both have for science. By having too many different flavors of science, the student body becomes fragmented in ways that don't promote good learning. I'd be much happier if we kept the one-year courses in each type of science, and had two sections for each: a) one for those students who want to study science in college, and b) another for those students who don't want or need such an intensive year. I've got two of each, and I know they'll all do better in classes with generally like-minded classmates, especially the future scientists.
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