At Parker, not all classes are created equally––but they should be. Comparative class difficulty has been a heavily discussed issue in the student body for many years, yet faculty and administration have made no attempts to address the problem. While some students argue that it creates an unfair disadvantage for some students, or discourages students from taking courses taught by certain teachers, others contend that the variety of difficulty is a result of Parker’s teachers’ diverse teaching styles and is something that should be celebrated.
If reading this mystifies you because you already feel that all teachers of the same course teach at the same difficulty level, congratulations! I am genuinely happy for you. You clearly haven’t gone through the anxiety-inducing process of waiting for your class list after doing course requests, hoping desperately that you aren’t assigned to a certain teacher for a class. Then, after seeing that you were put with said teacher, pleading for a class switch, only for Mr. McCaw to deny your request.
Since you cannot choose your teacher, it seems obvious that all students in an equal level class should be with teachers of similar difficulty, something that lots of students agree with. Junior Jackson Flaum said, “I think there is definitely a problem at this school with the way that classes are of different difficulty at the same level.” A student’s workload in a certain class shouldn’t depend on what teacher they have, but many students, myself included, feel that it does. There is no good reason that some students have three annotated readings per night and an assessment every week, while students in another class have no homework and only a few assessments per semester. Most importantly, in the required core courses, it should be a no-brainer that all classes be taught similarly. This would allow for differences in teaching styles and philosophies to still be allowed, just in the elective courses.
I have had the seemingly good luck at times to have teachers in the first semester who have gone too easy on grading and curriculum, then I’ve suffered in the second semester with teachers who were far more rigorous. I was unprepared for the second-semester class through no fault of my own! Students should not be gambling when taking classes, nor should they be afraid to take classes because of the teacher. This creates a stifling environment in which students don’t feel free to explore their interests. “The way that the classes are run, and the liberties that teachers are allowed to take with different classes, are, I think, ridiculous,” Flaum said when asked about how teaching differs from class to class. Although teaching style will differ, as no two teachers are the same, it is unreasonable for students to be expected to adapt to extreme teaching styles and inequalities in the curriculum.
Parker prides itself on being a progressive school, a school that takes student feedback into account with every decision. When large groups of students share a similar struggle, the administration generally works to address it, correct it, and prevent it from recurring. So why is this problem receiving no attention?
