Joshua Cohen ‘24
Each year, St. Andrew’s students receive the course registration form to specify which courses they would like to take the following year. Options students may choose range from art classes to religion classes to abstract math classes; however, they all seem to miss an important category: day-to-day life skills. St. Andrew’s does not offer courses that teach topics such as managing a bank account, filing taxes, or balancing a credit score. So, why is it that the school does not offer courses in this field?
Firstly, classes like these could be unappealing to students at St. Andrew’s. Senior Jake Lehrman said that even though it may be an applicable course for some, “in a trimester course, you would not have anything to do after three weeks,” so the class might not be worth taking. Additionally, some students may not even need the class in the first place. Senior Ethan Linn said that he and other students already had experience with what those classes would teach, so it would not benefit every student. Instead, Lehrman and Linn commented that they would rather see the periods spent on higher-level courses, such as APs.
Beyond some lack of interest, there are more fundamental problems. St. Andrew’s only has limited classrooms and space in the schedule, making additional classes challenging. It is also a matter of whether a student would want to take the course if available. Dr. Ian Kelleher, Chief Research Officer of the CTTL, said that “students [have to] make the decision [between what they are really interested in and whether] it is going to look good on the transcript.” Lehrman echoed this concept, saying how he would not want to take the class as “it would tank [his] GPA, and the only way to get [him] to take it would be [making it] mandatory.”
Additionally, if St. Andrew’s were to add in life skills classes, “it would be hard to know where it fits,” as Dr. Kelleher said. Because it would be challenging to make it a class, the only other option would be to add it to the advisory. The CTTL, with this year’s new schedule, has attempted to spread out students’ workloads and add time, such as advisory to have, as Dr. Kelleher called it, “downtime and catch-up time.” Adding more content in advisory would take this valuable time away from students.
But what if students do feel they need this real-world training? Students don’t need to take a specific class to learn life skills; some classes offered have worked the curriculum. Specifically, Dr. Kelleher highlighted St. Andrew’s entrepreneurship courses, emphasizing abilities such as proposing ideas to receive funding. Additionally, Dr. Kelleher mentioned that students could provide feedback to the school if they want these additional courses. He noted that the SGA could suggest to both the administration and CTTL which classes were wanted by the student body. Dr. Kelleher emphasized that recent alumni could answer questions such as, “what do you wish you had known [and] what did you feel underprepared for [compared to your peers?”] If students want these types of classes in the curriculum, they will have to advocate for them.