Students or sardines? (Opinion)

If we want students to find success when they move onto college, then we should start packing their high school classes to the brim. The 6th block AP Psychology class has over 60 students, and it was an excellent decision. The administration should raise student class sizes as students move from one grade to the next. Bigger classes are going to better prepare students for the giant lecture halls common in college.

According to NBC News, class sizes go from 25 people in high school to 250 or even 400 in college. It’s a less intimate environment that won’t cater to every student’s needs, especially if it’s a completely new experience. It’s hard to go from such a personal environment, where your teacher knows your name and your personality, to an unfamiliar campus. Being jammed into a class with a few hundred students, you will not have the same amount of attention. The teacher likely won’t know everyone’s names, never mind anything about the people behind those names. I can say from experience that AP Psychology retains everyone’s attention for the entire block despite the size, and because it isn’t as big as a full fledged college class, the teacher still manages to form personal connections with a lot of us.

Schools should be using the difficulty of cutting class sizes to their advantage. The Seattle Times stated that a bill such as Initiative 1341, which aimed to lower class sizes, would cost 5 billion dollars. If high schools gradually increased class sizes in grades 9-12, while elementary schools continued to keep the number of children per class low, the school district could save a great deal of their budget. All of that money could then be spent on textbooks, computers, and other necessities. The Robin Hood act takes a great deal of money from CISD and donates it to nearby districts, so giving up the effort to decrease the number of students per high school class would help mend the damage to Carroll’s budget.

Colleges aren’t showing signs of downsizing – that would cost money. In addition, small class sizes do little to help prepare high school students for the next step in their education. Elementary school classes need to be as small as possible because it is important that students in grades K-3 are in the best environment possible to learn to read, write, and perform basic math, according to the Huffington Post.  If those foundational ideas are established early, it will be easier for students to transition into large class sizes during high school and then college.

The majority of students in AP Psychology get their work done, know what is going on during the lesson, and are well prepared for tests. Almost nobody feels overwhelmed by the number of people that surround them.

Elementary schools should continue to downsize their classes to help prepare students for learning and functioning with others. When high school starts, class sizes should gradually  increase so that students can become accustomed to a college level environment. AP courses should go the extra step and have at least 60 students per class, regardless of grade. There’s no need to make classes smaller when size is on our side.