Some Students Believe Chemistry Should be an Honors Course

Sophomore Katherine Higdon sits down in her over-crowded Chemistry I class. Every desk is filled and fellow sophomore classmate Rachel Kephart is forced to sit on a stool in place of a desk. Arrangements are made for another desk to be brought in the next class period to accommodate for the class of 30 plus students.

A week goes by. The stool is no longer being used, and the extra desk is no longer needed.

According to Chemistry teacher Steve Appier, 10 students in his classes have dropped this year. Associate Principal Heather Royce said approximately five percent of the course’s original 115 students dropped because the course was too rigorous. An average honors class like sophomore English Honors has a drop rate of around three percent.

Junior Patrick Frazell dropped the course at semester because of the rigor of the course. Frazell found the class so challenging because of the overall work load and the amount of new material the class would learn every single day.

“I had gotten to the point where I was so lost with the material that I felt like I could never catch up,” Frazell said.

Ever since Appier started teaching at East, students have been on and off complaining about Chemistry and wanting it to be an honors course, and teachers have fought back.

According to Betsy Regan, SMSD director of curriculum and instruction, the discussion of changing course credit begins with the district curriculum council for that subject identifying a need and/or making a recommendation to her department. In the past seven years, the vote to make Chemistry I an honors course has come to her attention three different times. After that, she involves the directors of the course. There is one teacher representative from each school, and Chemistry I teacher Coleman Ogdon is the teacher from East. He explained that each time it has come up, the directors voted zero to five in favor of changing the course. The last vote took place at the end of last semester.

“Why is an honors section needed? The course content for Chemistry I is rigorous.  Is there a need for a more advanced level of this course?” Regan said that was one of the main points involved in the discussion of changing Chemistry I.

“I’m just afraid that if we adopt Chemistry I honors, then it will just become what Chemistry I is right now and regular Chemistry I will turn into a watered down version of Chemistry I,” Appier said.

Higdon believes she should be getting honors credit for taking the course, but she understands Appier’s perspective.

“It’s a hard subject so I’m sure it’s hard to dumb it down,” Higdon said.

Frazell also feels that he should have been getting honors credit for the class while he was enrolled first semester. He also believes that if he would have been in regular Chemistry he would not have dropped. Frazell wouldn’t choose to take the honors level course if it was offered.

“Even at the regular course level I didn’t succeed, so why would I take honors?,“ Frazell said.

Higdon is currently enrolled in all honors courses and feels that Chemistry is just as hard, if not harder than her honors classes.

“The fact that we don’t have that much time it makes it hard and we kind of have to teach ourselves sometimes,” said Higdon.

The night before the block day she has Chemistry Hidgon said she has around three hours of homework total, and about an hour and a half of it is Chemistry.

“I would say if they are spending more than 30 minutes on their homework a night [an hour per block night], then they are doing too much or they’re not focusing.” Chemistry teacher Jeremy Higgins said.

It’s not just the homework load that makes the class difficult for most students, though, the material and subject matter is hard. Higgins said that it’s hard for the kids to grasp the material.

“Kids like to wrap their hands around something and see something and visually know and say ‘oh, I’ve seen that before’,” Higgins said, “but in Chem you can’t do that because you’re talking about things that are so small.”

All four Chemistry teachers at East are against making Chemistry I an honors course, because there is no way to make it easier. Making it an honors class would “water down” the material for the regular class.

Appier said the course has already become less rigorous throughout the years.

“If you were to bring in a student who had been in my class the first year I was here and bring them into our Chem class today, they would think ‘oh this is not the same as we did,’” Appier said.

As of now, Chemistry I will not become an honors course due to the vote that took place last semester and the Chemistry teachers at East are all in favor of this.

“It’s a rigorous course, yes, but at the same point it’s an elective course that kids have the option of taking,” Higgins said, “The fact that it’s an upper-level science elective, I don’t think it needs to be an honors credit at all. If we make it an honors class then what does our regular Chemistry I become?”