Hs Graduation Requirements

Dustin Roads

Ms. Van Buskirk

American Literature

9 March 2007

High School Graduation Requirements Are Preposterous

INTRODUCTION HERE YO!!!!!

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The portfolio that high school students are required to complete by their senior year to graduate is completely meaningless. It helps you in almost no way. Why put your best work into something that will never be looked at. I have a brother that is going to University of Washington and they never asked to see his portfolio for registration. This is only adding on to the work that students have to complete in time for their graduation. There is one thing that is good about the portfolio. That one thing is trying to get people to think of what they want to do in their future. Most people need help and a little shove into the right direction in order to figure out what they want to do after they graduate.

Job shadows can be a rather worthless piece of the requirements. It is sometimes complicated for some people to find someone to job shadow on their career path. Most students are stuck with doing a job shadow that doesn't even interest them the least bit. Mainly, I think this is just another one of those things that schools like to force students to do just because they can. Job shadows can be a nasty trend that spread across the school districts like a common cold that proliferate from person to person. Schools inherit this idea thinking it would be a great idea so that students would have an open mind about a career path. Sometimes a job shadow could have a good effect on a student because it will make them think if they wish to pursue career which is similar to that one. It can also have the reverse effect of making them not want to pursue that type of career at all. Either way, it can still be great. But, shouldn't it be their own responsibility to research a career path they want to take? I think maybe they should have an alternative to a job shadow where they write a simple report on what they wish to do for a living. Then again, isn't the culminating project used for this? Why add on to what students need to do when they just repeat all of it a few trillion times? It is practically drilled into you when you are in your advisory period.

Community service can just be a hassle to students. It is very easy to find community service opportunities but they are often difficult for students to find transportation to and from where they need to be. Sure there are parents and friends that may be able to drive them, but that means making them go out of their way to satisfy a company and a power hungry education board. They should take their time away from their working or personal life to satisfy the need to get community service done though, right? Isn't that disciplining both people in this situation, both the driver and student? It is only 10 hours a year, which isn't that much, but what is the point of it? The point of it is a sad attempt to giving students the opportunity to become a good person. Students learn morals as they grow out of adolescence anyway. You see young gentlemen opening doors for pregnant women holding both hands on a stroller struggling to keep their purse and diaper bag on their shoulder while attempting to open a door; very difficult. Or, for instance, you see a handicap lady who has fallen out of her wheelchair and doesn't really need help to get back into the chair, but someone helps them out anyway. I believe that community service should really be used as a disciplinary action from the super attendant of the school. After all, students only want to be suspended so they can take time off from school.

The culminating project can be ridiculous for the amount of time students are required to speak. The objective of this project is to help students investigate a career to better prepare them for further studies or employment after high school (culminating Project). It is good written down on paper, b lack and white, but it shows its true colors as students prepare to accomplish. I know a few students