At Rangeview, all students who want to take on the challenge that AP and honors courses offer are encouraged to take advantage of those opportunities, but when students who choose to take those courses are unable to handle the workloads and comprehend the content, it makes a unpleasant and often times stressful environment for all involved. There are way too many students in AP and honors classes that end up corrupting the educational experience for the students that should actually be in those classes.
Not all students are AP or honors material, but that does not mean they should attempt to take those types of classes just because they like the idea of a challenge. Yes, these higher level classes are hard and challenging, but that is the point — if one is unwilling to put in the extra work and effort, then they should not take these classes.
There are students in AP and honors classes who actually want to be in there and put in so much effort and work to do well in them, but when students do not put in the effort or are simply not thinking at that higher level, it holds back the class as a whole.
Many times teachers have to spend way too much time trying to get students caught up when they should not need to; if the class is honors or AP, the students need to take their education seriously. Students need to actually study, do their homework, find their own resources to study from, but they should not hold up a class filled with AP/honors material students for days at a time just because they do not want to put in a little out-of-class effort.
Nothing is more frustrating than when one is sitting in a class and day after day the same kids ask the same exact questions because they were not paying attention or attempting to do the assigned work.
Another issue is that not all students are intellectually advanced enough to keep up with the pace of honors and AP classes — these classes move fast and students need to be able to grasp onto some pretty tough concepts quite quickly. Whenever students cannot keep up in advanced classes nothing is done; students just sit in these classes and fail, but their rights to take higher level classes should not be a priority over the educational experience for kids who should be in AP and honors classes.
Until students are able to show that they are capable of putting forth the effort for more challenging classes, or even understand that some classes may just be too hard for them, the problem will continue to exist for the students that are appropriately in honors and AP classes.
