High School Curriculums

Students use high school as a stepping stool for what they want to pursue for themselves in the future. But what if this stepping stool is not big enough to make it to the next step? Are these high schools really doing their job in fulfilling their purpose to set students up for success? I have become aware that high school curriculums can be inconsiderate when it comes to creating a variety of courses and classes to benefit and satisfy students. My high schools curriculum mainly focused on academics, classwork, and a ton of homework, which creates students needing to relieve stress in order to freely express themselves through physical movement that keeps them active during school. These needs could be addressed if there were dance classes

There are already enough courses for the goal of college or a career after high school that are offered as a part of the curriculum and dance courses would be seen as unnecessary and a distraction to academic classes. However, there are students who want to train to become a professional dancer, go to college and major in dance like myself, or want to take an active class other than physical education. Where would these students be properly trained and why is physical education the only option for a course that incorporates being active? I trained at a dance studio far away from my high school and it was difficult to afford the training, and the physical education classes became a course where students just played team sports, which was not every students strength. The dance classes would be more than beneficial to students, offering convenient training and another option instead of physical education. Rather than the dance classes being a distraction, they would posses ways to enhance being focus in academic classes like relieving

There are no breaks or periods of relaxation during the school day, except for the time used to walk to another class or the time to eat and socialize for a short amount of time during lunch. All physical activities are ways to relieve stress, however; talking, eating, and trying to hurry to another class are physical activities that involve a minimal effect for relieving stress. Physical activities like dance classes posses an amassment of movement, triggering the question; how could moving the body around in space be used as a way to relieve stress? For someone who only considers a form of relaxation like sleeping or meditating as stress relief, this is an understandable question but an erroneous assumption. Dancing activates neurotransmitters, the cognitive process, and generates endorphins that are released through the body. So while the brain is sending messages through the body, the mental capacity of the brain is expanding, and natural painkillers are being developed in the body to relieve stress (Dancing to Relieve Stress). These outcomes are beneficial and emphasize the importance of stress relief for high school students. Finding ways to relieve stress at my high school was difficult, especially with there being a multitude of situations to produce stress. For example; students were stressed out about