Need Advice on Choosing Courses for Your Teen? A Middle School Teacher’s Practical Tips
The last parent-teacher conference of the night ran 15 minutes over, and I was shoving a crumpled granola bar wrapper into my broken-zippered bag when Mia’s mom pulled me aside, quiet enough that the other families heading for the parking lot couldn’t hear. “I need advice on courses for next year,” she said. Mia was heading into 9th grade, and the whole family was stuck: Mia wanted any art class she could get into, her dad was pushing for AP Biology to start her on a pre-med track, like most of the people in his family. No one could agree, and no one wanted to be the one who made the wrong call.
I’d seen Mia’s sketchbook left on my desk after homeroom a month before, full of soft pencil drawings of the school’s stray calico cat, tiny portraits of her friends tucked into the margins of her algebra notes, so I knew how much art mattered to her. I also knew how easy it was for parents to fall into the trap of thinking one wrong course choice would close every door down the line. I suggested we sit down together for 20 minutes after school the next week, no phones, just to talk it through.
When everyone showed up, Mia was slouched in a plastic chair picking at a loose thread on her hoodie, her dad had his notebook open to a page of college course requirements he’d printed off the night before, and her mom just sat there twisting her car keys. I pulled out three scrap pieces of paper and a handful of pens, and told everyone to do one simple thing: write two lists. The first was all the courses you think you (or your kid) have to take, no questions asked. The second was all the courses that sound even a little interesting, no matter how “unnecessary” or impractical they seem.
Mia’s have-to list was full of biology, geometry, foreign language – all the things she’d heard she needed for any college. Her interesting list was just three things: Studio Art 1, Digital Photography, Creative Writing. Her dad’s have-to list was four years of lab science, three years of Spanish, advanced classes by junior year at the latest. When he got to his interesting list, he paused for a minute, then wrote down “Golf.” He’d always wanted to learn, he said, but never had time when he was working his way through college. That broke the tension a little, everyone laughed, and we started talking through what actually fit.
Most of the advice I give boils down to three concrete things I’ve picked up from 12 years of doing this, none of which involve planning out your kid’s entire degree before they hit high school. The first is that almost any course meets a college requirement somewhere, and you don’t have to take the hardest version of every class freshman year to stay on track. For Mia, that meant regular Biology still counted towards her lab science requirement, and if she decided she wanted to do pre-med after trying art for a year, she could take AP Biology junior year and still have all the credits she needed. Stacking advanced classes early just to stay “ahead” rarely pays off: last year I had a freshman who signed up for three APs plus varsity soccer and honors choir, and by mid-October she was coming in 10 minutes late every day, falling asleep in homeroom, because she was averaging four hours of sleep a night. She had to drop two courses mid-semester, which left her with a study hall she couldn’t fill, and she still says that semester was the most stressed she’s ever been. I tell all parents to stick to no more than two advanced or high-demand courses a year for freshmen and sophomores, no exceptions. That’s a hard line that keeps kids from burning out before they even get to junior year.
The second thing is to pick the teacher over the course level, if you have a choice. A regular-level Biology class with a teacher who offers extra help after school, lets students opt out of dissection for a plant research project, and grades fairly, is going to teach your kid more and leave them with a better grade than an AP Biology class with a teacher who doesn’t reply to emails and fails a third of the class every semester. If you don’t know the teachers, ask a parent of an upperclassman, or check the unofficial student-run teacher rating site that almost every high school has – it’s way more honest than the official school website.
The third is that one art, one shop, one anything-other-than-core class a semester doesn’t hurt anyone. It gives your kid something to look forward to at the end of the day, and it’s how they figure out what they actually care about. You don’t have to lock into a career path at 14.
Mia ended up taking regular Biology and Studio Art 1 this year. She got a B+ in Bio, so she’s still on track for any science path if she changes her mind, and she now works after school one day a week helping the high school art teacher set up shows for local students. Her dad signed up for the adult community ed golf class the school runs on Saturdays, and he’s gotten pretty good, from what Mia says.
I still get at least three parents a month during course selection season pulling me aside to say they need advice on courses. Most of the time, everyone’s so worried about making the perfect choice that they forget to ask what the kid actually wants to try. Mia still doesn’t know if she’ll go to college for art, or switch to something else entirely, and that’s fine. Last week she left her sketchbook in my room again, and I saw a drawing she did of her dad mid-golf swing, grinning, a big lumpy divot dug into the grass next to him. Things don’t have to be perfectly planned to work out. Most of the time, all you need is a little room to try something new.
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