Traditional class removed in favor of social media
Image by Grace Rychwalski
A local high school announced last week that, starting this upcoming spring semester, history classes will be completely removed from the curriculum. Instead of attending daily classes where students learn about the making of our country, the civil rights movement, the world wars and other outdated, irrelevant topics, a weekly course will be offered on Thursdays.
This new class will simply be called #TBT, and during these meetings, students will be encouraged to share old photos and memories of themselves with their classmates. “It’s about time this happened,” the principal said. “Too much emphasis on history is not good for students. We need to teach them that you can’t change the past, so there’s really no point in learning about all those horrible things.”
Students are quite enthusiastic about this alternative class. “It will be so great to get some opinions on the perfect filter for Instagram,” sophomore Jamie Lee said. “I can never decide between Hudson and Valencia.”
After the class shares their throwback pictures and they collectively vote on filters, captions, and hashtags (#blessed and #live are very popular choices), the students post the pictures to Instagram. If they are able to complete this assignment, they automatically get an A+. Extra credit goes to the student who receives the most likes.
The class won’t only focus on Instagram. Twitter is another popular way to share throwback pictures. “It’s important we teach them about Twitter, too,” teacher Mrs. Smith shared. “This way, they can get some writing practice in, but since they are limited to 140 characters, it won’t exhaust them as much as the traditional history research papers.”
Parents agreed with this as well. “My son was always so stressed out when he had to write those five-page papers, and I don’t blame him. On the nights before those were due, he wasn’t even able to watch his TV shows or play Call of Duty with his friends. It really wasn’t fair.”
However, this class won’t be all fun and games. Students will have to do a few presentations throughout the year; they must gather their favorite celebrity throwbacks and explain to the class why the pictures they picked are so important and what impact they have had on their lives.
“George Washington has been dead for so long,” Smith said. “Looking at pictures and hearing stories about him doesn’t make sense anymore. But seeing a throwback of young, overweight Ryan Seacrest or January Jones with her mullet will really help educate the class about the world today.”
This course will also help to save money in the school’s budget. Textbooks will not be required and students will have to provide their own laptops and iPhones. While this is a great expense to parents on a fixed income, many are glad to shell out the big bucks in order for their children to partake in this necessary class. “I was much angrier last year when I was paying less and my children were learning more,” one father said. “But now my children will get their hashtags and subtweets straight, and what more can a parent ask for?”
Rachel Mucha is a sophomore journalism major who wanted to propose a new major that is all about Twitter, but then found out that Emerging Media was already a thing. Email her at [email protected].