Unusual courses used to grab students’ interest

Seniors in Kristina ByBee’s second-period class at Desert Ridge High School recently took turns reading aloud from an assigned book.

School districts offering Mandarin Chinese

The back of the classroom in the Gilbert school was adorned with sci-fi movie posters such as “Minority Report,” “V for Vendetta” and “A.I. Artificial Intelligence.”

Two students who had already finished the book sat at computers in the corner of the room, playing an accompanying computer game.

This is not your typical English class — it’s a science fiction literature class offered to seniors.

High schools throughout the Gilbert and Higley unified school districts are offering unique classes such as this one to keep students more interested in school.

Gilbert’s Mesquite High School introduced a golf course management course last year, and this year Higley High School added a real estate class and a criminal justice and investigations class. Desert Ridge has an engineering class, and students at Williams Field High School are taking prerequisites this year for biotech classes that will be offered next year.

Rob Foley, who teaches the golf course management class at Mesquite, said he recently attended training on dropout prevention, and many national dropout programs are promoting specialty classes as a way to retain students.

“It helps keep kids in school,” Foley said. “That’s an important part of it, trying to create an interest in other topics besides just your English, social studies, government and stuff.”

ByBee has been teaching the science fiction class for four or five years. For some students, the class is the first time they’ve been assigned a book they actually want to read, the first time they’ve volunteered to read in class, and the first time they’ve looked forward to reading.

“It’s material they are excited about,” ByBee said.

In addition to reading, students also watch movies or television shows and do analysis writing.

“It’s fun,” senior Brandyn Phillip said. “You get to learn about actual movies that are up-to-date instead of old movies like ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ ”

Phillip, who reads a lot of sci-fi in his spare time, finished reading the book “The Softwire: Virus on Orbis 1” by P.J. Haarsma the day it was assigned.

In other literature classes he’s taken, Phillip found the books to be boring.

“I would just read in class instead of just wanting to read at home,” he said.

In Foley’s golf course maintenance class, students last year constructed a putting green, tee box and sand bunker. This year, they are learning how to take care of the course and general maintenance of equipment.

“All the stuff that a golf course would do the students are doing,” Foley said. That includes drainage projects, working on irrigation systems, taking apart and repairing mowers, and learning about varieties of grass.

Anthony Mangan, a junior, said he can use the skills he’s learned in the class for a future career in construction or landscaping.

“It’s really great because no other school has this (class) and you learn a lot from it,” Mangan said.

By the end of the school year, students in Kent Adams’s real estate class at Higley High School — as long as they’ve turned 18 — will be able to take the test to get their real estate licenses.

In addition to the basics of real estate, students also learn about the purchase process, and how to invest and analyze investments.

In class, they earn fake money based on the salary of various professions, and can earn bonuses for things such as being the first student to class. “The goal at the end of the year is to make them individually wealthy — or at least understand the concepts.” Adams said.

If students are not college-bound, he said, the class can prepare them for a career right out of high school. And for those going to college, they can use the skills learned to help put themselves through school.

“We teach real-life skills that will help them be successful long term,” Adams said.