Jesse+B’s+OpEd+Article


 * "Show Me the Technology" **
 * by Jesse B. **

media type="file" key="jesseb-muckraker-0910.mp3"

Four years ago there was a little boy who was excited about going to High School. His older brothers and sister had gone to the same school and from what they said the school sounded awesome. So this little boy was looking through an old Registration Guide which had information about the different classes that the school had available. Then he saw it. A class entitled Computer Repair and Maintenance. “Now that sounds cool,” thought the boy. “I want to take that class someday.”

To the boy’s upmost dismay he received the new version of the Registration Guide only to discover that the class was not in it. If fact many of the technology classes had disappeared over the course of a year. “Where are the technology classes?” cried the disheartened child. “This is supposed to be a technology school! I mean technology is in the name. Foothill **Technology** High School!”

The boy, urged on by his supporting parents, went to his counselor to find out what happened. The counselor informed him that the teacher who had taught all of those classes had left and that the school wasn’t going to replace her. In order to take any technology based classes the boy would have to take them someplace else.

Here I am years later. It is interesting looking back on that experience, however the story isn’t over. I will be taking Computer Repair and Maintenance. The catch? I have to go to Ventura High School. I don’t mean that I am transferring to Ventura. I will go to Foothill in the morning and then ride my bike to Ventura everyday with the class running from one to three.

Now I’m still wondering: why does a school have “Technology” in its name when the most technological classes are lame things like EDA (Education in a Digital Age. Lame name and extremely boring class) or web design (ok, web design does sound cool but you get my point). The school used to have networking classes and computer repair and maintenance but now it has almost nothing. Is it so that the school could focus more on academics? Focus more on getting good scores on the CSTs? Focus more on getting kids to a good college? It seems that the answer is yes since real technology electives are still not available at Foothill **Technology** High School.

Talk about false advertising. Foothill **Technology** High School? What’s up with that? Change the name! Quit lying to the poor saps who actually think you teach things about technology. Just because the school has lots of computers doesn’t mean that it is a technology school. Do colleges like CalTech or MIT just have a bunch of computers so they can add “technology” to their names or do they actually teach technological classes?

If Foothill wishes to keep attracting students it needs to have more electives, especially electives that deal with technology, otherwise it will lose kids to Ventura or Beuna where they have a wider array of electives.

I know a few people who would be interested in taking fun computer classes. What Foothill has right now is rather pathetic. These are useful classes that can be used in every day life or can even become a career. By not allowing students the opportunity to learn about technology Foothill is severely limiting them. Technology is the future for almost every job in America. Those who know little about technology will be under the power of those who do.