With the start of this school year, many changes and controversies have arisen, the greatest being the new grading system. To clarify these changes, Mr. Guenther and Dr. Chenier held assemblies with each generation. However, one of these changes, possibly the most troubling to the student body, is not being given enough attention: the adoption of the SEP curriculum to the Spanish program.

While it is understandable that the administration wants to standardize the curriculum to properly implement the new grading system and demonstrate the extent of our knowledge, there is a problem: the SEP curriculum is a contradiction to the school’s values and does not prepare us for our future. While the efforts to direct the rest of the curriculum focus on increasing our critical thinking skills, the SEP goes te other way, being so restrictive as to severely limit the development of said skills. Besides that, we have to recognize that this curriculum comes from the same organization that published textbooks instructing kids to count from hands with six fingers. I wish I was lying, but it’s true.

Worse, this change of stance represents the demise of what made ASFM a truly outstanding school: superb education on the humanities and the fostering of critical thinking (analyzing and evaluating ideas objectively to reach a conclusion). For years, the Spanish curriculum aimed to educate students by exposing them to and having them analyze, interpret and discuss great literary works. Now, the goal in eleventh grade’s current unit is only to “interpret the meaning of life in twentieth-century literature”, without any of the analysis and discussion that used to follow. There is no more room for discovering, understanding, and generating conversations about the interesting aspects and complex messages found in Latin American literature. There is only a highly restricted range of opinions and ideas in the air, without interpreting them and building upon others’ ideas to create something truly new.

This may effectively become our reality inside ASFM, but the moment we enter the real world, all that work becomes completely useless. The challenges we will face won’t require us to interpret the “meaning of life in twentieth-century literature”, but rather require critical thought and skills that allow us to think and reach conclusions for ourselves creatively, not being bound by what a curriculum dictates. Departing from the former curriculum is a change that no one should be (and rarely anyone is) in favor of.

When something isn’t broken, it doesn’t need fixing, and certainly doesn’t need breaking. This “fix” is unproductive, and should be addressed. Not only to avoid compromising the quality of education available to us students, but for us to be proud of our heritage, school, open minds, and newfound analytical skills.

*Here lies buried...