By Jamie Danis
Staff Writer
Mira Costa held its first annual May Day on May 28th. The program gave students and faculty the opportunity to explore outside interests through an assortment of non-curricular classes that took the place of a traditional school day.
Classes varied from academic subjects, such as Marxist theory, to recreational classes, like the study of the television show “Psych.” Courses were either offered in pairs of forty-five minute classes, or were offered alone as a ninety minute seminar.
“My surprise is that some of the pairings actually worked and people were interested in both classes,” Vice Principal Deborah Hofreiter said.
While both students and faculty had the opportunity to teach classes, students taught the majority of the classes. It was an opportunity for students to share their outside knowledge with a wide audience.
“I saw many examples of students leading, demonstrating expertise, showing their passion and enjoying learning from their peers,” Manhattan Beach Unified School District superintendent Michael Matthews said. “All of the students came ready to teach, and they all aspired to be great.”
Student teachers had the task of coming up with an idea for a course, creating lesson plans, and holding the attention of their peers. Freshman Emily Schugel, along with two other Mira Costa students, discovered how difficult the process was through teaching a hip-hop class.
“I think our first class went really well,” Schugel said. “A couple of junior boys even wanted us to teach them the rest [of the hip hop routine] for prom. The second class [was not as engaged]– they weren’t as interested in the concept or our class.”
According to some students they felt that the event needed adjustments in the future, in areas including the registration process, class availability and class subjects.
“I think it was a good idea and has the potential to be a really fun day, but it definitely needs some work,” junior Maddy Vogel said. “The whole point was to take classes you liked and were interested in, and I know a bunch of people who got stuck in classes they had absolutely no interest in.”
Many teachers, including French Department Chair Lauri Gonalons, felt that this loss of class time was detrimental for both students and teachers.
“We’ve had so many interruptions to our daily schedule,” Gonalons said. “It makes it very hard to teach when you can’t get into a rhythm. Because the schedule has been so inconsistent with all of these wonderful things we do in our school.”
Many teachers and staff, including Hofreiter felt that May Day positively impacted Costa.
“I felt that most students got to share a passion that they had with others and that others were really interested in what they had to say,” Hofreiter said. “The silver lining [in some of the faults of the event] is that it forced people to look outside their comfort zone for classes that were a new interest to them.”
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