As many new clubs start to develop their place within MHS, a few clubs had the opportunity to become an elective. Among many clubs, Speech and Debate has recently transitioned into an elective that students can take for all four years. Some notable classes within the school have also originated as clubs, such as The Blue and Gold and Mock Trial. These classes transitioned successfully, gathering more and more attention each year.
Kurtis Scheer began working at Malden High School as a History teacher in 2015 and has been running the Speech and Debate team for about 8 years.
“I think the transition into a class has gone really well. The thing that is a little bit more on my end here is preparing and creating lessons that will both prepare students for a competition here, but [will also] be transferable to other avenues, too. I think that part is always difficult, whenever you’re going from a club that [loosely run] to a class with a curriculum, and ways to assess students. So it’s just a little bit more work,” stated Scheer.
Scheer then continued to talk about the differences between a club and a class. “The major difference, though, is, instead of just meeting with some kids once a week here for a short amount of time, now we meet two or three times a week, guaranteed in the class.”
Students try to guess Lovely Gerochi’s mystery word during a game of charades. CHELMIE HYPPOLITE
“Now we can do more specific things that would help gear students, not only for our competitions that we do, but also for public speaking skills that they’re going to use in classes like English, math, science, and any class where you have to do a presentation. So we can do a whole more pull up more than we could have previously,” explained Scheer.
This switch from a club to a class has introduced new opportunities for the students who previously couldn’t participate in the club due to tight after-school schedules, gathering more attention from students.
“I knew that Speech and Debate was a club before and I was interested in it but I didn’t have enough time after school to join the club, so I’m very happy it’s a class,” exclaimed sophomore Beyonce Rene.
“I wasn’t necessarily interested in joining the club since I didn’t have much time but because it’s a class now I can do it in school which is much better for me,” mentioned junior Vin Chau.
Many previous club members are also very delighted with the switch. “I’m quite happy about it becoming a class, especially about the funding aspect. I feel like it will also really help a lot more people to join now,” said junior Aldino Talic.
Many previous club members are also very delighted with the switch. “I’m quite happy about it becoming a class, especially about the funding aspect. I feel like it will also really help a lot more people to join now,” said junior Aldino Talic.
Leica Naceus and her teammates try eagerly to guess the word to gain a point. CHELMIE HYPPOLITE
As the speech and debate class continues to prosper and more students join, Scheer hopes to create a Junior Varsity and Varsity dynamic between students; similar to the way the mock trial class is run.
“I have three goals and hopes for the class. One is everybody enhances their skills in speaking. The other one is we find success at our tournaments here. The last one is that everybody enjoys this class enough so that we can offer it again and expand it, or to use this as an opportunity to prove that having more electives here at the high school benefits us in innumerable amounts,” shared Scheer.
