Separation between groups is inevitable in high school—underclassmen sit apart from upperclassmen during pep rallies, different cliques sit at their own lunch tables and athletes are split into junior varsity and varsity. But how credible is the separation based solely on academics: honors versus traditional?

According to College Board, honors and traditional classes have the same curriculum except that honors classes cover “additional topics or some topics in greater depth.”

This seems to be true based on the lesson plans of some White Station teachers.

“There are some things that I have to water down, but it’s mostly the pace [at which I teach],” Reid Yarbrough said when explaining the difference between teaching traditional US History this year and honors last school year.

Since there is such little contrast between the work of honors and traditional courses, how do the honors and traditional students’ perceptions differ?

“[People] think honors students have no lives and that we have a lot of homework…Traditional [students] always get in trouble, they don’t do anything in class…” honors student Miles Baker (10) said. “But I know a lot of traditional people… they don’t get in trouble, and they do their work… they’re just like us [honors students].”

Even though these stereotypes aren’t widely supported, enough prejudice has formed between students and teachers to question the credibility of separate honors and traditional courses.

“… the teachers who teach strictly honors will say [to honors students], ‘You don’t want to be like the traditional kids’ or ‘You should live up to the expectations of honors [students],’” traditional student Glen Hooper (12) said, who took honors classes as a freshman.

When a teacher begins to incorporate bias towards students within their classroom, the integrity of education is completely abolished. Teachers must treat each of their students with equal respect and strive to teach with their utmost effort, no matter how the school system defines a student.

Students also need to refrain from judging each other based on petty academic labels. Honors students aren’t altogether smarter, nor are traditional students in any way inferior. The school’s most hard-working, respectable students exist in both traditional and honors classes.

Despite occasional conflicts, the separation of traditional and honors classes serves a legitimate purpose. Some pupils learn better at a slower pace and with a lighter workload, while others prefer the challenge of doing more work in a shorter amount of time.

Our school is obligated to teach students who learn at individual academic levels, and the most efficient method of meeting this obligation has been to offer courses that differ in learning methods.

“I think both [honors and traditional students] are capable [of learning], both can go to college… and they both need to be prepared in the same way,” Elizabeth Kirby, Algebra II teacher, said.

No matter which courses they enroll in, students all have the same objective to learn.

Every student at White Station is capable of doing the same caliber of work and achieving the same goals. Having to do so through different techniques does not change how intelligent every Spartan truly is.