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The wave of the future steps into the classroom

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By Delaney Smith and Rachel Lamb

Technology. It surrounds us in every aspect of our lives.  A single beep from a phone can draw a full classroom of students to their backpacks in an instant and strike fear into them, as they hope that it is not theirs. FC’s strict cell phone policy may keep us from using technology in a way that distracts us from our school work, but is it  keeping us away from online resources that could help us outside of  teachers and books?

”It [eBooks] would greatly enhance the students ability to learn with the technology that they are surrounded by on a daily basis,” said senior Scott Schuchardt.

Many of the teachers at FC are already letting their students use mobile devices in class if they are used in a very controlled manner and for designated educational purposes.

“In English and Spanish classes we can use our phones to look up definitions on a dictionary app,” said sophomore Cara Miller.

This is one of the valuable resources that most of us do not have in school because of FC’s strict policies. Phones are the most denied resource in our school system because it has a huge risk of being used to do other things, such as texting and playing games. However; not all teachers allow cell phones to be used in the classroom, due to the possible distractions.  A different alternative is iPads.

“This year I am only allowing iPads, nooks, and eReaders,” said English teacher Karen Lehman.

Schools in our area, such as Providence, have switched to using iPads instead of  traditional text and reading books.

“Everything school wise you do on the iPad. Compared to carrying books around, it’s a lot easier,” said Providence sophomore Jakob Summers.

Many students at FC agree that switching to the use of technology, instead of lugging around those textbooks, would be much easier on student’s backs.  Not only will they alleviate weight off student’s backs, but could also limit the use of lockers throughout the school day.

“I am for FC eliminating textbooks, because I hate the fact of going to my locker every passing period,” said freshman Kaelyn Gibson.

English teacher Anne Martin agreed with most students saying that she expects to see eBooks taking over in the next few years.

“NAFCS is letting other schools to work out the bugs first, but they know that it is the future,” said Martin.

One of the few downsides to using iPads, instead of the traditional textbooks, is that the school would have to  get wireless internet. Having such a big school with so many students could be a huge challenge to get a signal strong enough to support everyone who would be using it.

Every step towards a more “high tech” education system is going to come with its glitches and bugs, but it is all about how these things are approached as a school and a community.

Lehman added one last opinion on the future of technology at FC.

“I think that technology instead of textbooks is the wave of the future for FC and there is no way to avoid it.”

Bailey Hussung, Forum, Uncategorized

Political disagreements cause disgust

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By Bailey Hussung

Amid a mass of ill-fitting corduroy, cheap cologne and unfortunate sweater vests, I observed the current state of American politics. I, along with others from the charity I work with, was invited to a Republican Party dinner, a great opportunity for a small charity like us to get the word out. Many influential community members would be there, and I was excited to mingle and chat with local movers-and-shakers. However, what I found there was almost sickening.

Here I had come in, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to launch into my spiel about the service I do and ways to get involved. Instead, I found that the people were only concerned with their own accomplishments. I can’t say how many times the topic was turned from our charity to what college they went to, how much they’d done for the party, how much money they’d raised, how many times they’d spoken with the governor, etc. I stepped back just to look at the crowd. Conversations like the one I had just had were happening throughout the room: tight, fake smiles, petty compliments and judgemental eyes, none the genuine care for the community I had hoped for.

Being a teenaged girl, I am no stranger to gossip, but what these people did put our gossip to shame. Old women in hushed tones pointed their long, hypocritical fingernails at an unlucky victims across the room, telling their companions of divorces, bankruptcies and personal failures.

But nothing in the world was worse to them than being a Democrat. These disgusting, vile people, they said, were Communists, corrupt and needed to be impeached. Talk was of ways to dethrone Democrats, not fixing our community. While we were eating dinner, a crude gif of various Democratic Party members with their heads photoshopped onto gyrating bodies played on a projector screen. I might have expected this out of my 13-year-old brother, not the leaders of our state.

These kinds of things happen in both parties, which is the problem. Here we were, active and involved young people, and none of the many politicians in attendance even bothered to speak to us. They were too concerned with shaking the same hands over and over, and complementing the same cheap brooches. Young people are undeniably the future of the country; and if I was a public official looking for vote, the three impressionable young girls standing in the middle of the room would be who I would go for. Politicians are too disconnected with the sentiments and desires of the younger generation.

The parties, in addition to hating each other, are not even united from within. Harpies and dispassionate elderly men looking for reelection tore each other apart, then asked about the grandchildren.The backstabbing attitude was not even put aside for a small fundraising dinner. Instead of self-serving, public officials should look to build others up, that way truly the strongest, most qualified candidate from the party gets the job, making the whole party look good.

The hatred of the other party was just downright ridiculous. So what, they have different views on tax reforms, budgets, and healthcare, but does that really qualify them as “America-hating anarchists?” No. We all live in the same country and want what is best. Simply acknowledging that fact is something both parties fail to do. They get so caught up in arguing with each other, they lose sight of benefitting the American people.

With disfunction in all levels of our government, it’s easy to see why bipartisanship is almost nonexistent. Teamwork and compromise, principles this country was founded on, have been forgotten in the self-serving environment of politics. After seeing where this disagreement and grief has gotten us, can our generation do any better?

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Columnist explores the mind of a writer

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By Michael Pepin

The mind of a writer operates in a different fashion than the average reader.  A writer, by definition, is someone who aspires to continually improve their skill with the written word through inspiration and study of other works of literature.  The process of writing profoundly alters one’s perception of the world, because the writer views the world with the same critical eye that interprets literature.

One of the ways that writing changes your view of the world is that you forever lose that ability to enjoy a good book as others do. It is a curse of being a writer, that you pay more attention to the style and plot structure of a story than the actual novel itself.  The majority of books begin to feel repetitive and boring, because you have already seen its plot structure in so many other novels. Writers craft books, so in turn they notice more accurately the details of a book that otherwise would escape the normal reader.

In turn, when a writer chances upon a truly exceptional book, it has to do more with the writing in the novel than the story being told.  The writer wants to uncover the fine details about the book to incorporate them within their own writing.  The writer wants to learn how the book was written and memorize the process. Writers see themselves in good books, and so the writer’s obsession to learn everything there is about its creation and structure is understandable.  The same concept that applies to the writer for books likewise applies for movies as well.  It becomes impossible to enjoy the poorly planned or structured movie despite its prestige or reviews, and simple action flicks or clichés no longer carry any excitement.  The process of writing and creating stories has stripped the magic of storytelling to a matter of skill and structure.

However, the biggest change that occurs within the writer is when he aspires to look for similarities between life and writing.  The writer borders on the edge of paranoia with this concept alone.  Every small action and word is taken into consideration, and the writer attempts to interpret the cause and motivation of everything, which often results in fallacious reasoning.  This is because the writer views the world with the same critical eye that interprets writing and its many clues.  The writer cannot help but wonder if those small foreshadowing clues add up to a larger understanding, even though experience has proven such an understanding wrong.  Reality has become an intricate story unfolding to the writer, and such interpretations are only natural to someone devoted to the field of writing.

We see the world around us in a different manner than others who have devoted their time and talent to other skills. We, as writers, rely upon the emotions and events of our own life for inspiration, and attempt to improve ourselves by learning to master those emotions to transmute power into our writing.  We creates characters from pieces of his own personality, and draws emotion from his past experiences to add life to his writing. We see the world in a different way because we look to every single experience, story, and memory as means of improving ourselves as writers.  The reality around us is an indefinitely complex story from which we study tediously.  This is, of course, because the writer aspires to do nothing less than put the impossible into small black letters on a page, and invoke emotion from all who dare to read.