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Personalities persuaded by peer pressure

By Danielle Rehor
Acoustic Thoughts
I am sitting in class, surrounded by robots. Teens who look the same, act the same, talk the same, and treat others the same way. No, this is not the opening scene from the next science fiction movie. This, boys and girls, is real life.

When we are little, we are bombarded with ‘just be yourself’ and ‘I love you just the way you are.’ So we proudly march out to the bus on the first day of kindergarten with our Winnie the Pooh backpack and clothes that probably do not match. As we step into the elementary school, we see billions of kids milling around with their friends, and we think. ‘This is not what I signed up for. Where are my friends?’

Quickly, we learn to ‘adapt.’ We change to please people and make friends. I call this survival of the fittest. What our world categorizes as ‘succeeding’ is a multitude of ‘friends,’ a look similar to pop stars, and money. Maybe that is also what you categorize as success, but I believe there is more to it.

I have had many friends from middle and high school who have been taken and twisted by the grasps of society to become the ‘social norm.’ They believe they must conform to an idea of skin and bones, raccoon eyes, bleach-blond hair, and booty shorts to truly be ‘someone.’

But in reality, the someones are just that: someone. Not just anyone. People that I consider ‘not just anyone,’ or someones are those that go out and do something for themselves, be a first, do something different, and are not willing to conform to fit in. Those are the someones. They do not obsess over who is their friend and who is not. They do not concern themselves with seeming cool. They have the confidence to make their own decisions and be their own person.

My question to you is: how much of your personality is lost in trying to fit in?

We are born with certain quirks, some adorable, some not as much, but do we try to embrace these quirks or instead shrug them off? Personalities are to be embraced. They make us who we are. Our morals and personality are all we have of value. They are what we will be recognized and remembered for, not what brand of clothing we wore, or if we were up to date with trends. We have to remember what is going to stay with us for the rest of our days: what we do and what we say.

Someone who clearly has himself figured out is Apple figurehead Steve Jobs. This quote really embodies what we should strive to do. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

We are all different, but what we do with our peculiarities is up to each and every one of us. Are you going to stand out with courage or instead blend into the background, being just another ‘everyone else’? If you think rationally, we all fall short of being someone’s imitation.

We are best being ourselves. Not a carbon copy of anyone else.

Graphic By Summer Haynes

Columnist explains importance of arts

by Garrett Receveur

A teacher leads a line of elementary school students down the hallway. As the students walk down the hallway to the music room, they see that the library doors are open. They take a brief peek into the room and see the librarian reading to a group of kindergarteners.

“I do not like green eggs and ham,” the librarian said in the character voices she was famous for. “I do not like them Sam I am.”

The students walk on, still in a single-file line, until they reach the music room. As soon as the students enter, they see their music teacher hastily setting up maracas across the room.

This eccentric music teacher picks up a sombrero and urges the students to pick up maracas and start shaking them. She tells them to shake them in a quarter note rhythm and then an eighth note rhythm.

These students are in no way composing symphonies or analyzing concertos, but music classes at the elementary school level are an essential part of a student’s growth. The same could be said for art classes, physical education classes, and time in the library.

When I was in elementary school, I never really liked P.E. Yes, I liked running around and letting all the energy I had loose, but I never really looked forward to P.E. day.

Art was more of the same. In elementary school, I despised art, mostly because I was not very good at it. Even now, my art skills are crude at best. Every fish I draw looks like a bird, and every turkey I draw looks like a dinosaur. Therefore, it’s safe to say that I despised art class in elementary school and, consequently, in middle school.

Music class was not something I immensely looked forward to either. I loved the percussion instruments, but that was just about it. Yes, elementary school music did steer me into joining the band in middle and high school, but music in elementary school was just a bit boring for me.

However, my absolute favorite part of elementary school was the days when our class would go down to the library. I would look all over the shelves for something I would want to read. Between kindergarten and second grade, it was the Horrible Harry book series. After that, it was the Animorphs series, which ultimately inspired me to write fan-fictions and thus get started writing for fun. In middle school, I started checking classic novels out of the library and consequently became better as a writer.

Without the library in elementary school, I would not be the columnist I am today. Without music class, I would not have found the band program and thus have the love for music I have today. Yes, I could have done without art and P.E., but those classes were just as pivotal to someone else as library time and music class was for me.

It is during elementary school that a child begins to discover who they are and what they might be interested in doing later in life. Those years are the formative years of a child’s life, the years when they are the most influenced by other ideas.

These programs used to be well-funded, until last year when the budget cuts started for our school corporation. In the school corporation’s eyes, the only thing that could be done to remedy this situation was the cutting of programs and teachers.

Last year, the NAFCS school board focused on keeping the cuts as far away from the students as possible, forcing the board to shut down four elementary schools. This year, the board is focusing on making cuts on the basis of what is important and what is essential.

It is for this reason that the board is cutting 68.8 teaching positions from the corporation. In the process, certified art, music, and P.E. teachers at the elementary school level are being moved to other buildings, forcing the regular teachers at the school to teach these classes. In addition, the librarian positions at the middle and high school level will be jostled around so much as to be impractical and unrecognizable.

However, art, music, and P.E. teachers will not necessarily lose their jobs; they will instead be moved to the middle and high school levels, assuming they’re certified, and displace less experienced teachers.

Meanwhile, in elementary schools, the regular teachers, who are in no way certified, will teach art, music, and P.E. classes in an effort by the school board to save money.

It takes a special kind of teacher to instill a love for art and music at an early age. That’s all elementary school art and music is for in the first place. Yes, it’s a lot of fun when you attempt to play a xylophone or paint a landscape, but these classes are more about loving what you do than mastering what you do.
Without certified art and music specialists at the elementary school level, I fear that these classes will become monotonous and thus not as enjoyable for the students.

I attended the school board meeting where they voted on this decision and further discussed it. Before the vote, people from the public could walk up to a podium and speak directly to the school board.

FC students and NAHS theater director David Longest all gave impassioned speeches about why we need art and music programs to be taught by art and music teachers. As such, I think FC graduate Amber Schultz put it best when she said, “Who can really expect math and science teachers to effectively teach the arts?”

At the meeting, before the public came up to speak, school board president Roger Whaley made clear that these speakers would have to offer solutions to the problem instead of just pleading that their program not be cut.

In an ideal world, that solution would be an easy one: raise taxes. Cutting spending and raising taxes are the only way that any budget crisis can be solved.

This, however, is not an ideal world. If a politician raises taxes, it is unlikely that he will ever be elected again. The people of the community have a general disdain for higher taxes and thus will not pay them.

However, if the school board does decide to raise taxes to remedy the budget crisis, it will not go towards a new and expensive desk in Dr. Bruce Hibbard’s office. The increased revenue will, instead, be used to allow teachers in the school corporation to keep their jobs and will keep certain programs afloat in the current turbulent economic waters.

These programs, particularly elementary art and music, are essential for a child’s growth and development. Take away teachers certified to teach these classes and you are risking a child’s future. Is a child’s future really something to toy with?

No, of course not. By playing with their future, you are forcing that child into a certain niche without letting them dabble in certain other opportunities, which is the cornerstone of any great education.

At the orchestra pops concert last Thursday night, orchestra director Doug Elmore gave a passionate speech in favor of the arts. He concluded his speech by saying, “I am not a failure, my colleagues are not failures, and these kids are definitely not failures.”

However, when you lessen a child’s opportunities for future success by lowering the impact of art and music, you are basically saying to them, “You’re a failure.” And I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that those kids, the ones most impacted by the loss of art and music teachers, are certainly not failures.

Just go with it

 By Anna Boone

Throughout my life, I have developed one motto that seems to work for me best: Do not over-think it.

I can completely overanalyze my situations until it causes me physical and mental anguish happened not too long ago. Just like any other morning, I was up before the sun and contentedly munching away on my Bite-Sized Frosted Wheaties when I heard a cat yowl outside the window. I put down my spoon and began to think.

I cannot remember adults saying in grade school that I had an overactive imagination, because I was never too good at imagining different worlds or making up strange creatures in my head. I was, however, amazing at making up possibilities that could actually happen. These possibilities can occasionally help me because they give me a very insightful look on what I believe the outcomes of my choices will be. Usually, however, I just begin picturing the very worst thing that could happen. So although I wasn’t scared when I first heard the cat, I soon was frightened after I convinced myself an ex-convict was outside slowly cutting off its tail.

I jumped back from the table, let out a huge, ear-splitting shriek, and ran, sobbing uncontrollably, down the hallway. I busted down my parents’ doorway and on my way in slammed my hip into their dresser. I collapsed on the floor and just bawled. While my parents tried to make sense of the overly-emotional mess in their room, the rational part of my brain tried to make sense of how I could completely overreact to something that hadn’t even scared me originally.

Just like the huge purple bruise on my side, the lesson I learned from that particular incident didn’t fade for some time. Whenever I found it difficult to believe that I managed to convince myself of those crazy delusions all I had to do was poke my right hip and the throbbing would remind me that I certainly did believe it a little too well.

This is not the only incident where I have over-thought the situation, although, thankfully, it is the most extreme case. I am a very talkative person and this caused quite a few notes to be sent home with me in grade school. If I was lucky the note would come at the end of the day so I couldn’t sit in my seat and picture the reactions of my parents. If I wasn’t so lucky, then I would spend the whole day wondering how much time they would give me to pack before they kicked me out the door. Of course this never happened, but no matter how unreasonable my scenarios became I still would spend my schoolday bent over with the heavy feeling of guilt in my stomach.

Eventually I realized no matter what I did, things had a way of working themselves out. There was no point in imagining tons of different realities when none of them would even matter or could have affected my breakfast that fateful morning. Even if I had talked all the time the teacher was talking, there was nothing I could now do that would change the piece of paper demanding my parents’ signature I was now carrying in my bookbag.

Sometimes I still get caught up in the moment and begin thinking way too hard. I have to remind myself just to take a deep breath and slow down. Whenever my mind starts racing ahead thinking of the worst, I just close my eyes and force myself to think of the good too. I cannot change the outcomes. I can only forgive myself, remember the lesson that life has given me, and keep on moving forward with a positive outlook and bruise-free body.

Columnist speaks out against abortion

Garret Receveur
Forum Editor

I am pro-life. Always have been, always will be. Abortion is one of the worst crimes any human being can commit, up there with genocide. The victim is defenseless and does not know what is happening. My stance on abortion puts me more on the conservative side of the political scale.

More often than not, I find myself cheering on the Republican in the presidential elections rather than the Democrat. I like to think that I have no affiliation with any political party, but this obvious bias for Republicans says otherwise.

Yet, I do not always agree with everything a Republican president does during his term(s), nor do I always disagree with the Democratic president’s policies.

Take June 20, 2007 for an example. On that day, former President George W. Bush issued a veto, which overruled a measure attempting to remove Bush’s ban on embryonic stem cell research. Until that day, I had supported almost all of Bush’s policies on multiple occasions. But this was not one of those times.

His presidency ended sourly over a year later, due to the worsening economy and his ultra-conservative policies, which even a Republican like me could not stand.

Then Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. Those who know me know that I detest Obama, his policies, and his idea of radical change. The numerous bailouts will not fix the economy; the Obama-care health plan is completely unnecessary and socialistic. But that is another column.

Recently, Obama has started to move onto my good side, despite his ultra-liberalism. Perhaps most important is his removal of the stem cell research ban, a monumental decision, up there with his removal of combat troops from the Middle East.

The two most recent presidents passed groundbreaking laws about stem cell research, both of their positions loosely defining their presidency. So what is it about embryonic stem cell research that makes, or breaks, a presidency?

Stem cells are unique cells that we are all born with. They have the ability to transform into any kind of cell the body needs, whether it be a heart cell, a brain cell, or even a simple skin cell.

This is big news for the medical community. Is grandpa dying from Alzheimer’s? Transform a couple stem cells into brain cells. Is he struggling with diabetes? Generate some pancreas cells. The possibilities are literally endless.

However, the best kind of stem cells to harvest can only be harvested from embryos. And this is where the controversy starts.

More often than not, the embryos are killed when scientists harvest the stem cells. At first glance, this is a premature form of abortion and my pro-life self should not support it in the least. Why then do I support it?

Abortion is the killing of a living being before it is born. But I do not consider an embryo a living being. A living being must have the ability to perform complex actions, including but not limited to motion, production of energy, and transport of that energy throughout the organism.

This criteria means that embryos are not alive until about the fifth week of pregnancy, which is the time their brain and heart start to function. Until then, I do not consider them alive. Therefore, feel free to harvest stem cells from them until we find a better way.

There is a group of scientists out there who are working on a way to convert adult skin cells into stem cells, but it has not produced the same versatility. That is the magic of embryonic stem cells. It can be easily transformed into any kind of cell in the human body. Once an organism is born, the cells pretty much stay the same type of cells throughout the organism’s lifespan.

The best time to harvest stem cells is before the fifth week of pregnancy. Think of all we as a species could accomplish with access to a ready supply of stem cells. Debilitating diseases like stroke or Alzheimer’s would be a distant memory. Paraplegics or victims of muscular dystrophy would gain full use of their limbs again.

With all the promise of this field of research, it makes little sense for one to restrict it. I am pro-life and have never been in support of killing an unborn child, but the promise of major medical advancements and ability for numerous people to pursue a life of happiness is too great. Sometimes, you have to be willing to sacrifice one life to save millions.

Violence and the good guys

By Danielle Rehor

We are all taught as small children that fighting is bad and not to punch your little sister in the nose. But what about the guys on TV? What about Sergeant Martin Riggs and Sergeant Roger Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon? It is acceptable for them to be violent because their victims are the bad guys?

As children, we are always told do not fight or argue with our siblings, parents, or friends. We must get along with others or else we are told we will have no friends. We are warned time and time again to follow the golden rule.

If we are not to fight, why can the guys on TV and in the movies do it? They scorn the bad guys, they fight, often kill them, but they do not get in trouble. In fact, they get rewarded: they get the fast cars, the hot chicks, and have the loyal best friends.

Just like the violent good guys get rewarded, shows such as “Bad Girls Club” pay people to badmouth others and fight with each other. People actually watch shows that are about people who cannot control their emotions, so they cuss them out.

If we are always watching movies where some guy is just pulverizing anther person, does that influence our actions at all when we are angry or upset?

If we do not learn how to control ourselves at a young age, we will grow up and will not know how to handle ourselves in a professional environment. We get some bad news or someone else gets the promotion we wanted, what do we do? We cannot punch our boss in the nose or key our coworker’s car as they would in a reality TV show. We do not have the same heroic freedoms as the people in those shows.

We have to learn, before getting out in the real world, that violence rarely ever solves problems.

It agitates problems, causes people to stop talking, and severs relationships. But it does not solve problems.

While on vacation once, we rented a condo and apparently parked our boat in the wrong spot. When we woke up to drive to the lake, we could not. Some one had gotten so mad they took the air out of two tires of every single car in the parking lot, keyed our boat, and poured beer on someone’s dashboard.

 

How does that help a situation? If anything it took us longer to leave their parking spot because we had to fix the tires. The people automatically assume that we parked there just for convience, when in reality we didn’t know better.

So the next time we see something wrong being done, do not just assume it was purely malice and not a mistake. The next time we feel like popping an annoying kid in the mouth, take a step back, compose yourself and walk away. Do not be a Dr. Hannibal Lecter, because we all know that is not going to end well.