ASPire Newspaper

23/11/2014

Fear mongering celebrities, your weekly dose of cynicism, and an empathy-free analysis of the “generation rescue” movement, all included in this week’s post.
https://aspirenewspaper.wordpress.com/2014/11/21/war-on-vaccines/

I’ve tried to tackle this post a number of times. I started with a rather aggressive approach, but it was too obnoxious. Another in a very restrained way, but it didn’t get the point across. Hopefu...

10/11/2014

Super Nanny
By Thibault Messeri
After having successfully completed the day’s homework, I hoped into a quick shower, after which I went to say goodnight to my parents. When I stepped in to the master bedroom, I found my mom huddled under the covers, asleep, the channel switching from the news to what I think is amongst the worst possible kind of television: Super nanny.

Rant mode initiated:

There are many reasons for which I despise that kind of pseudo reality TV. The first of which goes as follows: People have no right to judge the parenting of others as worse than theirs. There is no platonic ideal of parenting, as it changes according to the child and the parent, as well as a myriad of other factors like income, place of living and local culture, just to state a few. The arrogance the various “nannies” show (I’ve seen two shows with the same concept so far. I assume there are many, many more) to think they can raise kids better in a month (or less) than the very human beings that made them is beyond me.

That being said, I know we don’t live in ideal world, that not all parents love their children, and that many adults are simply not fit to raise kids. These are outliers. (I hope) They do not represent the parents of this world. These families need help.

However, proper help isn’t broadcasted on national television for the whole country to laugh at these families, whom often don’t choose to be in such a situation. These kids are depicted as pests, intolerant brats, while the parents are seen as incompetent, weak minded and unable to lead a family. It’s both pathetic and humiliating.

And don’t even get me started on child beauty pageants!

03/11/2014

In Defense of Cross Country
By: Cameron Haas
Cross Country doesn’t get much attention. There are even fewer spectators than other sports, the athletes don’t get muscular (if only lungs were somehow visible), and the uniforms are downright indecent. XC isn’t even popular as a cult activity, since half of Cross Country athletes don’t even enjoy their own sport.

It’s a sordid state of affairs, where especially passionate runners will hear things like, “You’re the only person on the team who actually likes running.” Cross Country is obviously underappreciated, but it is still the clearly the best sport, for several reasons.

First is the variety. This sounds insane. After all, isn’t Cross Country just running? Well, it’s more nuanced than that.

We run up hills.

We run at different speeds and for different amounts of time.

We run in different weather.

While Volleyball plays every game in warm gymnasiums and Football competes on flat fields, we run through rain, mud, slopes, traffic, pedestrians, and dogs. Yes, literally through. In other sports, the main variable component is the opposition; in cross-country, anything can change week to week. One course might be hillier, or the weather might be nasty. These seemingly small changes make huge differences in times and racing. In other sports you know what you’re getting into: the same game as always, maybe against better opponents. Cross Country has no guarantees.

Most important is the sheer brutality though. In Cross Country, athletes don’t get cut.

They quit.

Other sports are definitely about competition, but there’s also some degree of “fun”. Team sport players enjoy the games they play. It sounds perfectly natural for a group of boys to casually say “let’s play Football”, but who would ever say “let’s play Cross Country”? Absolutely no one. That would be ridiculous. While a love of their game binds most athletes, runners are drawn together by a kind of shared masochism. A Cross Country runner once said, “Running a 5k is like trying to perform open heart surgery on yourself. It hurts, but you just have to keep going.” That’s what we train to do.

Enjoying this horrible pain is exactly why cross-country is better than any other sport, and not just for masochists. While other sports are “fun during”, Cross Country is “fun after”. Cross Country teaches you to suffer, but also to be rewarded for that suffering. Other sports may be “cooler” or more enjoyable, but being able to enjoy pain is, arguably, one of the most useful skills needed to succeed.

16/10/2014

Social Media as an Educational Tool
Last Thursday, my Psychology teacher, Mr. Friendly, asked a very intriguing question. Had any of our teachers had tried using twitter as a tool in any of our classes?

The obvious answer was no: but then I though, “why not”. There really is no reason why the concept behind any social media site could not be used for educational purposes.

After reading Mark Guay’s “3 Reasons Why the School Principal Needs To Tweet”, I was more convinced then ever that social media use in schools could only be a good thing.

Guay specifically mentions three advantages of Social Media use:

1) It is cost effective;

2) It is motivational and a great way to reach students and teachers alike;

3) You can create a great deal of positive energy using these networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest.

Although he specifically focuses on ways in which leaders can promote their school through social media, there are also many opportunities for using applications inside the classroom.

Everyone has a cell phone and most teenagers love to use them. Teachers have many opportunities to use social media in the classroom. They could assign homework that requires the use of a social media site.

I still remember in 9th grade English with Mr. Kim. He assigned us a homework assignment where we had to create fake Facebook profiles for characters in a short story. Personally, this helped me achieve a deeper understanding of the characters’ personality, and their relationships with other characters in the story.

Teachers could also use sites such as Twitter or Instagram to reach students more quickly. As teenagers, we check our social media very frequently. If our teachers posted a link to a website as a resource for homework, we would know immediately.

There may be trials and tribulations to this adaption, internet trolls and online haters for example, but the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Students of our generation are keenly aware of and very adept at using social media and it could only add to our learning in the classroom.

By Jack Campbell

http://aspirenewspaper.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/social-media-as-an-educational-tool/

13/10/2014

As we all know, October is breast cancer awareness month. We should be proud of ourselves for taking part in spreading awareness for breast cancer by wearing pink on Friday, for several reasons. One in eight women are diagnosed with breast cancer; in fact it is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women, and the second leading cause of death among women.

However, breast cancer, like any disease, does not discriminate between genders. Breast cancer in men is rare, however, it is estimated that 2,150 men are diagnosed with breast cancer, and that 410 die from it each year.

To spread awareness for both male and female breast cancer, seven men who work in “Big Lot Reliable Chevrolet” ’s finance department posed in 12 pictures to create a “We Hate Cancer” calendar that was released last week. The Internet director of “Big Lot Reliable Chevrolet”, Victoria Williams, has a sister who was diagnosed with breast cancer. For this reason, the company fundraises every year in October with individual projects, in order to help breast cancer research.

The models – Kirby Puckett, Sid Brown, Paul Becker, Rob Yotter, Tyler Hough, Matt Hilton and Bryan Koumiss- call themselves “Average Men for an Exceptional Cause”. In the past, the team has held airsoft gun shooting contests and pie-throwing contests- but this year’s calendar is their most creative so far. As with all their past individual fundraising projects, all the funds they raise with their calendar go to the cause.

No, they are not football players or Abercrombie & Fitch models – but you can take a look at their pictures on their page, Average Men for an Exceptional Cause

by Guilia Casella

http://aspirenewspaper.wordpress.com/2014/10/12/male-models-protecting-the-ta-tas/

08/10/2014

Theory of Knowledge is bizarre. Of all the High School classes, it’s the only one whose name isn’t self explanatory. Four classes in, it seems to be a hodgepodge of philosophy and everything else. Sources from fiction to art to philosophical musings have already been considered, and if an essay talks about the quadratic formula and Beethoven, it’s probably doing a good job. How you know your birthday is called into question, but you’re also reminded that there is in fact absolute truth. We are assaulted by countless interpretations and every answer is wrong.

This all begs the question of what’s the point. There are simple answers. Sure, the course gets us to be more open minded by challenging our most basic beliefs. Sure, considering things from different perspectives is good. However, the level of skepticism demanded by TOK would be ridiculous in any other class. Even in the sciences, where it’s your job to be skeptical, asking how we know a beaker is a beaker would be pushing things a little. Students might always complain about how they think TOK is pointless, but there is one thing it does that most people can appreciate. TOK absolutely crushes students who think they know everything.

TOK stands out as the only class where the point isn’t to teach you, at least at first. TOK wants to confuse you. Basic scientific fact? You don’t know that. Your tastes? Can’t be sure about that either. Your name? Well you don’t really know… it goes on and on. Later on the course admits that some things are certainly true, but the initial confusion reflects how TOK classes exist to muddle what you know. For some, a haze of confusion is just school as usual, but TOK lets even the most perfect students enjoy bewilderment. Much better, normal students get to watch self-proclaimed academic gods topple. The best (or worst) part is that even if you’re getting good grades, that doesn’t reflect what happens in class: all your answers are still wrong.

Maybe TOK exists to broaden perspectives, or inject a bit of subjectivity and philosophy into an otherwise straightforward curriculum. That’s probably the IB’s intention. But it also does the far more important task of humbling even the most perfect students. Normal study habits don’t work, and you can’t answer everything right in class (or even anything right on some days.) After walking through TOK, nobody is unscathed or failureless. The actual academic application of TOK might be unclear, but it does one thing that no other class can do: humble the pretentious intellectuals who are so aggravating everywhere else. For that alone, TOK can be called a success.

03/10/2014

The recent lockdown drill appeared in a conversation with friends outside of school today. I was promptly directed to an article online. In it, a child physcologist reflects on the possible traumatic effect these drills could have on us kids, especially younger ones. I disagree with her on the possibility of significant trauma, simply because most kids, and from a very young age, are aware the world isn’t as pretty as it seems (the news and TV violence finally paying off!) but that’s beside the point.

Read More! http://aspirenewspaper.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/lockdown-trauma-and-gun-violence/

The recent lockdown drill appeared in a conversation with friends outside of school today. I was promptly directed to an article online. In it, a child physcologist reflects on the possible traumat...

03/10/2014

We’ve all been there, it’s Sunday evening and oh I haven’t written that history essay. Instead I’ve spent my weekend on Netflix, propped up against pillows, dog on my lap, watching all of Orange Is The New Black.

Usually, the time for spending hours just watching a TV series is the weekend. When else can you do it? It’s also a time where you have more pertinent things to do. It isn’t done purposefully, usually it’s just one episode – but that’s when someone gets shanked and you just have to keep going. Before you know it the clock reads 18:00, and the day is gone. Unrestrained watching of TV – on a regular basis – has no benefits, but that stops no one. With TV marathons comes basic happiness, and you get to talk about it with your fellow bingers the next day.

The really only honest to God appropriate time to binge watch is, if you’re:

a) Recently dumped

b) In mourning of a friend and or family member and or pet

c) Sick

But really, isn’t “Game of Throne’s” always appropriate?

By Tailor Liedtke

http://aspirenewspaper.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/procrastination-the-bane-of-all-students/

We’ve all been there, it’s Sunday evening and oh I haven’t written that history essay. Instead I’ve spent my weekend on Netflix, propped up against pillows, dog on my lap, watching all of Orange Is...