Zoey Szumiesz, Sophomore
Play On! Performed by the Theatre Knights Recently the West High Theatre Knights performed a production of Rick Abbot’s Play On! from 11/20-23. It was headed by Ms. Russell an english and theater teacher here at West. I went to the opening night showing and have some things to say about the performance. The play is about a theater company where a group of different people come to work on their production of Murder Most Foul. Each person is at different skill level and they are all just trying to make it work in time for the fast approaching opening night. Meanwhile the eccentric playwright keeps returning with more and more notes on the script. The play is set up as a comedy with a lot of wit and banter between each of the characters. The cast did a wonderful job of going the full mile to really dive into their script. The actors were funny and knew how to make the audience laugh making it an enjoyable experience for each person in the audience, whether they were a student here at West or a visiting member. The sets and the costumes were really well done with what they were given and camaraderie between the cast mates was evident. Overall I think if every production will turn out this way here, everyone should go see a performance. Maybe even more than once.
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Zoey Szumiesz, Sophomore
Reece DesRochers, Sophomore Almost every single car you see driving on the road is piloted by someone that went to Driver’s Education. It is one of the most interesting experiences people have to go through. Each person you ask will have a different story of their class. My name is Zoey and I am 15 and 10 months. Myself and my friend Reece are currently going through the whole learning to drive process. We are going to answer questions we had when we started and questions we still have as we go on. Let’s begin! What did it feel like when you first got behind the wheel? Zoey: When I first got behind the wheel, I almost blanked out in the sense that I did not realize the gravity of what I was doing. I had dreamed of driving for months and when it finally came, it was like I didn’t realize what I was doing. By the way I was not that good of driver. Reece: I was very nervous when I first started driving. For the first 3 or 4 times I was just rolling around a parking lot, not even touching the gas. Eventually I got the hang of it though, like everything else it just takes practice. Fast Fact: You can start driving legally when you are 15 and a half with a licensed driver over the age of 25 in the passenger seat. You also should have a copy of your birth certificate in the glovebox. What drivers ed school are you attending? Zoey: City-Wide Driving School in Manchester, NH. Reece: Granite State Driving School in Salem NH. How was your first class of Driver’s Ed? Zoey: My first class seemed to go on forever. We also didn’t really talk that much about driving. He put on The Simpsons until everyone arrived and then proceeded to talk to us about the strange happenings of his past classes. He read apology notes from students that committed some type of wrongdoing in the past. It was odd to listen to. We then watched a stereotypical 90’s movie on beginning to drive. I honestly felt like I was in a movie. Reece: I was very nervous to start classes. My teacher had a very strong accent and an odd sense of humor so it didn’t exactly ease the stress. Although he did have the first class more of a “let’s get to know you” day which was a nice ice breaker. In just that one day I really got to know my peers and it created a nice environment to be in. What was your first driving hour with your instructor like? Zoey: I was so unbelievably nervous. I knew I was fine driving with my parents, but they are my parents. They will love me even if I crash the car. With this new person I had no idea what he expected of me and I felt like I had to be overly cautious with every step of driving. Where we drove there were a lot of hills so whenever I waived under the speed limit even by 1 mph he made sure to point it out to me letting me know I did something wrong. At the end of the day, I got it over with and now have driven two more times with him since then. I’m still nervous though. Reece: It was very stressful to say the least. I had a different instructor than my actual teacher so it took some getting used to. He was from New York and didn’t shy away from yelling at the other drivers which made me nervous that he might all of a sudden yell at me too. He didn’t start off easy either, we jumped straight into parallel parking and highway driving. Overall, I wouldn’t say it was bad though, it just took some getting used to. What are the classes like? Zoey: We start by either taking a review quiz or test of some form and then he reads off our answers to the class seeing if each person got the answer right or not. We then may take notes on a new subject or watch a video on whatever chapter we are currently working on. Sometimes he finishes way too early and we just watch The Carbonaro Effect. Reece: We usually start off by going over what we did in the previous class. Then he assigns a part of a chapter to every student and we take notes on our section. After about an hour we go through the chapter explaining our sections. We then partner up and do some questions on the chapter. By then it’s usually right near the 2 hour mark so we either get dismissed or watch some videos on car accidents. Reece DesRochers, Freshman A step forward or backward for our school?
My interviewing partner, Shawn Van Order, and I recently talked with Mr. Dichard on the new block schedule. Before going into this I was completely against it, granted no one knew much about it anyway. My thought process was, why fix something that’s not broken? But walking out of that interview I feel very differently. My partner on the other hand has not changed his opinion. Regardless, our job right now is to inform you, the students, on what this is all about. We are not necessarily trying to convince you one way or another but merely inform you so you may then make a decision on your own. The schedule would basically look like this: Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 1 1 5 1 5 2 2 6 2 6 4 3/A/L 7/A/L 3/A/L 7/A/L 3 4 8 4 8 7 6 5 8 On Monday the classes would be 42 min. long except for periods #3 and #7. Those would be 30 min. long. For the rest of the week, periods #1, #5, #4, and #8 would be 80 min. long, periods #2 and #6 would be 85 min. long, and periods #3/A/L, #7/A/L would be 140 min. long. #3 and #7 are longer because those periods consist of one class, advisory, and lunch but not specifically in that order. On your schedule you will get what your order will be. The order will be between these three: Class, advisory, lunch - Advisory, lunch, class - Lunch, class, advisory. The schedule works this way to ensure that you are in the lunchroom when you are supposed to be. Currently, the school is having a problem with students skipping classes and going to the lunchroom. With the new schedule, the only people in the lunchroom will be people who have a lunch. If you have a free class you are to go to either the library or another designated area that is not the lunchroom. Everyone will get a lunch with this new schedule which I think is very important. Some people take 8 classes so they can qualify for New Hampshire Scholars, get into a good college, make up for failed classes, or simply just to push themselves. These kids may go without eating until they get home, or they have to eat during class. This is not only unhealthy for they student but if they have to eat during class they may not be giving their full attention to the teacher. I understand that not having a lunch may be fine for a lot of students, but for those that don’t have one and need one this is a huge plus. Another thing about this new schedule is advisory. I know that most students don’t like advisory right now as it doesn’t seem productive, but if block scheduling happens next year, the general student opinion would change quite a bit. A lot of students have said in the past that they wish school helped with college and career planning, and that is exactly what the Junior and Senior advisories are going to be for. The teachers will be trained so they can help with job and college applications. For Freshmen, advisory will be part high school orientation and part venting space. For Sophomores, this time will be for either an extra study hall or a venting space. Both Freshmen and Sophomores will be focusing on some curriculum work as well. One bad thing about the new advisory is that we will not be staying with the same teachers or students we have now. In some cases this may be a good thing for some students but for others this could be a huge downside. Especially for the teachers who requested to have freshmen this year. They were told at the beginning of the year that they would be staying with the freshmen throughout their four years at West. They have gotten to know us this year and were excited to see us grow and graduate high school. Now with the block scheduling this won’t be happening. Aside from advisory and lunch, another big plus is more time in class. Some students have a harder time getting interested in a class due to its short length. This should not be a problem with 80 minute long classes. Another thing that is good about this is homework. If we have more time in the class to learn the topics then maybe we won’t have as much homework as we may have time in class to do it. Even if we have the same amount of homework we do now, we’ll still have a day in between classes to do it. So all in all, we get a lot more instructive and homework time with this new schedule. Although, some students complain that they will have a hard time sitting through an 80 minute class. One student I interviewed on the subject said, “My ADHD makes it hard to sit through a long class. If I can't sit through a 50 minute class, how will I be able handle an 80 minute class.” They have a very good point. Luckily, there will be different workshops over the summer for teachers to help them create lesson plans that make sure students aren’t just sitting and taking notes all class. One negative to the new block scheduling is that we will not be able to see the same people everyday. If you only have one class with your best friend then you will only be able to see them three days a week in class. Another major downside to block scheduling is sick days. If you are sick on even one day during the week you miss a lot of class time. Hopefully though, you can get your work the next day and have more time to get it done before your next class. There are more good things that come with this schedule though. For example, we will have 5 minutes in between classes instead of 4. It might not seem like much, but sometimes 1 minute can make all the difference between getting to class on time and being late. Another thing is that this is similar to how classes will work in college. You won’t have the same classes everyday so this schedule is a good way to ease us into that. Another thing that will be a HUGE plus is early dismissals, and I don’t mean going home at 1:30 and sleeping. What the school will strongly encourage students to do with early dismissals is either to do a job shadow or go to work. When students get out of high school there is a very common complaint: they don’t know what they want to do with the rest of their life. Some students might think they want to do one thing and start college only to realize that is definitely not what they want to do. Now with more time with early dismissals, there is room for exploration and job shadowing. Even if you want to earn some extra money, you could always use that time to go to work. Either way, this could be huge for seniors looking for career ideas or money for college. Now this is NOT definite, but if the new block schedule does move forward, one of the next steps is an open campus. If this does happen, it will be a huge plus for most students. But as Mr. Dichard stressed in the interview, “Respect goes both ways.” If teachers and the administration respect students enough for them to leave school in their free periods, then the students need to respect the teachers and the administration enough to show up to school on time and go to classes! Now back to my original question, why fix something that’s not broken? Though I do like the idea of this new schedule there still a few things I’m on the fence about, and the current schedule is working fine so why should we change anything? One of the reasons is that the administration is trying to get more students to graduate. The redesign committee has looked at schools all over the country trying to find ways to better our school and some very good schools use this schedule. Another reason, probably the main one, is that the school is in the running for a grant for 500,000 dollars. To qualify for this grant we need to do block scheduling. If we do get the grant, the money will be used for more projects for the redesign. As you have read, there are many positive and negative things about this schedule. I know that there will always be mixed opinions on this and that change is hard but I believe that this is going to be a step in the right direction for our school. If this works out the redesign committee has many more plans for our school. But we will take it one step at a time, and block scheduling is the first step. Hopefully these plans will do what they are meant to and help our school be the best it can be! Anonymous, Freshman Now that it is May, we can take a step back and look at the year we have had. We’ve made friends and lost friends. Most of us have been forced to go through the wringer. It’s not even that the work is harder or something crazy happened, but the little freedoms we have been given, have forced us all to reveal our true colors on what we are ready to do when we can do anything we want. The shifts in our day to day lives can be small at first, but lead to large decisions that can seriously affect our future. One skip turns to four skips, then you have a failing grade in a class that was easy. Those who take advantage of these chances to avoid any amount of work often get lead to a much more difficult path with even more hard work. The five seconds of fame you feel you get from “fighting” with that kid, will never out way the five days of suspension and the mountain of homework you have to complete afterwards. To make the deal even worse no one will remember that day in the cafeteria when you slapped a kid across the face or grabbed that girl’s hair. The sad truth is that no one cares. We only pay attention and encourage these acts of violence and stupidity to get our mind’s off our own problems for just a little bit. From the essay that’s due tomorrow in English or your boyfriend that cheated on you. We all have problems that seem large in our small teenage minds and it’s our job to see them for what they are and deal with it. We are capable of surviving these dilemmas and being successful afterwards, just to accept what’s happening and solve it.
Anonymous " The howls of the lost,
the moon being their guide, the north star their mother. Nurturing from the night they gulped the dark energy, frothing at the mouth with star dust. Treacherous was their journey. They fled the ferocious forest in hopes for a greater passage. Yet their passage was thankless, for the moon fell out of the sky. " Genesis Montes, Senior Melody Ribecca is a tattoo artist at Gothic Tattoo in Concord, NH. Ribecca is a former student of West’s Mr. Czysz.
The following Interview took place on December 13, 2018: GM: Hello, thank you for letting me interview you! To begin, I’d like to ask what made you want to begin tattooing? MR: Let’s see, well...My family has always had tattoos. My dad has always kind of been conservative about that kind of stuff, but my mom has been pretty open. She had a boyfriend around the same time I was graduating who had a lot of tattoos. They were both encouraging of me getting my first tattoo! I was actually still in high school and had actually never really thought about it until my family or even Mr. Czysz were like “you should do tattoos!” because I would draw them for people. It was mostly the influence of other people rather than my own want because I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. GM: How long have you been tattooing? MR: I want to say it’s been about five and a half years. I started tattooing right out of high school. GM: How does it feel to be a woman in a male-dominated industry? MR: For me, I was actually taught by a woman. I actually didn’t really go into the industry as the minority, I don’t want to say minority. I mean, there was a guy there but she was married to him. She’s the one that taught me and there was nobody else there. It was actually myself and her against him. I have never really been anywhere else. I don’t really exactly know what it would have felt like if I had been in a different setting. It’s definitely a little bit different in terms of style (between male and female artists). Most of the tattoo artists (men) that I’ve met have a specific style, whereas most of the women I’ve seen tattoo also have a specific style. I don’t want to generalize any specific gender, but definitely more bolder, thicker outlines and more traditional work on the men’s side and more light and dainty work of the women’s side. GM: What would you say your style is? MR: I’ve been told I am a light-handed, fine-line, detailed artist. I tend to do smaller things that any normal tattoo artist wouldn’t typically do, like small writing or small details. I like to do watercolors, flowers, more (tattoos) towards the realistic side. GM: What would you say your biggest accomplishment regarding tattooing would be? MR: My biggest accomplishment as of right now would be owning my own business and being successful with it. Hopefully it stays that way! (laughs). Definitely, getting accepted to receive the bank loan for the business. GM: What do you hope to do in the future? MR: I’m kind of a go with the flow type of person. I kind of just take it as it is as time goes on. Whatever happens, happens. I definitely hope to still be doing what I am doing and make people happy with the artwork that they get. Obviously, I’d like to improve in anyway that I can and maybe even travel someday. I don’t know, wherever the wind takes me (laughs). GM: That’s wonderful! Thank you for your time. Deborah Fahel, Sophomore. Every year in school, teachers hear the same complaint from their students: They give too much homework. Many have argued lately that homework is unnecessary for school. These people may say that having an assignment to take home does not help a student’s grades. However, it is also argued that it helps students better understand what they need to know before taking a test on the same subject. Is homework really helping the nation’s students? Or is homework just busy work that is not needed at all?
When comparing the United States’ students with students around the world, the US sits at number 24 on the list of the smartest countries in the world according to List 25’s list of countries with the highest IQ. American students spend an average of 6.1 hours a week on homework, giving students an average of 1.22 hours of homework every school night. Some students say that they cannot find that hour and a half to put aside to do more next to extracurricular activities and personal matters. The country that ranked number 1 on the list of smartest countries in the world was Hong Kong. These students spend about 5.1 hours doing homework a day! That’s about 25.5 hours a week! According to QZ.com’s list of countries that spend the most time on homework, Shanghai does not even touch that amount with 13.8 hours a week (about 2.76 hours a day). Hong Kong student’s school schedule is also very different from the schedule that students have in the United States. Students in the US go to school from Late August or Early September to Late May and early June depending on state and city. Students in Hong Kong go from August to June (according to Streamford American School in Hong Kong, the 2018-2019 year started August 13 and will end June 18). They have a normal week and hours as a student in the US. However, given the school day and the abundant amount of homework the schools’ give out, students in Hong Kong have shown signs of depression and anxiety. A country that gives the least amount of homework is Finland. Finland students only get about 2.8 hours of homework per week totaling about 0.56 hours a day on homework. That sounds heavenly to a student in the United States. What else makes Finland schools sound better? Their school day is only from around 9 am to 2 pm and go from August to June. Yet these students made it to number 6 on The Streets list of smartest students in high school. What about their mental health? The Finnish students are more relaxed. Should the United States go the same way as Finland or the same way as Hong Kong when it comes to the debate on homework? Well, about 40% of students that graduate high school in the US have poor mental health. Some of it could be contributed to stress levels on the rise. Students that want to balance their classes with extracurriculars during the day could have trouble finding time to do homework. However, teachers say that it helps students learn the content. While, it can help a student find out areas they need work on, but is it worth a sleepless night to do an assignment? There really is not a “right” side or “wrong” side to this debate on homework. While there are things that point to homework needing to go, there are also a few benefits. For example, it teaches students about time management. Homework also teaches a lot of other things to students. More examples include setting priorities, responsibility, organization and how to work independently. Another good side to homework is that it shows the parents what the student is learning in school. Finally, homework also helps students find what they do not understand in the assignment. If they find something, they can ask the teacher for extra help to do well on the next test. Altogether, the homework debate is all gray. There is no black or white to it. If it goes away, there are benefits that are tossed out. If it stays, there are complaints about the negatives. Homework may help a student be smarter, but in some places, it just might not be worth the hours of work outside of school. Works Cited: "25 Countries With The Highest Average IQ." List25. List25, 31 Jan. 2018. Web. 02 Jan. 2019. ; "CALENDARS & TYPHOON PROCEDURES." Sais HK. N.p., 09 Nov. 2018. Web. 03 Jan. 2019. ; "Homework." Hotchalk Lesson Plans Page: Lesson Plans by Teachers for Teachers. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Jan. 2019. ; "Hong Kong Primary Students Spend More Time on Homework than Global Peers - Survey." Hong Kong Free Press HKFP. N.p., 18 Dec. 2015. Web. 02 Jan. 2019. ; Informatik, CH-Bern Psc. School Holidays City Zürich 2018. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Jan. 2019. ; Kohli, Sonali. "Students in These Countries Spend the Most Time Doing Homework." Quartz. Quartz, 12 Dec. 2014. Web. 02 Jan. 2019. ; Mike-colagrossi. "10 Reasons Why Finland's Education System Is the Best." Big Think. Big Think, 05 Oct. 2018. Web. 03 Jan. 2019. ; "More than Half of Secondary Pupils Show Symptoms of Depression." South China Morning Post. South China Morning Post, 29 Aug. 2017. Web. 02 Jan. 2019. ; "Problems at School | Association for Children's Mental Health." ACMH. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Jan. 2019. ; Rubin, C. M. "The Global Search for Education: A Look at a Finnish School." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 07 Dec. 2017. Web. 03 Jan. 2019. ; Team, MainStreet. "These Countries Have the Smartest High School Kids." TheStreet. TheStreet, 29 Nov. 2015. Web. Anonymous; Freshman. Freshman year, I came to school with too much confidence and the notion that high school was all about romantic love stories and football victories under the Friday night lights. Soon, I realized that this was not the case. Rather than date nights with the quarterback, it's late nights with your geometry textbook. All your friends that you thought would never leave you, turn into attention cravers and are no longer by your side. The reality of high school is that you need to learn to survive on your own whether it be through your success in academics or dealing with raging hormones going on inside you everyday. We have to go through the wringer before we can break through the walls of our childhood and become adults. We move on to the real world, go to college, and maybe even start a family. It all seems so far away, especially when we are stuck with our daily trivial teenage problems that seemingly no one else can understand. As I make my way through my day, the thought that is running constantly is that none of this is going to matter 10 years from now. Yet another reality we need to face is that skipping class and briefly getting some type of "street cred" is not going to get you good enough grades to get you into your preferred college. At the end of the day, us Freshmen are 14, 15, 16, 17, and even 18 and we are just another class going through West High School. What really matters is what we make of the 4 years we will spend here and what we will become afterwards.
Audrey Bello; Senior. The new "Knight Time" advisory is causing differing opinions among the four grade levels. While many Freshmen and Sophomores enjoy the enrichment period, Juniors and Seniors fail to see how they can endure this "waste of time." Personally, I believe that the time can be worthwhile if the head advisors make it so. Seeing that Juniors and Seniors are not inclined to build relationships with their peers this late into their high school career, advisors need to be aware that they cannot force a relationship or bond between students. I have heard a few stories about advisors scolding students for not wanting to be involved in activities as useless as the common "Icebreaker" activity. These lead advisors need to be approachable and willing to adapt to student wishes, even if that means that one day of advisory does not adhere to the week's criteria. Remember, Rome was not built in a day; If you give students time to open up and accept advisory, they will.
Irma Vrevic, Senior. Being a senior, every first day I have seen the guidance office and student body dread the schedules being released. Understandably so, as the schedules never seem to be just perfect. West High has a variety of students that we pride ourselves with, and that leads to a big variety of classes, or so we hope. Being students, we are unaware of the big stuff that goes down when administrators choose to cut classes. However being a student, we are the ones who experience our opportunity dissipating. I have seen classmates who want to major in chemistry have AP chemistry taken away from them. We have classmates who want their classes to be relevant to their future major but have the pressure of needing another science class in order to be a New Hampshire Scholar. Then there is the picking and choosing of the classes that unfortunately run the same period. There are many seniors right now finishing some of their graduation required classes on VLACS on top of their other classes, because of the lack of schedule flexibility. Nothing can be done otherwise, as we've been told. We forget by the end of the year and the cycle begins. As a small school, it’s hard to run too many classes and it’s a hard job to decide which ones do. However, we are redesigning the future of West High, aren't we? I hope these issues can be resolved with block scheduling.
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