News

Leadership skills put to work at Camp Carl retreat

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Every year, student council hosts a leadership retreat at Camp Carl.

The meeting on Mon., March 2, was held to inform possible “presenters” about the process and duties of the job. Presenters are a big part of the retreat and teaching attending students important life skills. Students must have already attended the retreat to become a presenter.

Possible leaders must go through a five minute interview with Mr. McMahan and Ms. Kotecki. The interview will mostly be the interviewee talking about what he or she is most interested in presenting on and if they have a specific teacher they would like to present with.

“There’s going to be a different feel to leadership this year, but I think it’ll be great. There’s still going to be tons of fun and games but students also get to hear from their teachers and peers about their personal leadership experiences,” attending teacher Danna Kester said.

Presenters need qualities like passion to teach peers about leadership and being capable of having fun but also being serious when presenting their topic to the attendees.

This year, the retreat is on Thurs., April 23 through Fri., April 24. Students will be separated into groups where there are various activities and stations that each teach a different pillar of leadership. Some of these pillars are time management, community service, how to deal with stress and planning for college.

There are two groups of students attending the retreat. The first group are the attendees who have been elected by a teacher to go. This group of students will be split up into teams and assigned a teacher and presenter. The other group consists of the presenters who are the people who plan the presentations and activities for the retreat.

There will be 12 groups consisting of one teacher and one to two students or “presenters.” Each group will come up with a presentation on a topic of choice for anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes. Presentations typically consist of an introduction, an activity and a review of what was learned.

The role of the presenter is to work alongside the teacher to create an inspirational and motivational presentation that can be expanded on in a discussion with the groups they present to.

It is preferred for the presenter and the teacher to be able to put a personal connection in their presentation so that the topic and goals that go along with the topic seems more realistic to the students. If the attendees hear about a real-life situation relating to the topic, they are more likely to listen to what is said and to apply what they learn.

Some activities include a water balloon toss, a three-legged obstacle course, rope swings and constructing a tire bridge with a team.  There are also activities done with the entire group of people attending the retreat. Some of these activities are capture the flag and a bonfire at night before it is time to go to bed.

“In the past, my experience at the retreat was truly great. I got to meet so many new people who I never thought I would become friends with.  The tips and skills they taught were more helpful than I ever thought they would be. I’m looking forward to the next retreat and meeting new people again,” sophomore and hopeful presenter Olivia Hauser said.

The goal of the retreat is to have a leadership conference that will inspire students to conduct self-assessment of their own leadership skills and weaknesses. Those planning and hosting the retreat hope that students who attend will bring back the things they learned and maybe even teach those skills to their peers and possibly the community.

The retreat is fun and educational for everyone that attends, even for the presenters and teachers who have already attended in previous years.

News

Students welcome new CBI teacher

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Knowing that she wanted to enter the world of teaching as a kid, Melissa Knepp carried out a plan and achieved her dream.

Whenever Knepp was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, her answer was always to be a teacher.

“Yes, I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. I didn’t want to be anything else,” Knepp said.

She started out her goal by enlisting herself in the Ohio Army National Guard, knowing that after her service her college would be mostly paid for.

When Knepp served in the National Guard she helped work on Chinook helicopters. She was later deployed to Iraq for a year’s worth of time.

“I went to Kent State and earned my undergraduate completely paid for by the Army, and I also earned my master’s which was mostly paid for but not completely,” Knepp said.

After earning her undergraduate and master’s degrees, Knepp pursued her life of teaching. She previously taught at Life Skills School in Akron and taught on an Online school.

With an outgoing personality and an enthusiastic attitude, Knepp seems to be doing well as a new teacher at the high school.

“I am a very talkative person, so my students pretty much know everything about me,” Knepp said.

Knepp lives in Kent with her dog, Penelope. She teaches all levels of math and enjoys all of her students.

“I am not married and have no children, just my pit bull, Penelope.  I grew up in Hudson and graduated from Hudson High School in 2003,” Knepp said.

Her hobbies include running, kayaking, Zumba, kick-boxing, home improvement projects/renovations and reading. Her strongest subject is and always has been math.

In high school Knepp was in jazz band and played the trombone. She didn’t participate in any     sports but shared that she really enjoyed being in band.

“I’m a vegetarian and my favorite food is sushi,” Knepp said.

If she didn’t have a chance to be a teacher she said she would have been an actuary–a statistic checker for an insurance agency.

Knepp enjoys teaching and always has. She looks forward to the upcoming years of being in Stow.

Editorials

Freshmen angered by new standardized test

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Standardized testing is a big part of the American education system, but there are many holes and missing parts to the system.

A standardized test is any exam that is administered and scored in a predetermined, standard manner. According to parcconline.org the tests are used to determine placement in schools, states and countries. Though the tests show placement, there are flaws in the standardized testing system.

Students do not see the tests as work that shows their great achievement but as a test they need to do well on to live up to the expectations of parents, teachers and higher level education schools. Not doing well on a certain test could prevent students from going to the college of students choice.

The tests do not show what each student is capable of achieving. According to institute4learning.com, the testing process is looking for a specific format for responses and does not value the students’ creative view because  the response is not viewed by an actual human. A machine is looking for something that could not be there in the desired form.

The testing processes are not for educational purposes at all. They exist for administrative, political and financial purposes.                                   The  Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career administration make billions of dollars, and  politicians get elected based on promises for higher standardized test results. Also,school administrators get funding and avoids penalties by boosting test scores.

Students are the only ones who do not directly benefit from the testing. To them, it is a stupid test they have to take each year. The tests often place them into the class level they will be in the next school year.

The tests put unnecessary pressure and stress onto a student to do well. The standardized tests do not test what a student has learned but what they have most likely memorized weeks in advance for the test, meaning that after testing, the student will forget the material to memorize for the next upcoming test.

The new common core standard that schools nationwide adopted set higher standards in education in grades kindergarten through twelfth grade, according to parcconline.org.  The new PARCC assessment the freshmen class  recently took  is  part of the new standard. The PARCC assessments, or Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, are assessments made by concerned educators, parents and employers who want assessments that better measure students’ critical thinking and problem solving skills and their ability to communicate clearly.

These tests are designed to prepare young children who have no idea what they want to do for future colleges and employers. The new standardized tests are made to groom a whole new generation to fit into the ever growing and competing world of jobs and real life.

The freshman class has no desire to be part of the PARCC testing process. After testing, students said the tests were hard, the questions unclear and should have been considered as a form of torture. Students were unsure on how well they did on the tests, given that much of it was did not make sense.

“The tests are really difficult and  aren’t worth the time,” freshmen Maria Petrecca said.

To the students, no one saw why the tests were necessary. To graduate, students who are freshman and under are required to have 18 points in each subject; many freshman joked that graduation rates will drop due to the difficulty of the PARCCs.

Only thirteen of the fifty states are taking the PARCCs, the others decided that another standardized test is unnecessary. When it comes to testing that can determine a future, the testing should be seen nationwide and if proven too difficult that thirty-seven states pull out, there should be a reconsideration.

Freshman Cody Kowalczyk said, “The tests were either way too simple or so complicated that there was no way we would have known the answer.”

Editorials

Profanity in the classroom questioned by many

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Teachers are not all that much different from us. They were once students, they were teenagers and they have been through the same challenges and obstacles as current students, so usually, they cut us some slack. Now, it is our turn to return the favor.

Recently, a harsh video went viral–a teacher was caught cussing out one of his students. He threatened and insulted the student. This video not only caused a small social media riot but caused some conversation in the teaching world about the widely “unspoken rule” about refraining from cussing in front of students. Now, students are asking themselves the same question.

Teachers throughout our building have, at one time or another, used a so-called “inappropriate” word. Some of these slips happen by accident or in a moment of weakness, and sometimes more mild cuss words have been used for comic value. Students see these slips as happenings that humanize teachers. Swearing in front of a class is something most educators try to prevent, but based on the context for which the cuss word or words is used determines it appropriateness. Each circumstance can be quite different.

Those comical teachers may be doing it to make their class giggle a little. The use of curse words in this situation is solely for the purpose of being funny. It seems acceptable when the words have been used in a light-hearted manner.

Although, a fine line does exist between the use of these cuss words for comical emphasis (or used accidentally) and these inappropriate words being used to express anger towards a student.

This line is crossed when a student’s name is used in context with the unnecessary word or used to insult a student. Teachers are supposed to be role models to their students. Just like we have to respect them and refrain from using swear words at them, they should respect us just the same–even if they are the person in charge.

Neither the Student Code of Conduct nor the Employee Handbook outline anything about teacher’s behavior in class. While the Student Code of Conduct prohibits students from using “profane, obscene or vulgar language or gestures at school, on school buses or while engaged in or present at any school sponsored event or activity,” teachers have no restrictions to the language they use. We can assume that teachers refrain from cussing due to beliefs and values based in professionalism or fear of persecution from administration.

Debate.org held a survey called “Should teachers be allowed to swear at school?” Forty percent answered yes and sixty percent answered no.

Videos, just like the one that went viral, are of teachers using excessive profanity. They all have been gracing the Internet, from more cases in Chicago, IL to Memphis, TN. It seems that the condition of the schools and the attitude of the students, conditions that greatly differ from the high school’s, pushes these teachers into these rants. A obscene rant would be less expected and therefore more provocative from a teacher from the high school.

In 2012, people in the state of Arizona tried to pass a bill which would prohibit teachers, including college professors, from swearing in and outside of the classroom. This bill would have prevented students from learning certain literature because of vulgar language, such as “Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, a book read by most high schoolers that many people note for its relative “excessive use of racial slurs.”

It seems as though the use of cuss words depends on the type of teacher and in the situation the words are used. For now, swear words do not seem to be a problem in our school.

Within this modern generation, swear words have increased in use by people ranging from children to adults. Profanity is a rising epidemic that fills classrooms with a new influence, but whether or not teachers use it is completely up to them.

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