Narrow scope of students fails to recognize the essence of education

As I logged onto Facebook last night, I couldn’t ignore the vast sea of comments about the referendum failing to pass, quickly spreading like wildfire between students.

It saddened me to see such harsh, hyperbolic, depressing statements filling up the virtual lives of much of my friends list. As I scrolled between comment and comment, status and status, I realized just how narrow the scope of many high school students is these days.

Cuts will have to be made, and teachers will lose their jobs. Those are facts of the failed referendum.

However, there are many kids all over the world who receive not even a fraction of the education we receive here in America, and the failed 2011 education referendum is not going to sink our school into those depths. Just because the referendum failed to pass this time around certainly does not mean RB isn’t going to strive to give its’ students the highest education possible.

Will you be able to be in that one club or class you wanted? Maybe not. But you will graduate with a diploma from a strong high school and have a full life and future ahead of you. That isn’t something to be taken for granted.

Everyone needs to understand that the vote wasn’t even marginally close, with somewhere around one yes vote to every three no votes, and I find it sad that many of my fellow students instantly turn to attacking those who voted no. I understand that, as students, they have a much more personal connection with the high school, but ultimately, they make up only a fraction of the voters, and they need to respect the decision of the community. I believe respect is one of the abiding pillars of character of Riverside Brookfield High School.

A school is supported by the community it resides in, and our communities obviously had a point to make yesterday at the polls. It wasn’t just a few people who didn’t support the referendum, but rather the vast majority. Regardless of the reason, whether it is finances, personal opinion, or a desire for an alternate solution, I don’t think it’s fair to say that the surrounding communities have forgone supporting education for personal gain or selfishness, something I’ve seen mentioned multiple times. I think it is an errant generalization to say that just because someone voted no means that they would rather spend their money on food, clothes, coffee, cigarettes, etc. than education.

With a new administration, the school now has an excellent opportunity to reconsider the situation, find out where the community had major disagreements, and create a more realistic proposal that is both fair and straightforward for next year. Trying to pass the same proposal with more drastic cuts next year could lead to an even sadder 2012.

Our communities are fortunate to have a wealth of intelligent minds, and it would be nice to see both the school, community, and students leave the politics of this year behind, and utilize the results of the past, to work towards the future with a smarter, more collaborative proposal.

My favorite quote by Mark Twain says, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

Education is much more than the clubs and activities at a school, much more than the AP classes offered, much more than any textbook or technology, and for sure much more than something to be lost at the result of a failed referendum. While next year students may not be able to participate in eco club or play water polo, they will experience education, and that is what really matters.

RB weathers the Storm of ’11

18-20″ of snow came down over night all over the Riverside and Brookfield area on Tuesday night.  Near the end of the school day on Tuesday, Interim Superintendent David Bonnette made the official announcement that school would be closed the following day.  School began late today, Wednesday, at 10:00 a.m. as teachers and students are still digging their way out.

As weather reports began coming in on Monday, teachers and students started to plan.

English teacher Tom Fuller prepared for the worst and said, ”If there is a snow day, I plan to shovel. In 1999 there was a disaster, roads were covered in snow. So I suspect there will be a lot of shoveling and digging out a place for my dog to go to the bathroom.”

Junior Brittany Janney was more laid back, and said, “If there is [a snow day] I will hang out with friends or just chill.”

Driving conditions were difficult immediately at the close of school on Tuesday.  While not much snow had accumulated, winds were strong and the falling snow was blowing sideways.  Roads were slick and traffic was heavy.  Closer to the city of Chicago, conditions rapidly worsened, causing heavily traveled Lake Shore Drive to completely shut down.

English teacher Brigit Wilmot ended up enjoying her day.  “It was great.  I sat inside and watched movies.  I also walked around on Lake Shore Drive.” 

Do you have your own Snow Day features?  Visit out Facebook events page, and submit your best one to win prizes.

Unfriend: 2009 Word of the Year

Unfriend: to remove someone as a “friend” on a social networking site such as Facebook. I’m sure most high school students have at least some familiarity with the word unfriend, as it is becoming an idea that is increasingly apparent in the online world. The reason that this word is particularly interesting is that it has been chosen as the “word of the year” for 2009.

Every year the New Oxford American Dictionary chooses a “word of the year.” This word is supposed to be the most important word of the year, or a word that summarizes the most important idea of any specific year.  Unfriend takes the award this year, replacing the 2008 word, bailout. Unfriend nabbed the top spot over other finalists such as intoxicated, funemployed, and birther.

While previous words such as bailout and plutoed wouldn’t merit coverage at the local high school level,  unfriend is a word that was created mostly through social networking sites, used primarily at the high school and college levels.

I think that the selection of the word unfriend as the word of the year is a powerful statement on the reality of today’s generation and what social networking has become. While in itself social networking was a revolutionary idea that has changed the face of communication, high school students have taken it to the next level.

In my experience, social networking has become the end-all source for everything that’s going on in the lives of high school students. Too often are students making non-binding RSVP’s to events, or posting way to much personal information for the world to see. Some profiles even go to the point of updating readers way too often about what they are currently doing. Sure, I might care about what any given individual is doing over a long weekend, but I could care less about their daily sleeping patterns.

The whole idea of unfriending someone is a peculiar one to me because it essentially means to accept someone’s friendship, and then deny it at a later date. I think this trend makes an interesting statement on friendship, and how it has become something that is so easy to deny at a later date. It saddens me that this idea has become so prevalent in today’s society, largely brought upon by the ease of tools such as social networking.

I think it’s a safe assumption that the majority of unfriending that goes on is between people that aren’t really friends in the first place. Why accept the friendship in the first place if you’re just going to deny it later?

The definition of friendship has drastically shifted over the years, and I believe if you asked different generations to define friendship that you would get dramatically different answers.

RB students should be aware of the whole idea of unfriending and its larger implications on the statement our generation is making on society as a whole. While social networking has its positive uses and has revolutionized the way we communicate, it also has some serious side effects that need to be considered.

The three major social networking sites, Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter, are all on the list of the top 20 most visited websites on the World Wide Web. Facebook comes in at second place only to the Google search engine, and twenty five percent of all internet use in the past three months has been on the website. Needless to say, these websites are among the most used in the world and have shaped social networking on the internet.

Regardless of what anyone likes to hear, unfriend is the word of the year for 2009. This year has obviously been a year of unfriending, and hopefully that isn’t a trend that continues. I urge students and users of these websites to consider whether this word is really the word that they want describing social networking in the years to come.

Renovation doesn’t merit cost

Over the past couple of years, RB has undertaken a significant construction project that has renovated much of the building. Among the improvements include a new pool, fieldhouse, entrance, classrooms and labs, library, cafeteria, and auditorium. Needless to say it has been quite the renovation process.

The construction process started small and evolved to the point where major construction was going on during school days. The entire project was constructed in different phases to allow school to continue despite the construction. In the summer of 2009, McHugh construction made a big push to finish a majority of the construction. Although the summer construction did end up getting finished, it caused a late start that has put considerable pressure on many class schedules.

When the construction is complete, RB will be pretty much completely renovated. This will be nice for incoming students who get to reap the benefits of the construction. My class has been receiving some benefits from the construction, but has also had to suffer through incredibly loud and distracting construction noises and parts of the building being completely walled off.

This construction project has not come free; RB has spent millions upon millions of dollars in order to improve “the quality of education” at our high school. One of the main questions that arises from that is simple: has this multi million dollar construction project improved the quality of education?

The short answer is no.

Sure, our school has received state of the art facilities that not many other students have the option to take advantage of, but does that really improve the quality of education in the building? If education is something based on quality of facilities then RB’s construction project has strong merit.

However, education isn’t something based on quality of facilities. Having things such as strong teachers are much more important to education than having state of the art facilities. I’m definitely not trying to state that RB doesn’t have strong teachers either, because I have had many wonderful teachers that I feel like I’ve learned a lot from and will probably remember for the rest of my life.

My main complaint with the construction project is that our school, which is essentially the taxpayers of the surrounding communities, has spent millions upon millions of dollars on a construction project that in my opinion hasn’t changed the quality of education at this building. The facilities are state of the art and have been nice to be able to take part in, but even so, I don’t feel like the cost has been merited.

Some of the renovation process has been necessary, in order to accommodate the ever increasing enrollment at our high school. I’m completely supportive of these changes and very happy that our school chose to expand rather than attempt to pack classes with the current space. It’s all the glamorous changes that are my main complaint. While having luxuries are nice, there is a time and place to have them.

I feel like the money used for the construction could have been better spent, or even not spent at all. In a time of economic crisis, is the best option to be improving a school that is completely functional? Even before the construction, RB’s facilities outshined many other schools and we were able to offer programs that other schools couldn’t even think about offering.

It doesn’t make sense how RB can merit spending millions of dollars to improve a building that didn’t need most of the major improvements, especially in troubled economic times. I know that additions to expand class space and a few other additions were necessary, but the question is whether or not all the construction project as a whole merits it’s cost?

The answer is no.