AP Exams

Money and stress is what people put into AP exams.  What do they get out of it?  Well, if you pass the exam and get a high enough score you can get college credit and save thousands of dollars, but if you are like many and don't pass the exams then you have just wasted a bunch of money and time.

IBA

What does this weird short phrase stand for?  To all dedicated musicians in Iowa this means the Iowa Bandmasters Association.  It is that time of year again and people are getting excited. 

Concerts

The stressful times of the school year when your band director announces a concert time.  With so many things happening it is hard to keep track of what's going on during the week and what needs to be done in order to be prepared for the upcoming concert.

Detention

               School discipline is always under debate by adults, but what about what the students think.  I do not speak for everyone, but I do speak for many when I say that students need discipline sometimes.  How else are we supposed to learn from our mistakes if we don’t even know what they are?  Teachers now hesitate to assign detentions because they are afraid of lawsuits and other unfair retaliations.
                Discipline doesn’t always have to be abusive and sometimes detentions aren’t enough.  What are adults supposed to do if students don’t care about detentions and only want to make teachers mad?  Well I have no idea, but sometimes I think that students respected teachers more when teachers were able to hit kids.  I am not saying that abusing kids is alright, but something has to be done about the lack of respect for teachers. 
                Getting sent to the office can sometimes help with punishment, but some kids get so used to that and see it as a way of getting out of learning in class.  Some kids just need to be put in their place and if fear has to be a way of doing that, then so be it. 
                I rarely get in trouble when I am in school, but one time I did get into trouble for no reason and I got really embarrassed because a teacher yelled at me in front of the whole class.  Yelling should never be allowed by a teacher towards a student and a student should also never yell at a teacher.  Yelling gets people nowhere and it only shows disrespect to both people.  I would say that for me to show someone respect, it would mean that they would also have to show respect to me.  Respect goes both ways and sometimes I think if rebel students would just get some respect and attention, then maybe they wouldn’t be so bad and would also show respect to the teacher.
                What other punishment should be done?  For me I would be devastated if I got any form of punishment, but some people just don’t care.  I would say that it is the parents’ responsibility to make sure that their student is good during school because how a student acts at school represents the home life. 
                How about lowering grades or not allowing someone to go to an activity?  That is already a form of punishment, but what more can be done legally?  Having teachers being able to hit kids with a ruler just doesn’t seem right, but it might be the only option left. 
               What if punishment is only making the kid want to rebel more?  Well in all reality, it is.  I read this one article and it has made me realize that everyone is different and what might seem like punishment to someone can feel like another reason to just keep rebelling to another person.  Children are hard to figure out and no specific thing is going to work for each person.  That is why I think each person needs and individual approach and maybe that is why the parents should focus on punishment at home and teachers should only focus on teaching.  Nothing against teachers, but I don’t think it is their place to discipline someone else’s kids.  Parents just need to get a handle on their children. 

Paying a Little Extra

       Private lesson teachers are costly, but effective.   To become better in music, it is almost necessary to invest in it.  Private lesson teachers are like coaches that keep track of how much you do and what you need to do to improve in music.  While it may seem like a waste of time (which sometimes it can be), it is needed to for even the best musicians that want to become better. 
            Private lesson teachers hold you accountable and can tell if you have practiced or not, they are like a weight scale when someone is on a diet.  If you step on the scale and the number goes up, the results would show that you haven’t truly put much effort into it.  It you step on the scale and the number goes down, it would show improvement and that practice or in this case exercise has been used to help a person get better.
            Private lesson teachers can be like your best friends and always chatty about the latest gossip during a lesson or they can be strict and always focused on music during the lesson.  I prefer in-between, but that type of person is hard to find.  Private lesson teachers can seem to be the most critical on you, but they are paid to tell you what you need to do to improve.  The truth can hurt sometimes, but often it is needed.  For a person to be a private lesson teacher, they would have to be musically qualified and better than the person they are teaching (otherwise both people are clueless).  Private lesson teachers can also encourage and support a person when they are going to do a competition or a performance. 
           During practice they may ask you to play scales, solos, or individual warm-ups.  A lesson is only as good as the person who is paying for it makes it to be.  If no time is put in between lessons, then the lesson would only focus on a particular thing until it gets better, and it would take more time for the lesson to progress onto other things.  Private lesson teachers are amazing and help each individual person become a better player.  It is definitely worth the investment and time.  If you found this post helpful and are interested in taking private lessons here is the link to a site that can get you started.  Have fun in the wonderful journey of paying extra.

Bullying

                Bullying is a major problem everywhere.  It not only occurs in the early years of a person’s life, but it seems like bullies never seem to go away even later on in life.  Being in school, I witness bullying every day.  I would be considered a bystander and sometimes bystanders are just as bad as the bully because they are letting the bully continue without doing anything.  I don’t always just watch it happen, but sometimes I don’t have enough strength to stand up for the person getting bullied. 
                It has always been taught in school that bullying is bad and that whoever is a bully will get in trouble with administration.  In some cases people do get in trouble, but not often enough bullies get stopped.  It is sickening sometimes to hear the comments of bullies and how they can make someone feel like they are dirt and don’t mean anything.  I feel like administration hasn’t done enough to deal with bullies.  So many kids go home crying and yes I have been one of those kids and nothing ever got done.  They would say take it up with their parents and sometimes parents don’t care about what their kids do.  Things like bullying need to be taken seriously and handled at a higher level.  We are all people and have meaning in the world.  Why should someone have to make another person feel like shit just so they can feel good about themselves?  That question will probably never be answered with the right response, but we should all think about what we say and do before we do it.  Just saying one word can be the difference between making a person’s day good or bad. 
                If you have not been bullied then you have probably been the bully.  I would consider talking behind someone’s back to be bullying so technically I have been a bully and I feel so much regret for ever making someone feel terrible.  Bullies need to commit to their wrong actions and fix what they have done.  Admitting that they and I did wrong makes the situation better and hopefully makes the person who was bullied feel better.  Being mean is unacceptable and yet it continues to this day. 
                There have thought to have been many causes of bullying and in this article it explains a few.  It think it all goes back to how each person was raised and what their family life is like.  Now if you are a bully you can’t blame your family for your wrong doing because you still have a choice to be naughty or nice.  I just feel like a person will be better at making good choices if they are raised in a caring family.
                Next time you see someone getting bullied please have the courage to stand up to that bully or to even tell an adult about it because something needs to be done with that bully.  Bullying leads to many poor decisions and no person should feel like they are worth nothing.  Everyone is loved and should feel that way.

Varsity vs JV

The nervous moment when your coach decides if you are varsity material or if you should still be in junior varsity.  Talking to my dad about this, many years ago when he was in high school the varsity team was only for seniors and the junior varsity team was only for juniors.  That can be good and bad depending on what kind of player you are.

Gym or Band

              Since I am in band I have a full schedule and am not able to take a gym class.  A common question over marching band and gym is if marching band students can get gym credit during marching season.  My school offers it while many schools don’t.  An article was published a while back and it mentioned marching to the beat is a great form of exercise. 
                Being a band member I know that the band gets a lot of exercise during marching season because of all the competitions and daily practices.  The problem is convincing over people to think that band members get enough exercise and don’t need any more by adding another class to their schedule. 

                There is a lot of physical involvement, especially for the lower brass instruments and drum line.  Carrying those big instruments through a seven minute show is pretty hard and almost everyone is panting and about ready to collapse after a performance.  My band director once said “You don’t get muscles like these playing the flute.”  I loved hearing that because often people complain about how hard it is to hold up an instrument and then all the low brass players (including me) look at each other and smile knowing that they wouldn’t be able to last a minute holding up our instruments.

               Total steps of a marching band member are almost three times higher than the average person because of so many practices and steps during a show.  During a practice there is always warm-up and people don’t just warm-up by playing music.  All the instruments get set down and there are stretches and jumping jacks.  It would be like a normal warm-up if a person was to take a gym class.  Each band practice is long and there is always a lot of marching with repetition.  Since things have to be repeated, a person would have to go to an original spot or a previous set (formation).  Instead of walking to that spot the band members have to run and get there quickly or the set will happen without them and they would get into trouble and probably owe laps.  Did I mention that people do laps?  If a person is late or not paying attention, they will have to do a lap or two around the track and possibly push-ups.  Band members may not do as much physical activity as the football team, but we still do more than the average person would do if they had a gym class every other day. 

Paying School Fees

It's almost the end of the year and slips of paper keep wandering into classes.  What are these slips of paper you ask?  They are the bills that still need to be paid before school ends.  In high school there can be many school fees. 

Graduation Parties

Plagiarism

                Plagiarism is not a thing to be taken lightly.  This one word could be the end of your academic future and success.  Cheating is another form of plagiarism, but plagiarism sounds worse.  I have dealt with two cases of a student plagiarizing in my academic career.  I was not the student who did that thankfully. 
                Of course there a lot more incidents of plagiarism, but no one ever got caught or the teacher just didn’t notice or care.  The first time that a student got in serious trouble was when I was in 10^th grade language arts class.  We were doing a research paper on the subject of a book of our choosing.  It was about a five page research paper with sited sources and the whole shebang. One student was so lazy that they bought their essay of the internet and turned it in.  The teacher noticed how advanced the writing was and ended up finding that same essay online.  It was a terrible incident!  The teacher then though every plagiarized and she typed everyone’s essay into a plagiarism search engine and found a few more people who had just copied and pasted stuff.  She accused half of the students of plagiarizing and she brought in administration.  That essay was graded out of 200 so that the people who plagiarized got a zero on that and failed her class.  That just goes to show that plagiarism is not taken lightly. 
                Another incident was this year in my AP Chemistry class and we were working on lab reports in partners.  One student was accused of plagiarism because he had the same exact thing as his partner.  It was really stupid because everyone worked in pairs and should then technically have the same exact thing, but the teacher was determined that student had plagiarized.  Both students got in trouble for no reason because the evidence she found was inaccurate.  Administration was contacted and one student was going to get suspended.  The student was tired of putting up with the false accusations so he stopped showing up to class and filled out a drop form.  That teacher was way out of hand and the student for sure didn’t plagiarize because every partner in a group should have the same answer.  That student was a senior and it would have been recorded in his school records, but thankfully him and his parents fought back and showed that the teacher was wrong.
                Plagiarism is a strong word and unless a person knows for sure if someone has done it, they should not use that word so freely.  Plagiarism and copying someone else’s work is still a major problem in schools and even in work environments.  This article discusses exactly what plagiarism is and how it is handled on different levels.

Written Spanish in Class

            It is a very good idea to take a foreign language in high school because a lot of colleges require a minimum of two years of foreign language to even get into the program you want.  It not only will help you in college, but you will also benefit from that knowledge in life.  If there was a Spanish speaking person who needed help and no one knew Spanish, you could be that one person that could possibly translate or help that Spanish speaking person.  It also helps in your career because people are becoming more diverse and global so there are many needed people for jobs that would involve working with another language. 
            While learning a new language is never easy, teachers expect you to understand what is being taught.  The first day I walked into Spanish class the teacher was speaking Spanish the whole time.  I thought my life was over and that I would never be able to understand.  I am now in my third year of Spanish and can understand and create my own Spanish sentences. 
             In Spanish there is normally a reading test, a written test, a multiple choice test, and an oral test.  All of these tests are important, but can be really stressful.  I recently had to do a written test and for that I had to write a five paragraph essay about my family in Spanish!  It's hard enough to do that in English, but Spanish made it even harder.  It took me two and a half hours to accomplish that and it was a relief to finally get it done.  If you would like to see that and find out more about me here is my Spanish document.  Warning, it is in Spanish.
            Me llamo Nicole Barrett y yo tengo dieciséis años.  Yo nací en el hospital St. Lukes en Cedar Rapids Iowa.  Mi cumpleaños es el veintiocho de Agosto.  Yo soy Irlandés, Alemán, Holandés, y Inglés.  Yo he vivido en Anamosa y Palo.  Yo había vivido en Anamosa por cuatro años entonces yo había vivido en Palo por ocho años.  Yo vivo en Cedar Rapids ahora y yo tengo una casa del lago en Montezuma Iowa.  
           Yo tengo tres hermanos y una hermana.  Sus nombres son Cara, Ben, Sean, y Nathan.  Mi hermana tiene dos hijos y mi hermano Ben tiene dos hijos.  Yo tengo tres sobrinas y un sobrino.  Yo amo a mis hermanos.  Cuando yo era niña nosotros jugamos los partidos y nos divertimos.  Mis hermanos jugaron el fútbol Americano en la escuela y ellos son atléticos.  Mi hermano Ben toca la guitarra y es muy talento.  Mis hermanos son todos mayores que yo y ellos no viven conmigo.  En los fines de semana nosotros vamos al lago y nosotros pasamos el rato.  
           Mi familia le encanta el lago y nosotros vamos allí todo el tiempo.  Mis padres tienen una casa del lago en el Lago Ponderosa y mis abuelos tienen una casa del lago en el Lago Thunderhead.  Mis abuelos tenían una casa del lago en el Lago de Ozarks.  En el lago nosotros vamos a pescar, pasear en bote, y caza.  Nosotros nos gusta al aire libre.  Cada año nosotros tenemos una reunión familiar en mi casa del lago y nosotros nos divertimos con nuestra familia grande.  Nosotros vemos los fuegos artificiales y tenemos fogatas grandes.  Para mí, el lago es una escapada de la vida.  
            Mis padres son muy viejos.  Mi madre tiene cincuenta y dos años and mi padre tiene cincuenta y cinco años.  Mi padre se llama Kenny y mi madre se llama Lynn.  Mis padres van a México mucho y a veces yo voy con ellos.  Nosotros nos gustan la playa y el océano en México.  En la playa nosotros encontramos los caracoles y nosotros tomamos el sol.  En la noche nosotros vemos la puesta del sol y pasamos un rato con los amigos.  Nosotros aprendimos el español por México y hablamos con las personas de México.
            Yo amo a mi familia porque nos divertimos.  Todas personas en mi familia le gustan la música porque todos hemos jugado un instrumento en la banda.  Mi madre y yo nos gusta jugar al golf, pero mi padre no le gusta el golf.  Mi familia le gustan los animales.  Yo tengo cuatro mascotas.  Yo tengo dos perros y dos gatos.  Yo amo a mis mascotas porque ellos son parte de mi familia.  En mi familia nosotros tenemos muchas personas y muchas mascotas.
            Did you enjoy translating that? Well I sure didn't.  I highly recommend that you learn a language that interests you because otherwise the information will be harder to learn.  Spanish is not just in Mexico and if you thought that then you must live under a rock.  Spanish comes from all different places and there are so many different forms of it.  If you would like to learn Spanish please leave a comment or check out this link.  Have fun and connect with different people by speaking another language.

Teachers Teaching?

What method of teaching works best for you

Choose Classes?

In my school I have the option to choose possible classes for next year.  While I may be limited on my options and have some classes that are required, it is still nice to be able to choose electives and the level of class that I will do in the future.  Some people abuse this right though and don't do what classes are best for them.  Choosing classes is a privilege and has to be earned through your school years. 

What Are You Doing With Your Life?

It seems like all people want to know is what you are doing with your life.

Early Schedule

                If it is easy for you to get up in the morning then you are lucky.  It seems like a lot of teenagers have trouble waking up early to go to school, or at least it is for me.  What should be the start time for school?  While many people have different opinions over this subject, many don’t consider the functionality of the teenager that has to wake up early to go to school.  I personally feel like a zombie when I have to go to school at seven in the morning.  What is the purpose of a student going to school so early in the morning if they can’t function properly enough to learn anything?

                It was recently decided in my school district that classes will now start at 6:45 in the morning and get done around 2:55 in the afternoon.  That seems like a lot of school time right?  Due to snow days we had to add time to our school day to make up the lost time.  It was already hard enough getting to class at seven but now we have to go in fifteen minutes earlier?!  Instead of being like a zombie, my functionality would be like a dead person.  There is a little exaggeration there obviously, but teenager’s brains aren’t even fully awake or functional until around ten in the morning.  This article explains teenager’s brains and sleep. 

                Along with getting up earlier to go to school, a student would then get home later and if that student is involved in extracurricular activities; they would be going to sleep later due to a later practice time.  It seems like there just isn’t enough time in a student’s day to sleep and do everything else.

                While this earlier start time may not seem like a big deal, it will impact a lot of students and their learning.  I expect to see more tardies in the morning because people can’t or won’t get out of bed that early in the morning.  While I am only thinking about the students because I am a student, a person would have to think about the teachers as well.  They would still have to get up as early if not earlier than the student’s.  A sleep deprived teacher is not a good thing and therefore we should consider starting school later in the day to make sure everyone gets enough sleep.

Wicked High five

                It might be hard to imagine, but there are some wicked people in high school.  Actually it is not that hard to imagine, teenagers are just strange creatures that can do terrible things to others.  Other ages do the same thing, but it is extremely prominent in high school.

                A recent incident occurred at my high school and has shown me how mean students can be to each other.  Have you heard of the wicked high five? Well you are about to learn what it’s about.  High fives are normally a celebratory gesture or even just a casual hello.  They can get wicked though and not in a good way. 

                This high five consists of a student or several students giving random high fives to people they see in the hallway.  Seems normal, but it isn’t.  I am leaving out one crucial detail.  These students have tacks in their hands pointing out so it would prick the person they are giving a high five to.  It may seem like a joke, but it’s all fun and games until someone gets their hand sliced open.  That is what happened at my school.  A certain individual though it would be funny to do that to another student that they were passing by in the hallway (they didn’t even know the student).  When all of a sudden blood is pouring out of the victims hand onto the floor of the foyer.  Seems gruesome and cruel.  Why would someone want to cause pain to another person?  Some people can just be so wicked.  Are you wondering what happened to the victim?  He or she had to go to the hospital and get stitches.  No severe nerve damage, but it was a pretty bad cut.  The student who gave the high five ended up getting suspended and the mother of the victim pressed charges against that person.  What happened was assault so it would only make sense to press charges and have their medical bills paid for by the person who caused it.  So far the charges have gone nowhere because the parents of the person who did the crime claimed that it was juvenile and just a joke.  That would not be a good excuse in my book.  This is not just happening in my school if you are wondering.  I don’t go to a bad school, there are just bad people in my school.

                A similar incident happened and was reported on ESPN in this article.  Charges were pressed against the person who did the whole thumb tack prank, but so far nothing has really been done.  This just goes to show that things aren’t taken seriously in schools and administration doesn’t do much when bullying or other serious stuff occurs.  “They are just students that don’t know better.”  That is a common saying used by administration to brush off an incident.  In my opinion the student does know better and if they don’t then it is on the parents to teach them right from wrong.  I have noticed that students are making more poor decisions than before and they have no respect for other people.  What is happening to society?  While a lot of the blame may be put on the parent at this point for raising their child wrong, it is still the student that did wrong and they should have to take responsibility for their actions.   Was suspension enough or should the student have it put on their criminal record?  That will be for the judge to decide, but it just goes to show that things aren’t taken as seriously in my school.  Assault is assault and should be handled like the crime that it is.  Hopefully no one else has to experience a wicked high five, but for those who think this is just a joke, grow up and open your eyes.  That’s not the only bad thing happening in schools now.

School Absences

                It is so much fun having a school absence.  Even if you are a studious person, a field trip or another event is always better than going to school.  I personally enjoy learning, but sometimes getting away from the same 2000 students in my school is a good thing.

                A school absence is different from any other absence.  Why? Well, it is the school that is actually calling you out and excusing you from classes.  Your parents wouldn't call you out and make up the often excuse of having a doctor’s appointment.  You have a real reason to miss school and it involves school!  Fun, right?  Some teachers can get pretty upset about their students missing school often because of a sport or other extracurricular activity, but they can deal with it.  It's not the student’s fault that so many activities are pushed on to them.  It is always good to get involved in what you like.

                Like any other absence it would still be expected that you make up your missed work.  I know several people that use the excuse of a school absence for not having to do anything and just being able to skip those missed assignments.  A student should be committed to school as well as their extracurricular activity.  It is always a good idea to find out what you will miss before you miss that way you can make plans to do the extra work to catch up. 

                A school absence has the word school in it, so it should be focused on school right?  Well that’s not always the case.  Sports aren’t always focused on school, they are focused on the sport at hand and winning, but it is the school that provides that sport.  Athletes often have a lot of school absences and I would know from personal experience.  Being involved in band, golf, and several other activities; I am missing out on a lot of school.  A policy in my school is that you can’t fall behind in classes due to sports and if you receive a D or lower in a class, you are not able to participate in that sport and will sit out on the next few competitions.  I value that rule, but I wish that they would change it to be a C or lower because C is average and an athlete should be able to maintain an average grade if they really want to commit to another thing.

                Field trips are another type of school absence.  Most likely you wouldn’t go on a field trip by yourself, so your whole class or group would also miss out on school.  In that case, hopefully the teacher wouldn’t have any make up work because they would also be attending the field trip.  As you increase in grade level field trips tend to occur less often unfortunately.  I feel that field trips are important to a student’s education because they are able to go outside of school and apply what they learned or even learn more stuff that they wouldn’t be able to learn in school.  This school absence is definitely worth missing school for.  In this article it discusses all of the advantages of taking a school field trip.  With all of the advantages I hope schools see that it is a necessary thing to do even at the higher levels of education.  I guess it wouldn’t necessarily be missing school because it would be like the school would come with you.  You would just be out of the building for the day. 

                School absences are necessary and should be enjoyed.  It is sometimes a rare occasion to have a school absence so take advantage of it.  Everyone needs a break once in a while and it should be a school break that still slightly involves school. 

School Start Times

Recently in Iowa there was an announcement that waivers wouldn’t automatically get approved for schools to start at an early date.  A school would have to show that a later start would have a negative educational impact and get approved by the director if they wanted to start early, meaning before the Iowa State Fair.  While that may benefit some school districts close to the Des Moines area, the later start date will definitely hurt most students in the Cedar Rapids Community School District and our Superintendent and School Board should consider filling out a waiver to have our normal start date of before the end of the Iowa State Fair.  If you are not familiar with this new change, here is a website that explains in detail what has been said and what will be done in the future for an early start date. 

 The main reason for having a later start date was to make sure that students could work and go to the Iowa State Fair.  By doing a recent survey in one of my classes, I found out that the people who don’t go to the Iowa State Fair still wouldn’t go even if there was a later start date in the school year that would allow them to. Most of the kids in my school district don’t work at the Iowa State Fair, which would have caused them to miss the first week or so of school.  The Iowa State Fair doesn’t impact most of the student in my district, so the whole district shouldn’t have to suffer with a later start date.

 Educationally it will hurt most of the Advanced Placement students because although our schools will be starting later, our Advanced Placement exam dates will not.  It just means that there would be less time to learn and study information for the exams.  I would then expect that the test scores would be worse because it already feels like there isn’t enough time to prepare for the exams.  If a student is spending time in class for an exam and if they spend a lot of money on an exam, it would only be fair that they get a fair amount of time to prepare for the exam so they can pass.  

 It was also said that if school was started later, there would still be football games that would happen around the same previous dates.  There would then be around three football games that take place before school even has a chance to start.  With school not being in session and there still being football games, I would think that not as many students would show up to the games.  Fewer students attending games means less money raised at the sporting event that would have gone back to the school.  The school would then receive less money and there would be a lower budget that could then educationally impact the students negatively.  

 Although it may be nice to not start school so early and have what would seem like a longer summer, it would just push back the final day of school.  School would then cut into summer activities that may include college events, church camps, and sports camps.  A student would then have to balance all of those activities together which would most likely cause more stress and a possible decrease in grades.  With all of that being said, the school start dates should not change to be after the Iowa State Fair ends.  It will negatively impact the students educationally and personally.

Uncomfortable Discussions

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                There are always those awkward or uncomfortable conversations during class.  Whether it is about slavery, racial issues, political views, and other stuff; it can always make for a weird talk.  I feel that sometimes those conversations need to stay at home.  It is always good to make students be aware of the issues of the world, but I feel like having an open discussion sometimes leads to students having a heated debate and being judged by the other class mates.  I feel like a classroom should be a safe place to express yourself, but sometimes hearing certain things can make a person feel bad and unsafe. 

                Getting graded on participation is also hard when there is an uncomfortable debate.  

School Uniform

                Although my school doesn't have a school uniform, sometimes I wish it did.  A dress code at times is just not enough and can be abused.  It’s like the staff doesn’t have enough authority to say that a person can’t wear what they are wearing.  It is time for a change.
                Clothes can be a big distraction and if teachers are eliminating phones because they are a distraction to the class, why can’t there be a better regulation on clothes?  If everyone wore the same clothing, there should be little to no distraction and it also wouldn’t make kids feel bad if they can’t afford the new trending clothing.  It seems like clothing is now a part of someone’s social status and many people can’t afford to keep up with new fashion.  Not all kids have parents that will provide them with new clothing for each new school year.  Some kids have to keep the clothes until there are too many holes and can’t be worn anymore.  Just thinking about how they would feel if they had to worry if their clothing was good enough to wear to school is just sad.  A school uniform would make sure that everyone wears the same thing and then kids wouldn’t have to be judged for what they can and can’t afford. 
                Females are not the only ones with distracting or too revealing of clothing.  Have you noticed in your school that there are more guys wearing the pants low on their butts and then having their boxers show?  Well it has happened in my school and it is very disgusting.  It is called underwear for a reason; it is supposed to go under your clothing, not be your clothing.  No one cares what your boxers look like, you have a belt for a reason and should use it.  Why should a person feel like they need to wear something revealing to be noticed?  This goes out specifically to girls.  Yes we know that you have boobs, we don’t need to see them hanging out of your skimpy shirt all the time.  I don’t know about you, but it can be uncomfortable and I don’t think it is appropriate for school.  Do I even need to talk about booty shorts?  No one should be able to see a person’s butt cheeks.  Enough said.  With so many distractions, something needs to change.
                I was reading online the pros and cons of having a school uniform and the number one con was that it would limit a student's rights and they wouldn't be able to express themselves.  I strongly disagree with that.  By having people wear more clothing in general, it would not be severely limiting their rights of wearing what they want.  If a woman thinks that by requiring her to wear more appropriate clothing, it would be going against the new feminist revolution, then they obviously don’t think so high of themselves if they feel that they need to express themselves through their body parts instead of their voice.  If by expressing yourself through clothing, you mean wasting money on stuff that won't last forever and caring a lot about what someone thinks in the way that you dress.  Personality should be a way that you express yourself.
                A school uniform would almost create equality and I think that the whole world needs some more of that.  Clothing choice should not be what represents you the best, if you want to be noticed, use your voice rather than your body. 

Homework and Busywork

                 There is a difference between homework and busywork.  Homework helps reinforce information that was just taught to someone and busywork just gives teachers the time to catch up on their stuff.   While this topic has been widely discussed, many people don’t consider how busywork can actually harm the student.  Busywork can make a student not want to learn and can trigger a negative response to doing actual homework that can help them.  Being assigned busywork can just make a student think that all work is stupid and there is no purpose to doing it.
                Being a high school student, it is pretty obvious to me when I get handed an assignment that is just busywork versus actual homework that will help me.  Have you ever considered an assignment as homework for a teacher also?  I don’t see why teachers would want to hand out so much homework if they would then have to spend a lot of time grading it.  Some teachers have figured that out though and don’t assign homework unless it is absolutely necessary.  Some teachers have also figured out that no matter how much they try to get students to do homework, some students refuse to and believe that it is a waste of their time. 
                Well, there is also a lot of busywork for teachers.  Do you think that they want to grade papers and teach stuff on the curriculum that isn’t important?  As I read this article it made me realize that a lot of the “busywork” stuff that teachers give students is actually meant to help improve many skills.  With that being said, what really is busywork?  Many people have different thoughts on that and most teachers think that there is no such thing as busywork because all homework assigned is meant to help improve a student educationally.  So is “busywork” essentially homework?  Do I have you stumped now?  Homework can be busywork and it may be beneficial or it may harm you, but that is for you to decide.
                Homework isn’t the worst thing ever.  Neither is busywork.  I think that in the end, everything with assignments happens for a reason.  The reason can be to help you improve with skills or to keep your mind busy and active.  Whether it is to help a teacher or to help a student, homework can be extremely beneficial. 

School Food

School food can be pretty nasty at times, but on some occasions students get lucky and there is actually a decent lunch being served.  This website talks all about kids health and food nutrition in school.

Punishment

               School punishment is always under debate by adults, but what about what the students think.  I do not speak for everyone, but I do speak for many when I say that students need discipline sometimes.  How else are we supposed to learn from our mistakes if we don’t even know what they are?  Teachers now hesitate to assign detentions because they are afraid of lawsuits and other unfair retaliations.
                Discipline doesn’t always have to be abusive and sometimes detentions aren’t enough.  What are adults supposed to do if students don’t care about detentions and only want to make teachers mad?  Well I have no idea, but sometimes I think that students respected teachers more when teachers were able to hit kids.  I am not saying that abusing kids is alright, but something has to be done about the lack of respect for teachers. 
                Getting sent to the office can sometimes help with punishment, but some kids get so used to that and see it as a way of getting out of learning in class.  Some kids just need to be put in their place and if fear has to be a way of doing that, then so be it. 
                I rarely get in trouble when I am in school, but one time I did get into trouble for no reason and I got really embarrassed because a teacher yelled at me in front of the whole class.  Yelling should never be allowed by a teacher towards a student and a student should also never yell at a teacher.  Yelling gets people nowhere and it only shows disrespect to both people.  I would say that for me to show someone respect, it would mean that they would also have to show respect to me.  Respect goes both ways and sometimes I think if rebel students would just get some respect and attention, then maybe they wouldn’t be so bad and would also show respect to the teacher.
                What other punishment should be done?  For me I would be devastated if I got any form of punishment, but some people just don’t care.  I would say that it is the parents’ responsibility to make sure that their student is good during school because how a student acts at school represents the home life. 
                How about lowering grades or not allowing someone to go to an activity?  That is already a form of punishment, but what more can be done legally?  Having teachers being able to hit kids with a ruler just doesn’t seem right, but it might be the only option left. 
               What if punishment is only making the kid want to rebel more?  Well in all reality, it is.  I read this one article and it has made me realize that everyone is different and what might seem like punishment to someone can feel like another reason to just keep rebelling to another person.  Children are hard to figure out and no specific thing is going to work for each person.  That is why I think each person needs and individual approach and maybe that is why the parents should focus on punishment at home and teachers should only focus on teaching.  Nothing against teachers, but I don’t think it is their place to discipline someone else’s kids.  Parents just need to get a handle on their children. 

#Hashtag

               Need I write anymore?  Hashtags have become popular with the younger generation and are sometimes used in school as a part of speech.  Hashtags are normally meant for social media sites when trying to link a post or tweet to a similar post or tweet about the same thing.  They should not be used in the end of a sentence as “hashtag single life.”  That has no meaning.  Please leave hashtags to social media sites or don’t use them at all.  Teachers even sometimes use hashtags and it is only awkward and irrelevant to school work.
               Here is a website that explains hashtags and if you need any assistance with using a hashtag, then you probably shouldn't be using it in the first place.  If I have offended you in any way please leave a comment as this blog post could be a debatable subject.

Clics

                There are all different kinds of social groups at school and another name for them would be clics.  If you have not seen any clics at school then you must have a strange school or you just don’t pay attention.  There are the jocks, the plastics (popular people), the nerds, the band geeks, the pot heads, the country folk and so much more.  I recommend that you watch this video because it talks all about social groups.

                Depending on which social group you are in, you view school as a social opportunity or just as another way that the government is trying to control you.  School isn’t just about learning, it is more about preparing you for the real world.  The government wants people to succeed in life and school gives everyone that opportunity in the United States. 

                If you are sitting in a class that has free seating or choose where you sit, it is easy to see the separation of social groups.  You can also tell who is in which social class by looking at the way they dress and how often they participate in class or even interrupt in class.  If you don’t have free seating and are stuck next to a person of a different social group, don’t worry, most people don’t bite.  It may be awkward but they are probably thinking the same thing as you.  Like, why do we have so much homework?  Will that kid over there just shut up?!  Many people have a lot of things in common and being in a different social group shouldn’t stop you from communication with one another. 

                A person can also be in many social groups and have a lot of different friends.  That can come in handy when you are stuck on homework or need someone to sit with at lunch.  I don’t think there could ever be no social groups and have everyone be the same.  It would be like a utopia society and our World right now is the complete opposite of that.  But don’t forget, there are still social groups at a work place, but it might be harder to pick up on because of a dress code or people not having as much time to socialize.

Parking Lots

                Parking anywhere can be an issue, but it is especially bad at schools.  For many schools, students have to pay to have a parking spot and sometimes their spot in the lot isn’t even guaranteed.  As more students are driving in high school you would think that the parking lots would greatly increase in size to accommodate all the cars, but that is not always the case.  Even having several parking lots like my school has, there are still not enough spaces.  What do you do if you can’t find a spot to park and school is about to start?  Well, you better hope you brought your running shoes. You would have to find a legal street to park on that is close to school and hurry to get to school.  Parking can sometimes be so bad at my school to where it takes about 10 minutes to walk to school from a parking spot!  That is unbelievable!  But don’t worry, you are not alone.  Many other places struggle with parking problems also and in this PDF file it discussed all of the problems of one city and possible ways to improve the situation.

                There is a solution to all of this parking madness!  How about putting in a parking ramp?  Yes, I know that would be expensive, but if you have students pay for their spot and have it to where they can only get into the ramp if they have a card access it might work.  In no time the parking ramp would be paid off and then the school could even profit from it.  There would then be less room needed for parking and the school wouldn’t have to be on such a large lot to make all the parking spots fit. 

                Parking at school isn’t just bad for students, but it can also be bad for parents.  A lot of times there are multiple events happening in one night for parents to attend and watch their students, but all the parents and students then need a place to park.  One time there was a performing arts concert the same night as a basketball game and even though my parents showed up twenty minutes early, they couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere and ended up not getting to see the performance because there was no place to put their vehicle.  Isn’t that sad?  Parking for everyone needs to improve.

                There is also the fact that some kids go against rules and sometimes park in the wrong lot that they didn’t pay for or didn’t earn.  Being a junior and having to earn my spot in the lot that I have, it annoys me to see people illegally parking in my lot and taking other fellow juniors and seniors spots.  Sometimes cars get ticketed if they are in the wrong spot and they have to pay a fifteen dollar fine, but there are ways to not get caught. 

                Parking can also be a hassle because most young people don’t respect other people’s property.  I would never bring a nice car to school because it is just going to get destroyed from door dings, scratches, and bumper bumps.  I don’t know if it is just me, but I was taught that if you leave damage to someone’s car you need to find that person or leave your name and number offering to pay for the damage.  People work hard for what they have and shouldn’t have to worry about having a shitty car after bringing it to school. 

                Another option would be taking the bus or carpooling.  I know that that is not an option for everyone because of extracurricular activities, weird class schedules, or not having a bus route, but there are many people that can take a bus and choose not to because it’s not “cool” to ride the bus.  Grow up and deal with it!  Why does it matter what other people think?  Just ride the bus and save money.  Dear all spoiled kids out there who don’t realize all that they have.  Do you need a car to survive?  Do you pay for your gas?  Did you buy your car?  Do you have the option to ride a bus but choose not to because you don’t want other people to see you riding the bus?  Now I have you thinking and possibly upset because you just realized how fortunate and selfish you are.  Sorry not sorry.  It would free up more parking spots for people and would reduce the amount of harm done to the environment from useless driving. 

                Parking all around just needs to be improved and will probably worsen as people have to find air parking spots in the world when everyone has flying cars and cool electronics.  We can deal with air parking later, now we need to focus on parking in the present.