vol. 44 • issue 10April 26, 2013

Trading UpFinancial Literacy students learn how to barter a single paperclip for more valuable items.

pg. 18

BREAKING BIAS pg. 11

For generations gender stereotypes have defined a person’s role in

society; Northwest is breaking the mold of past generations.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY MIKALA COMPTON

pg. 07 Countless HoursFour teachers go above and beyond their job descriptions every day to help their students.

05 • Northwest NewsUpdates about happenings at Northwest.

06 • CurrentlyPop culture and news from around the world.

08 • The Truth about "Orch Dorks"Orchestra students compete just like athletes do and deserve the same amount of recognition.

08 • Don’t CriticizeEvery body shape and size should be accepted in our society.

07 • Trading UpWith only a paperclip, students in Financial Literacy class were challenged to trade with other people for the most valuable items.

09 • Gatsby Gets the Green LightThe prom celebration this year was kicked off by a school assembly and ended with the crowning of king and queen.

11 • Breaking BiasGender bias does not restrict students from following their interests at Northwest.

17 • The Way I SpeakJunior Hayley Nugent plans on following in her dad’s footsteps and become an interpreter.

18 • Countless HoursFour NW teachers and coaches have been dedicating their time to help their student and athletes beyond the ordinary.

15 • ReviewsScary Movie 5, 42, Audio Adrenaline’s Kings and Queens + Paramore

15 • Panels to RememberIn addition to the graphic editor’s issue comic, check out drawn work from three other student artists.

20 • Sports GridSee scores from the most recent games of the spring season, as well as updates on each team.

21 • Waste of TimeSports may not be the best use of time for every student.

Issue 10 • Vol. 44 • April 26, 2013

NEWS /

OPINIONS /

FEATURES/

SPORTS/

ENTERTAINMENT /

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The purpose of The Northwest Passage is to relay important and interesting information to the community, administration and students of the Shawnee Mission Northwest High School. As a newsmagazine, The Northwest Passage will cater to the interests and concerns of the student body. Outside concerns and activities will only be covered if they somehow affect the school or students. The Northwest Passage is a 24-page newsmagazine. The paper will be distributed every two weeks during third hour. Subscriptions will be available to the community for $25. The Northwest Passage firmly supports the First Amendment and opposes censorship. The content of the newspaper will be determined and created by the entire staff. When questions concerning word choice, legal problems or ethics arise the editorial board and adviser will discuss the problem to find a solution. In these cases, the editor-in-chief will the have final say in all decisions. Letters to the editor will be accepted and encouraged, but will only be published if signed. The staff reserves the right to edit for grammatical mistakes, length and good taste. Letters may attack policy but not people. In no way will ideas or viewpoints be changed. The editor-in-chief reserves the right to refuse any letter.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

As my days at SM Northwest come to a rapid close, I’m finding it easier and easier to forget to do my math homework.

Almost every day when I walk into school, I catch myself thinking, “Would anyone notice if I just left during class and went home?”

I keep putting off reading English books until the day before the essay.

I’ve never struggled so much to stay on task and keep my mind from wandering to my future and what’s ahead of me after high school. With two weeks left in school for seniors, it seems like there isn’t really a point to focusing, getting work done and finishing out my high school career on a high note.

And I know the seniors aren’t the only ones feeling this way. I was always like this with summer approaching. I battled against my own laziness to remain positive when my teachers would announce a test with only a week and a half left of school. I knew that I would need to keep my grades up, because I would almost immediately have to come back to school and do it all over again.

But now that I am a senior and am about to leave Northwest forever, this struggle has only been magnified. But we as a class, and as a school, must fight the inevitable senioritis.

I hear sophomores complaining of senioritis, and this scares me more than I thought a mindset ever could. Walking into the next stage of your life, whether that is college, entering the workplace or coming right back to school, with that mindset is dangerous. Giving up on your education with only a few short years or months left is the worst decision you could ever make.

While high school may seem like a waste of time or unhelpful later on in life, but it is an invaluable experience that you will never receive again. High school is where you learn how to learn, and believe it or not, most of the classes teach you at least a few things that you can carry with you in life, whether that’s the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus or simply how to manage your time properly.

Focus and hardwork are your best friends; trust me. Don’t give up now; we are too close for that.

Sincerely,Ashlee CraneEditor-in-chief

STAFFEDITOR-IN-CHIEF / Ashlee CraneDESIGN EDITOR / Bailey Kopp COPY EDITOR / Mac CookPHOTO EDITORS / Mikala Compton + Nate ComptonASSISTANT DESIGNERS / Grace Amundson, Nate Compton + Maddy GrimesGRAPHICS EDITOR / Mitch Feyerherm NEWS EDITOR / Brooke CourtneyFEATURES EDITOR / Atalie BlackOPINIONS EDITORS / Ashlee Crane + Aaron MessickENTERTAINMENT EDITOR / Sam BellmyerSPORTS EDITOR / Gabby LorinoADS EDITOR / Paige WaltmanSTAFF WRITERS / Sarah Egger, Haena Lee, Davis Millard + Alaura MooreWEB MANAGING EDITOR / Edelawit HussienCONVERGENCE DIRECTOR / Aaron MessickMULTIMEDIA STAFF / Hope Kang + Crystal OseiCONTRIBUTORS / Katie Addington, Kylee Hartl, Luke Megli + Shelby SmithADVISER / Susan Massy

WORDS AND INK WITH MITCH FEYERHERM

northwest news

Drill Team members are preparing for their biggest show of the year, Spring Special, which will be held on May 3 and 4, at 7 p.m. in the auditorium. Tickets are free with a student id. It is the drill team’s last show of the year.

The theme for this year’s Spring Special is ”Lights, Camera, Action.” The music includes songs from a wide variety of popular movies, past and present. All the dances in Spring Special are completely new choreography.

“It will be a lot of popular music, things that you’ve heard before,” drill team coach Stefanie Forbes said.

Drill team members practice daily, in class, after school, and on

weekends in preparation for Spring Special. Forbes and members of the team look for forward to the show and all their hard work paying off.

“ We have been preparing for this since the middle of January,” varsity drill team member Madison Delamore said.

Delamore and other Drill team members look forward to the first dance of the show, “the opener”. This year’s opener will showcase several dance styles such as hip hop, jazz, and tap.

“It sets the whole mood of the show,” Delamore said. “It’s a fun time.”

DRILL TEAM TO PERFORM ANNUAL SPRING SPECIAL

/ LIBBY GREGOR

/ AARON MESSICK

The annual Special Education prom was held on April 13 in the cafeteria. Special Education students from all of the Shawnee Mission schools and Broadmoor attended. Student Council along with Cadet teaching helped to organize the dance.

“It’s a lot of fun it’s really casual,” Senior Anna Guigli said “We don’t plan a lot out it’s just a fun thing everybody just shows up dances and has fun.

This was Student Council’s seventh year helping to organize the dance. This years theme was Hollywood Lights. StuCo members as well decorated the cafeteria with different Hollywood themed decorations. Members also dressed up as movie stars and danced along with the Cadet students and their buddies.

“It’s so much fun,” Guigli said “You can really see their faces light up during the dance. Their parents also love it because it gives their kids a chance to do something they wouldn’t normally do.”

SPECIAL ED PROM HOSTED BY STUCO

GREAT GATSBY PROM HELD AT THE CIVIC CENTER

The 2013 Great Gatsby themed prom was held at the Shawnee Civic Center last Saturday April 20. The dance started at 8 p.m. with bumping dance music as people entered the balloon and tissue paper decorated gymnasium.

Around 10:30 p.m. they announced the prom court of 2013. Second runners up were Kirk Bado and Megan Kleiss; first runners up were Jackson Gulick and Tiffany Jordan; and prom king and queen were Tyler Sliva and Laura Assmann.

After-prom was held here at school at 11 p.m.. Games were held inside the mall and the cafeteria where students could win tickets from to enter into a drawing for hundreds of great prizes. The big prize winners were senior Garret Allen who won a 32” LG TV, junior Kristoph Gies won an HP laptop, and senior Gina D’Amato won the iPad mini.

/ ALAURA MOORE

05April 26, 2013

Sophomore Sam Nobrega, junior Michael Catt and special education student William watch the crowd dance to a Justin Bieber song in the cafeteria on Prom night. PHOTO BY NISHA BISHT

COMPILED BY ATALIE BLACKGRAPHICS BY GRACE AMUNDSON

Theater teacher Keli Rodgers

totaled 1414 hours of student contact time in the 2000-2001 school year:

404 of those hours were spent at rehearsals and performances, and

584 hours were unpaid.

“Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance,”

Nearly3.4 million students

in the 2012-2013

school year are

expected to graduate from high

school.(nces.ed.com)

------------------------------ ------------

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— Kofi Annan, the seventh secretary general of the United Nations, said at a 2006 conference for women in Beijing, China. (betterworld.net)

Seoul

Due to the tensions on the Korean Peninsula, South Korean President Park Geun-hye made an offer on April 11 to open talks with North Korea in order to calm the situation after North Korea raised a missile in an upright position. On April 12, Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Seoul to talk to South Korean officials about

the growing tensions in North Korea. (cnn.com)

Psy’s new music video for his single “"Gentlemen"“ reached 32 million views in its

first 24 hours. (theverge.com)

According to a 2012

survey by Visa, on

average, families with at least one teen will spend

$1,078 on prom annually.

(usatoday.com)

06 Currently

“I got a tie clip,” senior Peter Campain said. “I took it out from under my tie, and the [class]

said ‘Oh it’s just a paperclip.’ They were surprised I didn’t actually trade anything.”

Every student in the Financial Literacy class was given a paperclip and was asked to trade the item with other people. The objective was to come back to class two weeks later with the most unique object. Campain, however, decided to keep his paperclip for the entirety of the two weeks.

“I chose not to trade, but rather to turn the paper clip into a tie clip,” Campain said. “I explained that through trading, you’re not trading anything new, you’re not trading wealth, you are just redistributing it with other people. Some people were getting worse than what they expected.”

Other students brought back stuffed animals, iPhone cases, a pair of Sperry’s, clam shells, cologne, an MP3 player, a $25 gas card and many others.

“We had some really cool things,” student teacher Keaton Vander Hart said. “We had a sheep’s liver: it was probably the oddest thing that we had. It was fun to see what everyone brought in and to see the people that really got into it and made all of the trades.”

The objective of the project was to teach students how to barter and learn the value of different objects.

“I think some of them were excited to do it and really wanted the opportunity to see what they could do,” Vander Hart said. “I think others just thought it was a silly project and realized they weren’t going to do it.”

Most took the project seriously

and ended up with items they could use in the future.

“They got very creative with how they started talking about their trades,” Financial Literacy teacher Jan Berg said. “A lot traded for a pencil or a pen at first. It was really cool because one class really went crazy with it.”

Every year in the financial literacy class, students learn how to handle money and avoid debt in the future.

“A lot of people think they know money, and they think they understand money. They think that just because they are smart, they can handle money,” Berg said. “Nobody is really taught how to handle money, but you do every single day. We are [expected] to know how to do that.”

Berg and Van Hart came up with the project when they were brainstorming fun activities for the class.

“We talked about trading and bartering in other countries,” Berg said. “We thought it would be fun to see how far the kids could take it and if they would take it that far.”

After the class presented the projects, Van Hart showed the students a Youtube video about a man who traded a red paperclip until he ended up with a house. They decided to see what the students would do with the project before showing the video. Next year, Berg plans to show the video to the class before they start trading to help further explain the project. They also plan to have students document their trades with pictures of either the person they traded with, or the object they traded for.

“It was one of the few projects in school where it wasn’t about a grade, it was about getting further,” Campain said.

TRADING UP/ SARAH EGGER

• paperclip • hairband • colored pencil • pencil sharpener • plastic superman toy • plastic toy car • pocket knife • cheap reusable camera • old fashioned binoculars• old usable MP3 player

Valerie Lewis’s trades in order:

Students in the Financial Literacy class were given a paperclip to trade for other items.

“It was a fun experience. When you have to trade you have to see what people need and use that opportunity, because I went from a paperclip to an MP3 player. I am going to start [trading] a lot more.” —SENIOR VALERIE LEWIS

/ GRAPHICS BY MITCH FEYERHERM

April 26, 2013 07

by Shelby Smith

Orchestra may seem like just another group of nerds, or as we call ourselves, “Orch Dorks,”

but in reality, we’re just like all the other high school sports teams: we just compete in a different way. In sports, teammates are treated as family, and that’s exactly what the orchestra is: a family.

In sports, you depend on the rest of your “family” to field the ball, make the free throw, sprint to the finish line, etc. The same goes for orchestra. We depend on each other to not play on the rest, to listen throughout our sections and to perform all of the music not just the notes. If any of these roles aren’t fulfilled, the whole family is affected.

Dedication also plays a key role in maintaining the orchestra family. All of our members have been playing since the fourth grade, and some even before that. From missing recess in elementary school

to losing electives in middle and high school, we have all dedicated a part of our life to orchestra. Like daily sports practices, we have orchestra rehearsal every day. Athletic teams have extra Saturday practices before big games; we have 7 a.m. rehearsals scattered across the three weeks before state contest.

When it comes to competition, every sport in every high school has its rivals. Orchestra does, too. One of our biggest rivals at the state contest every year is SM East. Next to us, they are the best in the metropolitan area.

The success of all orchestras and sports teams is a reflection of how good the conductor/coach is. Jeffrey Bishop refers to his concertmaster, or first chair violin, as “Mama Duck” or “Papa Duck,” depending on who it is for that concert, because they are the leaders of the orchestra, similar to the team captain. The rest of the

sections are to match whatever he or she does, but the real “Papa Duck” is Bishop himself. Without him, the 102 students in the orchestra would never be able to stay in sync throughout the performance. It’s just like when a coach on a basketball team gets his players to work together by teaching them all of the plays and coaching them throughout the game. And this goes for all music groups at Northwest: all of our directors are the reason why we are so successful. Bishop is known all over the country for his compositions and for his teaching. We would not have received the top scores at contest for 13 straight years with anyone other than Bishop.

The number of students who attend sports games is not even comparable to the number of students who show up to support orchestra students at their concerts. We rarely ever have anyone show up for our concerts

besides our parents and siblings (who are normally forced to go). The daily announcements are also filled with updates on the current sports teams while an orchestra announcement is made only very rarely. Orchestra, and the other music groups at Northwest, aren’t nearly as popular with the student body as any of the sports teams, but they certainly should be.

Here’s the truth about “Orch Dorks.” We’re just like the athletes. We treat our “team” like a family, dedicate a portion of our lives to our “family,” and our Papa Duck is the root of our success. And because of our dedication and hard work, we should be given as much credit as any team. We may not sweat like athletes, but we definitely bring our A-game.

In today’s society you can never win. There will always be something that you or someone

else finds wrong with your body.After model Katie Green lost

her contract with her agency after refusing to lose weight, she established the Say No to Size Zero Campaign. The movement aims to “put a stop to the fashion industry using size zero models or models with an unhealthy BMI (under 18.5) on the catwalk, in major advertising

campaigns and in fashion in general.” Green has started a petition to support her cause and once it reaches 200,000 signatures she plans to present it to the UK Prime Minister and Parliament in hopes of

making a change.While Green has a good point in

fighting for girls her own size to have a place in the modeling world, how she is going about it is hypocritical.

She’s sending the message that skinny is not beautiful, to retaliate against the message that has been given to her: “too thick” is not beautiful.

Even though thin is seen as ideal in our society, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to criticize. If the Say No to

Size Zero was reversed, encouraging hostility toward women who are plus sized, it would not receive a positive response. So why is it viewed as acceptable?

I was born premature at 1 lb. 4 oz, and have always been a tiny person. I’m naturally a size 0, and it is a healthy size for me. When I hear there’s a campaign with the slogan of “Say No to Size Zero,” and that people are working to even get rid of even healthy size 0 models in the fashion industry, that doesn’t make me feel very accepted.

Even though the ideal height for a model is 5’9’’, meaning most models are tall enough for size 0 to allow them to have a healthy BMI, the slogan still has a negative

connotation toward petite girls.Shouldn’t we be promoting

positive messages? Currently skinny is just about the only image thrown at our society, and it engulfs us.

Imagine if ads were filled with a variety of different shaped models. That is what Dove’s campaign for real beauty aims to do. Dove’s social mission aspires to make every girl feel beautiful in their own skin by promoting self-esteem education and featuring models of all shapes and sizes. They do their best to make everyone feel equal, which is what other influential companies and important people in the fashion industry should strive to achieve.

THE TRUTH ABOUT "ORCH DORKS"Orchestra students put just as much work into their interests as student athletes, but they don’t get the credit and attention that they deserve.

by Mikala Compton

DON’T CRITICIZE Our society should promote positive messages about all body types.

Opinions08

Prom is the biggest of the three dances of the school year. It is especially important to the seniors knowing that this will be their last dance. The seniors looked forward to the prom assembly and were more enthusiastic the day of the assembly on April 19.

At the assembly teachers were pied and students performed their class skit in front of their classmates.

“I thought it most of them were pretty funny and the junior skit was pretty funny how mismanaged and chaotic it was,” junior Sam Gay said.

During prom the queen and king were announced. Seniors Tyler Sliva and Laura Assmann were the winners of the crown.

“It didn’t process right away,” Assmann said. “ I really didn’t think I would get anything at all. When I got the crown, I felt like people saw something in me that I haven’t seen in myself yet. It was so fulfilling because it meant that the people liked me. I’d like to think that I got the crown not because people know my name, but because they know my character.”

GATSBY GETS THE GREEN LIGHT

/ HAENA LEE

PHOTO BY LUCAS SILVA

1) Senior Johnny Terry lip syncs to "Paradise City" by Guns ‘N Roses during the senior skit at the prom assembly on April 19. 2) Senior Riccardo Messina gets awarded the Rock, Paper, Scissors trophy during the prom assembly on April 19. 3) Seniors Reagan Wilks, Caitlin Chen and Garret Allen dance to "Gangnam Style" during prom at the Shawnee Civic Center on April 20. 4) Junior Sam Gross dances during the senior skit on April 19 during the prom assembly. 5) After being pied by Lauren Benjamin, English teacher Ben Pabst smiles at the prom assembly on April 19.

Senior Laura Assmann is shocked after being named Prom Queen as senior Mikala Compton cheers for her on April 20 at the Shawnee Civic Center. Senior Tyler Sliva was crowned Prom King followed by Jackson Gulick and Tiffany Jordon as first runners-up and second runners up, Kirk Bado and Megan Kleiss.

PHOTO BY LUCAS SILVA

PHOTO BY NATE COMPTON

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PHOTO BY MONICA CASTELLON

PHOTO BY AARON MESSICK

PHOTO BY BRITTANY BONSIGNORE

Photo Illustration by Nate Comptonby Atalie Black, Brooke Courtney, Sarah Egger + Sophie Flores

rom the m o m e n t someone is born they

are labeled with a stereotype based on their gender: males will be seen as “handsome,”

while girls are seen as “cute.” It’s not certain when gender s t e r e o t y p e s

began, but if the genders do not follow the stereotype set before them by society and earlier generations, they run the risk of being bullied or discriminated against for breaking away from the what is deemed normal.

Both genders are brought up with an idea of how their roles in life should be after school. Males of past generations have been raised with the idea that they

should be the main supporter for their family, while females are brought up with the idea that they should be the main caregiver for their family.

In more recent times, genders have been allowed more opportunities to explore different trades which had once been stereotyped as fit for the opposite gender. Northwest is a perfect of example of what it looks like to blur the line between gender stereotypes, leaving students readily open to try new things.

With readily changing views and an ever growing population willing to take risks and make a change, society must re-evaluate its definition of “normal” when it comes to gender stereotypes.

Most elective classes available are stereotypical activities for both males and females for students, but teachers of electives such as woodshop, theater and apparel feel differently.

Connie Lutz, apparel teacher, currently has one boy enrolled in each of her apparel classes and one in her interior design class.

“As for the other young men, I don’t know why they’re here,” apparel teacher Connie Lutz said. “I don’t know if they’re here to meet other girls or something else. I mean, it’s not a bad thing, a young man should know how to do those things, like if they’re button falls off, they can fix it; they need to know how to iron a shirt and those kind of things, and I think all men need to know how to cook. It just makes logical sense to me, but I mean, it’s high school.”

Lutz made an effort to find out why the men were enrolled, but came to the conclusion that most will not be honest when asked why they signed up for the class.

“You ask them the first day of school, and sometimes the response is ‘this was the only thing that was open’ but my class always has a waiting list, so I don’t think it’s that,” Lutz said. “I just think they can’t admit to whatever reason it is that they’re here.”

Woodworking is stereotypically perceived as a trade for males, but woodshop teacher Mark Schirmer, believes that his class is beneficial to both genders. Although the enrollment in woodshop is male dominant,Schirmer currently has 15 girls enrolled in his classes.

“They get to do a lot of really cool things,” Schirmer said. “They are learning to do a lot of different things. They might be interested in learning to decorate their house. It’s an opportunity to learn something new, to use a different part of their brain, and to use their hands.”

DeWitt, who is enrolled in woodshop, was not deterred from taking woodshop as an elective due to gender biases. DeWitt says it was Schirmer’s willingness to help her with projects as well as his proactive personality that drew her to take woodshop as an elective.

“Schirmer is awesome.That’s the only reason [I’m in woodshop],” junior Katie DeWitt said. “I went in there freshman year for a project and he convinced me to take woods. I loved it, so I took it again. I only did it because of him. He told me it’s an awesome class, and he has to get more girls involved and that he wouldn’t let anything bad happen. He’s always been real supportive and he’ll help you with whatever you need.”

Not only do the girls enjoy being a part of the woodshop class, most of them enter their projects into the Research and Development Forum. The forum is a district wide contest where the students get to display their works of science, consumer science, and woodworking.

According to Schirmer, each year the girls in his class did great The Forum and earned high awards.

Drama offers students a chance to perform in front of their classmates, but is stereotypically labeled as a feminine activity. Theater instructor Keli Rodgers thinks that theater offers students opportunities for social interaction which may not be available anywhere else.

“I don’t know why there aren’t boys flocking here,” Rodgers said. “There are all of these girls and most of them are fabulously smart and cute. I don’t know. It’s because they are chicken, at least I think that’s it.”

Rodgers feels that both genders’ work in the theater department are very effective, but both genders do their work differently; she thinks that girls are “teachers,” while the boys are “doers.”

“My best light kid, is fabulous, but he would rather do it himself then tell anyone else how to do it. So, he doesn’t educate other people as well as some of the girls that I have had. They will really

take someone under their wing and teach them and bring them along. That is the trend I have seen, but there are some exceptions to those rules.”

Rodgers has noticed that the females in the program are more willing to teach.

“I think it’s more natural for [girls] to be caretakers and so you get them worrying about other stuff besides themselves,” Rodgers said. “The men tend to be really excellent at what they do whether it is sound, or acting or whatever it is. They usually do not supervise anybody else. I find that very often if there is, like the officer board, the girls do more of the work, [but] not always.”

Whether it is sports or theatre, there is always one gender that outweighs the other.

Two credits of physical education are required to graduate, however, the majority of the physical education classes are seen as male dominant classes. Most girls stop enrolling in those types of classes after the graduation requirement was met while boys continue to enroll.

Although stereotypically viewed as masculine, weights teacher Linn Hibbs believes that weight training can be beneficial for both genders.

“Hopefully [the girls that enroll in weights class] want to become fit and they want to see the benefits of weight training, hopefully along with

GENDER DOMINANT CLASSES

WOODS 143 16

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F

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“I think as a coach you would be lying if you said there were no differences in coaching boys and girls,” soccer coach Todd Boren said. “You would be flat out lying, because there are natural differences.”

Men are often deemed superior to women in most sports, but Boren does not believe a difference exists between boys and girls in their ability to perform well at a sport. He believes that rather in the way each gender is motivated.

Boren has learned that girls and boys react differently to criticism.

“I think the way coaches go about interacting with boys and girls is the biggest difference,” Boren said. “I think the wording you might use with a guy is going to be different than the wording you would use with a girl.”

Sometimes the coaching styles Boren uses between the boys and girls can carry over into the opposite gender.

“What’s interesting is the effort that I have now made to make sure I compliment the girls has crossed over to the boys now,” Boren said. “I think now I compliment the boys more than I did my 15 years ago, I think there has been some cross over. My coaching style with the boys has crossed over to the girls and some aspects with the girls are crossed over to the boys.”

Head varsity cheer coach, Evelyn Thompson, coaches both girls and boys, too. Thompson has not seen a significant difference in her coaching styles towards either gender, but the willingness of the boys to participate in the sport has changed. Thompson observes that the boys in cheer are breaking the norm at NW.

“There’s a lot of scholarship money for guys who do [cheer],” Thompson said, “It’s also a social activity that guys can do with girls that doesn’t involve partying, drinking or being in a relationship. They become friends and very rarely does anybody date.”

The boys on the varsity cheer squad are happy with the choice they’ve made to join cheer despite the stereotype that cheer is sport meant for girls.

“Cheerleading is a sport that not enough people take advantage of because it’s not a normal thing to do for a guy, but when we do cheer there are better opportunities in college for us,” senior varsity yell leader Patrick Boisvert said. “There’s a couple of us who have scholarships already, so I mean, it’s paying for some of our college. I can tell you a lot of us got made fun of for it at first, I went from eight years of wrestling to cheerleading, and that did not go over well, but it’s fun and it’s taking me to college, so it’s fine.”

take someone under their wing and teach them and bring them along. That is the trend I have seen, but there are some exceptions to those rules.”

Rodgers has noticed that the females in the program are more willing to teach.

“I think it’s more natural for [girls] to be caretakers and so you get them worrying about other stuff besides themselves,” Rodgers said. “The men tend to be really excellent at what they do whether it is sound, or acting or whatever it is. They usually do not supervise anybody else. I find that very often if there is, like the officer board, the girls do more of the work, [but] not always.”

Whether it is sports or theatre, there is always one gender that outweighs the other.

Two credits of physical education are required to graduate, however, the majority of the physical education classes are seen as male dominant classes. Most girls stop enrolling in those types of classes after the graduation requirement was met while boys continue to enroll.

Although stereotypically viewed as masculine, weights teacher Linn Hibbs believes that weight training can be beneficial for both genders.

“Hopefully [the girls that enroll in weights class] want to become fit and they want to see the benefits of weight training, hopefully along with

aerobic exercises and proper nutrition,” weights teacher Linn Hibbs said. “I know some girls probably are afraid of getting bulked up or having big muscles, but that doesn’t happen, that’s not going to happen in here. Ultimately what they find is if they commit to a weight train program they’ll not only look better, but they’ll feel better as well.”

Hibbs came from a school where physical education classes were split by gender before teaching at Northwest.

“To be honest with you, I think that boys classes and girls classes are better. I know we have one advanced girls class that Coach Dickson has, and from my experience that has seemed to work good. Most of the girls in my class do a pretty good job — some can do better — but most of the girls in my class do pretty well.”

Senior Kaitlin Neil has been enrolled in a gym class all four years. She has taken foundations, aquatics twice, and team games.

“I think it is really fun and a good way to get out a lot of energy. It’s really fun to show the boys who is boss.”

SPORTSSPANISH 1(THOMPSON) 16

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SPANISH 2(THOMPSON) 44

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CLASS ENROLLMENT BY GENDER:

13April 26, 2013

The stereotype that girls are better at english while boys are better at math is actually a global trend. According to abcnews.com, males score lower on reading examinations than females in all 50 states, and according to www.aei-ideas.org, with an average score of 532, high school males outperformed females, with an average score of 499, on the 2012 SAT math test. When the subject is approached with neutrality, teachers found that the way each gender apply themselves, studies and processes information ultimately determine how well they perform in each subject.

“[For example, a student in one of my classes] is one of the smartest kids I’ve ever met and he consistently gets B’s because he won’t show his work or [perhaps] he doesn’t do his work,” pre-calculus teacher Randi Platko said. “He’ll just get B’s because he’s not turning in his work and stuff like that, and that’s what the hard part about teaching is: how do your expectations meet what you’re trying to measure?”

According to Sciencedaily, impulsiveness of males may lead to better math skills than females because they are more willing to take risks.

“I think the boys might be a little stronger [in my intermediate algebra class], but in my geometry class, I think some of the girls, in fact, are better than the boys,” math teacher Ken Clow said.

Platko feels that if each gender took more risks and adjusted their study habits, they could improve their math skills.

“The girls, if they would let themselves sit and think instead of being afraid of making mistakes and learning from them, they would gain so much,” Platko said. “If the boys would sit down and focus and write decently, then their grades would go up, too. I mean, it’s just amazing to me.”

The sciences are often an area in which both genders equally do well. Physics is a class which is not usually labeled as a class for either gender. Physics teacher Robert Stewart attributes the higher test scores of females in his class to the rate at which they mature.

“I think girls get higher grades because they mature sooner, they’ve come to point where they’re taking school seriously so they do what they need to do to accomplish their goals,” Stewart said. “Guys are still a little goofy, they are less mature and therefore less serious about high school.”

According to education.com, women reach full maturity in brain development between the ages of 21 and 22, while men won’t attain mental maturity until the age of 30.

English teacher Marc Gibbens observed that different social patterns between males and females lead to differences in grades in his English classes. He noticed the enrollment in his regular English 10 class was a 3:1 ratio of boys to girls, while the enrollment for his AP English class was just the opposite.

“In English, the thing that is super important is reading, and I think reading isn’t really seen as a masculine activity,” Gibbens said. “Reading isn’t necessarily like playing with dolls versus playing with toy tanks, that is obviously sort of a gendered activity, but I think there is a lot of truth to the idea that young boys seem to be more physically active

than young girls instinctively. Reading is a static activity. I think that is really a crucial time; behaviors that are established from ages three to ten [carry on into] high school. There are a lot of boys in AP English that do very well. But I would guess that’s probably why. Reading habits versus activity established at a young age.”

English teacher Fran Koenigsdorf believes that neither gender is inferior to the other, but rather they learn differently.

“Males and females process information differently,” Koenigsdorf said. “Neither sex performs better than the other, just differently.”

MALE: FEMALE:

TOP 5 JOBS BY GENDER:

-Computer Specialist-Industrial Engineer-Accountant-Insurance Agent-Teacher

-Secretary-Bank Teller-Sales Clerk-Private Household Worker-Teacher

CORE CURRICULLUM:

Students at Northwest have shown that they generally break the “norm” for gender stereotypes. Neither gender feels pushed toward a certain area , nor do they choose to follow the gender stereotypes set before them in previous generations. In the end, neither gender is academically superior when compared to the other - the way in which each gender processes and studies information as well as their ability to take risks ultimately decide how

well each student performs in a subject; disregarding gender, the more students apply themselves to academics, the more they will succeed.

Northwest is open to equal opportunities for both genders , encouraging students to reach farther and strive for more than the gender stereotypes laid before them from previous generations.

Features14

PANELS TO REMEMBER

ARBOR HORROR WITH JORDAN ABSHER

SPIRIT OF NORTHWEST WITH ISAAC COLEMANFELIX GOODMAN WITH PETER CAMPAIN

Almost seven years after the release of its fourth movie, the Scary Movie franchise released its fifth installment to an indifferent fan base on April 12.

After three children are found by famous rappers Mac Miller and Snoop [Dogg] Lion in an abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods, the children are inexplicably adopted by Jody (Ashley Tisdale) and Dan Sanders (Simon Rex). So they must deal with the “evil” entity who wants the children for herself – Mama.

The Scary Movie franchise is based on parodies of horror movies of previous years. By dramatizing the scare tactics producers use in each scary film, as well as down playing both the horror and the ferocity of the antagonists, the Scary Movies are able to get a few good laughs from the audience.

Scary Movie 5 contains parodies of several scary movies like Sinister, The Evil Dead, Inception, Mama, Black Swan and Paranormal Activity. The original antagonists in all the films are made to seem as simple inconveniences rather than malignant beings; though

the characters in Scary Movie 5 react to seeing the apparitions in a ham-fisted fashion. If by comedy you mean something along the lines of immature references to male anatomy and racial stereotypes, then Scary Movie 5 fits the bill.

Scary Movie 5 ultimately met my expectations, or what little expectations I had after watching the trailer of Ashley Tisdale punching a kid in the face. Considering the writers had seven years worth of scary films to choose from for parodies in the new installment, there was almost no change to make this installment stand out from the rest. Directors did not stray from the same overused humor as seen in any other installment; I repeatedly found myself asking “why?” at every desperate attempt to make serious situations into something comical.

The story line used in all the previous Scary Movies is left behind in the fifth installment, leaving fans trying to find satisfaction with the end of Scary Movie 4; Scary Movie 5

is the first installment to not feature any of the original characters from the first Scary Movie. The cast list is a disappointment in itself with actors like former Disney star Ashley Tisdale playing one of the main characters in the film; as well as Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan playing overdramatized versions of themselves in the opening seen.

Like most franchises, the original movie was the most successful – both in humor and gross: in 2000, Scary Movie broke the record for an R-rated debut and earned a total gross of $157 million. In its opening weekend, Scary Movie 5, budgeted at $20 million, grossed only $15.2 million.

Although Scary Movie 5 left me thoroughly unimpressed, it did live true to the name of the Scary Movie franchise, featuring a plethora of raunchy humor and sexual innuendos. If you have the choice to go see the new Scary Movie installment or actually be haunted by Mama, by all means stay home with Mama.

SCARY MOVIE 5

/ ATALIE BLACK

April 26, 2013 15

Brian Helgeland’s 42 tells the story of Jack Robinson, the first black major league baseball player in the history of baseball. And it is one of, if not the best movie of the year.

Major League Baseball executive Branch Rickey, played by Harrison Ford, is looking for a way to draw a crowd to his games. He finally decides that he wants to sign a black man to the team. After much searching, he finally decides on the Kansas City Monarchs’ shortstop Jack Robinson, played by Chadwick Boseman. Robinson has to overcome racist fans, coaches and teammates to prove that he is good enough to gain a spot on the Dodgers.

The film’s biggest selling point is not its characters, story or the writing. While all of these are fantastic, it’s the immersion that brings it home. After the first 20 minutes of the movie, you start to forget that this is a movie and not a documentary. The actors all have this perfect chemistry with each other: Ford and Boseman have a strong father-son dynamic on the screen that takes their relationship to a deeper level. It really helps to convey the idea that Rickey wants Robinson to succeed not only because he wants to draw a crowd, but because he genuinely wants Robinson to do well

What the film does almost as well as its immersion is its pacing. The first third

of the movie is primarily about Jackie Robinson and establishing him as a character. The audience gets a lot of time to get to know Robinson and connect with him. They quickly becomes attached to him, which makes it even more emotional to watch his fight against prejudice. The next part primarily focuses on Robinson playing baseball. Here, the audience can really root for Robinson as he works to make a name for himself and break into the major leagues. Throughout the movie, there is still the undercurrent of racism, both on and off the field.

The pacing all comes together as the movie ends. Robinson has finally made it into the big leagues, and he continues to work through racist comments and actions from players and fans alike. Then, because we spent two-thirds of the movie getting to know Robinson and watching him play baseball, the audience has a connection with Robinson. You want him to succeed.

42 is a well-done biopic on one of the most influential people, not only in baseball but in the civil rights movement, thanks in part to the acting dynamic between Chadwick and Ford and its superb pacing and also in part to the script. Expect to see this movie later this year during Oscar season.

42

Paramore released their self-titled album on April 9 after taking a three-and-a-half year break. The wait is finally over.

I’ll be honest, I expected the band to change over the years since their debut album, All We Know Is Falling. As expected, Paramore was a lot softer than previous albums, though a bit heavier than Brand New Eyes which was released in 2009. When I first heard it, I was disappointed. Brand New Eyes didn’t keep to their traditional punk rock. I preferred

the albums Riot (2007) and All We Know Is Falling (2005) over their last two albums. I figured Paramore would be as soft as Brand New Eyes.

I was proven wrong.Don’t get me wrong, they’ve

always been pretty youthful and upbeat. I still like some of their newer music. I suppose I’m clinging to the past a bit. A few of their newer songs pleasantly surprised me by keeping to their punk attitude but enough to be their best album.

I didn’t like that Paramore had interludes. I really dislike interludes because they usually interrupt the music and ruin an album. They’re like a speed bump in the middle of the highway. Paramore had three

interludes that were each at least 50 seconds long.

My least favorite song was “Ain’t It Fun.” Because of its mix of techno beats and country, it felt out of place among the rest of the songs. I also disliked “Still Into You,” mainly because of the chorus:

I should be over all the butterflies/ But I’m into you (I’m into you)/ And baby even on our worst nights/ I’m into you (I’m into you)

It was too repetitive, and I didn’t like the cliche first line of the chorus.

My favorite song on the whole album was “Now.” To be honest, it was the only one I really liked because it was the closest to their older albums. “Proof” was okay, It

stayed somewhat similar to their older songs. I have mixed feelings about it but I definitely preferred “Now.” “Now” is the only really good song on the whole album and had a peppy and rebellious attitude. My favorite line in the chorus has an attitude that I identify with. “There’s a time and a place to die, and this ain’t it.”

It’s not their best album but it isn’t horrible. Overall, people who hadn’t heard Paramore’s original albums would like this, but those of us who prefer old school Paramore would probably cling to the original albums.

/ KYLEE HARTL

The entire room went silent as the lights dimmed. Screams echoed as the words “Manic Drive” illuminated the screen. The flashing stage lights silhouetted the band as they scurried into position. The packed room was full of pumped teens ready for what was about to go down. This was the highly anticipated Audio Adrenaline concert, at Lenexa Baptist Church on April 14. The opening bands Manic Drive, Seventh Day Slumber, and Group 1 Crew revved up the crowd with their blend of dance, rock/worship, and hip hop sounds.

The new Audio Adrenaline sounded perfect. They had that good mix between their traditional sound and newer, more upbeat sound. The band performed songs like “Big House,” and “Supernatural,” which Kevin Max Smith originally sang in the band dc Talk. “Supernatural” was one of my favorite song they did that night. Audio A now continued on with more new and old songs. It was a bittersweet moment when the video of Mark Stuart, the original lead Audio A singer, came on the screen. He explained about his voice condition and how his condition led him to now be the executive director of the Hands and Feet Project. This is a project that Audio Adrenaline started in 2004 to help an orphanage in Haiti. When the video faded into the Kings and Queens music video, the band began playing along with the song. The song is about how orphans are seen as Kings and Queens in God’s eyes. As the song went on, Smith brought young kids from the audience onto the stage. When the song was over he motioned to them and said “Kings & Queens.” The lights dimmed and Smith thanked everyone for coming out, than the band left the stage.

Overall the concert was great. It’s worth it to go back and see this show any time. Manic Drive was great, a little inexperienced but still great. Seventh Day Slumber was a little slow, but managed to still put on good show. Group 1 Crew was amazing, full of dance moves and hip-hop. Audio Adrenaline was the best, however. They had a great set, great performance. I would see them any day. This was one of the best concerts I’ve seen in a long time. I would recommend this concert to any music fan. So next time the Kings & Queens tour comes around here get ready for a high energy, upbeat concert full of Kings & Queens.

KINGS & QUEENS

/ LUKE MEGLI

PARAMORE

/ AARON MESSICK

Entertainment16

Junior Hayley Nugent quickly held her hand high to answer the question on the board.

Nugent confidently said, “Hablara.” Her Spanish teacher Kathy Tarbutton smiled and

simply replied, “Bien.”Nugent started learning, Spanish, in first grade at

Hope Lutheran Elementary School. Over the years, she has slowly fallen in love with Spanish and with language.

“I liked my Spanish class, and that was what I was best at, so I thought, ‘Why not take another one and do well at something [else]?’” Nugent said.

Nugent gave up classes happily to enroll in language classes. Nugent is not just enrolled in two languages, but three. She is taking every language class offered by Northwest except German.

“I am taking Spanish 4, Accelerated French and Japanese,” Nugent said. “[Learning] languages was what I was really good at and I thought ‘why not succeed as much as I can throughout the day?’ I took Japanese because I thought it would be a challenge, and I like how they have a different alphabet. I think it is cool that I have the ability to read and write Gana and that’s a skill that most people don’t have. I am really proud that I have that.”

Of the three languages she is learning and the languages she wants to learn, Nugent knows that her first foreign language will always be special to her.

“Whenever I hear it, there is something comforting about it, and I just feel like that is where God wants me to be, and I don’t really know why,” Nugent said. “Spanish doesn’t seem to foreign to me as does French or Japanese. Spanish seems like something I am meant to learn.”

With her ability to speak three different languages Nugent wishes to go on mission trips with groups as the interpreter.

“I hope to do something big with my life that would really help people in any way and hopefully it will be a foreign country that speaks Spanish,” Nugent said

After having a mission trip in Jamaica Nugent’s curiosity of the world is intensified and really drew her to languages: the differences between cultures fascinates Nugent.

“The main reason why I took languages is because I like learning what is normal to different

people,” Nugent said. “I think it is interesting that people communicate in completely different ways and how people can completely understand what someone is saying, and if you aren’t from that culture or background, you wouldn’t understand what they are saying.”

Not only does Nugent take these different languages for fun, but she also is learning them so she can become an interpreter, a person who is hired to analyze and translate language orally, line by line.

“[I wanted to become an interpreter] since freshman year. I had the most amazing Spanish teacher, [Tammy] Simms,” Nugent said. “She was amazing, and I wanted to be like her. My freshman year I really saw her as a great role model and I like how she cared about what she was teaching. That is what started me to like Spanish.”

Nugent strongly believes that she has a faith-based calling to languages and that God has something planned for her.

“I think it’s a God thing because I think I will do something someday that I will need to know Spanish in,” Nugent said, “and somehow it will fulfill my fate and fulfill what I am supposed to do.”

Nugent “My dad isn’t really a big part of my life. He was an

interpreter. He knew Russian and he was in the [armed forces]. I barely knew him, but that is still just a part of me. I didn’t know he was into languages and I didn’t know he knew Russian.”

Learning and trying something new may be scary, but for Nugent, it gets her on the right road to reach her dream.

“Thinking about learning a new language seems really hard and scary but I have time,” Nugent said. “I have a few years to keep learning, and you just take it brick by brick, day by day, vocab card by vocab card and eventually I think [I will become an interpreter].”

ENGLISH:

SIMPLY PUT:Hi! How are you?

FRENCH:

JAPANESE: SPANISH:Hola!

Salut! Comment etes-vous?

?Como estas?

(Kon’ nich iwa ogen kide suka)

/ HAENA LEE

Junior Hayley Nugent is currently learning three foreign languages in hopes of becoming an interpreter.

PHOTO BY JORDAN ABSHER

(DOMINANT) Junior Hayley Nugent studies for a French test on April 19. "I like my French class because it’s more of a lingustics class, Murphy knows about so many languages and in this class we compare Spanish to French," said Nugent.(RIGHT) Junior Hayley Nugent talks with sophmore Tatum Graves during their 7th hour Spanish four class on April 15, in room 113. Nugent takes three foreign languages: Japanese, Spanish and French.

PHOTO BY CLARA DAVISON

17April 26, 2013

Four teachers spend a considerable amount of time at school outside of the school day.

COUNTLESS HOURS

"I will reach out to kids if the student comes half-way,” Mike Cooper said. “I will go way past half way to

help whatever they need help with. If you come half way it will probably be shocking how much I will go out of my way to help you get whatever you need from Northwest, so you become successful after your time in Northwest.”

Students may not understand the dedication teachers need to help their students and athletes. Cooper, the freshman football coach, head track coach and math teacher, devotes his time to help every one of his students.

“In ninth grade, like any other ninth grader trying to figure out their path in life, I really enjoyed some teachers and coaches I had,” Cooper said. “They were nice and helpful to kids. I thought that really helped me, and I [thought] I would enjoy that as a career. When I was a ninth grader, there was career day. You had to choose a career, give a presentation and go interview people, so I chose [to become a teacher] as a ninth grader.”

During the fall Cooper coaches football and in the spring he coaches for boys’ track. Cooper usually doesn’t get a break until 6 p.m. throughout the football season, and not until 6:30 p.m. during track season.

“I work on track about 310 to 320 days a year, so even when I am coaching football [in the fall] or in the winter or summer, I am doing track practice,” Cooper said.

Cooper wants to give all of his students and athletes a memorable high school experience.

“I think the kids who do activities, whether they are in the band or theater or any of the clubs or athletes, they get involved in something, and high school means

more than if you only come at 7:40 a.m., leave at 2:40 p.m. and go to your seven hours,” Cooper said. “I became a teacher to become a coach, and I became a coach to become a teacher.”

Every year Northwest has approximately 180 students who join the track team, this trends stays true even with a decrease in district enrollment.

“Last year we had over 200 kids, and I think that is a testimony to why track and field is unique,” Cooper said. “I tell kids there is no bench; in soccer, basketball and football some kids play and some kids watch, but in track and field everyone gets to play.”

Even though during sports season Cooper gets home late every day, he believes it is just part of the job.

“It is like any job; you can live to work or you can work so you can live,” Cooper said. “Working to live means you have your job to pay your bills and living to work means your job is all consuming and that is not healthy.”

Coaches like Cooper sometimes have to deal with stress. At times when he wants to throw in the towel, his athletes and students are what keeps him going.

“I think that thing that caused me to become a teacher is helping kids,” Cooper said. “Whether it would be in the classroom or athletics, when they succeed in the classroom the light comes on, and they understand some concept. In athletics, when they have some goal that they have set and they work hard and reach that goal, that motivates me to come the next day.”

MIK

E CO

OPER

STACY ROBINS

Teachers are often given the boring stereotype of just standing in front of their overhead board and

lecturing on and on about whatever subject they teach. One teacher certainly breaks this misconception and goes above and beyond to make her students able to easily enjoy her class everyday, science teacher Stacy Robins.Robins teaches freshmen biology and junior/senior level environmental education. Everyday she goes to school before 7 a.m. to check on all 30 of the various animals for her environmental ed. class. Taking care of this many animals takes a lot more time than just the seven hours a day.“At the beginning of the school year I work a lot more on getting cages set up and checking to make sure animals come back from over the summer, making sure they have everything they need, and are vet checked,” Robins said, “Over vacations and snow days, I’m up here taking care of the animals, and sometimes over the weekends because of various vet visits. Just kind of as needed I have to drop everything and come up here.”Animals aren’t her only priority, she also helps take care of the greenhouse and all the plants inside of it to help prepare for the three week plant sale in the spring. Robins, along with Pisani, supervise the plant sale after school on Wednesdays, and all day Saturday and Sunday for that three week period.

“I have to come up and water the plants over the weekends or sometimes at night depending on if its really warm out or not. I also have to clean up the greenhouse in the spring, after the plant sale,” Robins said.Taking care of so many plants and animals can come with lots of mishaps and surprises. From animals escaping to the room flooding with water, Robins certainly has her hands full.“The worst part of my job is walking in in the mornings and running into something that occurred with an animal the night before, such as a snake getting out and eating a chinchilla, or somebody leaving the water on and there’s water everywhere. You just never know when you take care of 30 animals exactly what’s going on.”With a lot to do and a very busy schedule during the school day, Robins uses most of her time at home to plan and do her grades for her classes. Even after seven years of maintaining the crazy lifestyle of teaching these classes and taking care of everything else, she still keeps a positive attitude about her job.“[The best part about my job is] getting to interact with high school kids everyday. This is just my job, I don’t think I do anything extraordinary. I just enjoy it. Its fun. Its not the normal come in and work on my overhead board. Its something different every single day.” Robins said with a smile.

PHOTO BY SARAH DEAN

PHOTO BY CARLEIGH WHITMAN

BY ALAURA MOORE, HAENA LEE, SARAH EGGER + GABBY LORINO

science teacher

coac

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18 Features

“M usic teachers are the closest thing to a coach that teachers can become without actually coaching something,” orchestra

director Jeffrey Bishop said. “I joke around sometimes that I’m the orchestra coach because we compete, we go to contests, we do things like an athletic team, yet we’re a curricular subject.”

Bishop teaches four different orchestras, including a symphony orchestra which meets only after school hours. He is also a department chairman that is responsible for the art and physical education department. Bishop feels that working with his students is an important part of the job.

“When you’re a part of the orchestra program, you’re part of a family,” Bishop said.

Bishop realized he was going to be a music teacher when he was in high school. He was inspired by his orchestra teacher.

“I had a horrible high school experience, [and] the only place I was safe was down in the music rooms,” Bishop said. “What makes this job worth it for me is the fact that I can provide a safe place, family setting, for students in this program to be involved. I don’t care how well they play; all I care about is that they’re trying their best. If they’re giving me their best I’ll leave them alone; if I know they can do better, they will hear about it, and they know that.”

Aside from leading the various orchestras, he frequently goes to Manhattan to work on his PhD. Bishop’s passion goes deeper than the money he receives from the job.

“Teachers don’t do it for the money.” Bishop said. “I think the system takes advantage of that because awesome teachers are gonna do it for the children, not the money.”

Bishop enjoys the freedom of being able to choose how he teaches.“The one nice thing about being an orchestra teacher is that the

district doesn’t tell me what textbooks I have to use or what book I have to teach,” Bishop said. “My literature choices are up to me so I can make a conglomeration of what I wanna do.”

He wants students to realize that teachers do more than their job description.

“I want to think that every teacher that shows up in this building is doing everything they can to make it a successful day for their students,” Bishop said. “We all have bad days but I honestly believe that when I show up here at school, my goal is not to send kids out of my room having a miserable day. If I can make their day a little bit brighter a little bit happier, a little bit more surreal, than I’ve done my job.”

“I just always liked theater better than anything else,” theater teacher Keli

Rodgers said. “I think I really liked to boss people around, and in this line of work you get to do that a lot. It’s fun, which doesn’t sound like the serious answer, but it is.”

Rodgers has been the theater instructor here for 22 years. Being in charge of one of the most active organizations in the school takes an immense amount of extra time and dedication, more than most teachers are required to give. Before a production, rehearsals take place almost every day in preparation for the play.

“If it’s a show I’ve done before, it’s pretty easy because I have a lot of it done already,” Rodgers said. “Good Doctor, for example: it’s a show that I thought we could manage in this short amount of time after a hard show like Gypsy because I’ve done it before. I know that it can be rehearsed in small pieces, and it’s way more doable than something that needs a big set or an ensemble cast.”

During the 2000-2001 school year, Rodgers was curious as to how much time she spent at school during a school year. After tallying everything, she realized she spent 1,414 hours beyond the school day each year, which is equivalent to 176 additional school days. She had spent 404 of those hours preparing for productions, and 584 hours were unpaid. She receives a supplemental pay of $8,616 for instructing both drama and musical theater, which comes down to $6.09 an hour— less than minimum wage.

“I don’t think the [students] have any [idea],” Rodgers said. “They are having fun during rehearsal, and they think that everyone else is having a wonderful time too.

It is fun; [however], I’m kind of OCD, and I can’t not do it as well as I can possibly do it. Which means if they do stuff that I don’t think is very good, I have to go back and fix it. That takes a lot of time.”

Because theater is so different from anything else, it requires more hours to teach the crew how to apply stage makeup, work the lights and sound, and manage the production.

“Theater is such a difficult discipline, and the range of talents that you need to be able to do it all are so diverse that it’s really difficult to get people who can do everything,” Rodgers said.

Because Rodgers spends most of her time at school, she rarely has time to herself.

“Every single time I think, ‘As soon as I get this thing over, things will be better,’ and every single time, they are not,” Rodgers said. “There are 85,000 things you have to do for whatever is coming up. You sort of [live] vacation to vacation, but you never get one.”

Even though the job takes up a lot of time, Rodgers still enjoys it.

“It’s fun,” Rodgers said. “That’s about it. Because I am the director, I essentially get to sculpt the entire story the way that I want it. Another thing that I really like about it is that it is extremely difficult. There is always a chance that anything that you do is just going to be God awful horrible. You have to trust the [students] to give 100 percent, you have to trust them to be massively creative and well-versed in what they do which sometimes happens and sometimes not so much. Every time you manage to pull something off with some degree of credibility, it’s a real achievement because it is so hard.”

KELI RODGERS

JEFFREYBISHOP

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NPHOTO BY MONICA CASTELLON

drama teacher

orchestra teacher

19April 26, 2013

LastGame Score Next

Game

GIRLS’SOCCER

BOYS’GOLF

GIRLS’SWIM

SOFTBALL

TRACK

At home v. BV North 2 - 2

Mill Valley at 6 p.m.

"We tied after double overtime. We were evenly matched, but

we should have won."— Sophomore Tatum Graves

April 16 at SM South

April 263 p.m. at

Seaman High School

April 16SMNW v. SMNSMNW v. SME

Wins:7 - 3

13 - 0

April 30 against SMW

at SM SoftballComplex

"I have no doubt in my mind that we will finish with a successful

season because of the drive, the motivation, the dedication and talent that makes up the

chemistry of this team."- Coach Anthony Kinney

Girl Varsity: 5thGirl JV: 1st

Boys Varsity: 2nd

Boys JV: 2nd

"The track team is doing really well, this is the third year

in a row that we have been awarded the Kansas Cup,

which means we are the best relay school in Kansas."- Coach Mike Cooper

April 19-20

2ndoverall

May 3 at Prairie Trails

Middle School

"We swam better on Saturday than we did on Friday, which

... hasn’t been the case [in the past]. That shows we’re doing

things right in practice, and we should do well in league."

— Coach Matt Wolfe

Quote

BASEBALL"“We played well. We went to

11 innings and couldn’t pull out the win but it was really close.“

“We are just practicing hard and conditioning a lot. But just taking repetitions of the bat a

lot as well."“ -Senior Marcus McNeace

April 27th v. BVNW at 3&2

baseball complex

April 22 at 3 & 2

vs ONW

SMNW lost7-4

May 8SMS Invitational

3rd place overall

May 8at

Alvamar in Lawrence

“"We have been league runner“up four years in a row, and one

of our team goals this season is to finish in the top three, so we have our work cut out for us the

rest of this season." — Senior Collin Weems

Sports20

BY KATIE ADDINGTON, ATALIE BLACK, BROOKE COURTNEY + HAENA LEE

April 26, 2013

Someone can take two sides when talking about this topic, and I’m not completely for or against either of those sides because I played two different sports. I fit into both of them.

I played football in high school for all four years but I’m not going to be playing in college. A lot of athletes doing that but the difference between me and them is talent level. My level of talent in football was in the middle of the spectrum, I wasn’t amazing by any means but I like to think that I wasn’t awful. I dedicated a large part of my life to this sport but was that time really wasted? Some say that it was, and I disagree. They ask why I wasted all that time in the weight room if I wasn’t going

to play after high school.I don’t think that time was

wasted. Part of playing football was

working out. I’m going to use the fitness skills that I learned through football for the rest of my life. Football taught me how to be a good teammate, how to listen to a leader and how to be a leader myself — all of which will help me in the corporate world. It also helped me realize that I can’t do everything by myself, and that you need to have confidence and rely on others to help you accomplish your goals. When people say that playing sports throughout high school is a waste of time a part of me disagrees.

The other side to this, for me,

involves bowling. I bowled for three years in high school and am going to pursue it in college. I’m not going to be bowling for my school because the school I’m going to doesn’t offer it but I will be pursuing it in other ways. I’m planning on competing in tournaments and a couple of different leagues and see where it takes me. I worked hard to improve my bowling skills, to get to where I can consistently bowl a solid game and compete with the best bowlers in the state.I can’t imagine having my bowling career end after high school. Had If I were to stop bowling after high school ends I would consider the time I spent on it wasted. Almost all of the knowledge I learned in

bowling can only be applied to bowling. Not many life lessons are learned through bowling. I mean if knowing which ball to throw or how to play different parts of the lane applies to anything else in life than I haven’t found it yet.

High school sports are a great way to learn valuable life lessons, but only if the athlete’s heart is in it for the right reasons. If they’re just playing to be on the team and wear a jersey to school, then it is a waste of time. High school offers more activities than sports, all of which can help later in life and be a good use of time. It’s a cliche to say this but high school is short, and time should be spent doing things that will help later on in life.

BY DAVIS MILLARD

WASTE OF TIMEIs playing sports throughout high school and not pursuing them in college a good use of time?

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The varsity girls’ soccer

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2-22nd the place the varsity girls’ swim

team took in the SM East Invitational.

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Senior Alex Barbour received 6th place in the 800-meter run.

WHAT’S NEW ON

See photos from the annual event to benefit homeless men in the KC area.

SLEEP-IN-A-BOXGallery:

PHOTO BY MIKALA COMPTON

“My favorite part of Sleep-in-a -Box is the learning experience. Even

though we don’t fully experience homelessness, just putting yourself

in the shoes of a homeless person for a night is very eye-opening.”

— SENIOR GALEN GOSSMAN

PHOTO BY MIKALA COMPTON