HIGH SCHOOL
MIDDLEBOROUGH
Societal pressure forces teenagers, most commonly young ladies, to become self-conscious about their weight and body image. Not only does society manipulate teenagers’ views of themselves, but the media reinforces society’s messages with commercials, television shows, clothing models, magazines, tweets, and song lyrics. Today’s society has transformed the expectations of teenagers and made body image the most publicized, most important factor of being human.
The pressure from society severely affects teenagers like me, and often results in: depression or anxiety, unhealthy addictions to physical activity, or last but not least, dieting. Teenagers have been noted to force themselves onto strict diets, limiting their calorie intake and proportions at meals to unhealthy levels. Though teenagers, including myself, insist on dieting in order to acquire the most satisfying figure of themselves, it is not necessary.
Middleborough High School teacher Mr. Smith, who majored in psychology, once ranted to my psychology class about why teenagers should not be dieting. His rant included several notable points which forced me to come to the conclusion that I should be enjoying my teenage years, rather than limiting myself with what I consume. As people grow older, their metabolisms slow down. This is why it is more difficult for adults to lose weight rather than children or teenagers. For us teenagers, our metabolisms will never be as fast as they are now. This fact is what makes it acceptable for teenagers to eat as they please without worry. If a teenager wishes to stay in shape, he or she should purchase a gym membership, join a sports team, or find a physical hobby. Just because a teenager despises his or her appearance or body weight, does not mean that he or she must never eat a cheeseburger ever again, or ban all cookies from entering his or her mouth. It is perfectly acceptable for a teenager to focus on eating healthily, but it is not acceptable for a teenager to be restricting his or her calorie intake and decreasing proportions at meals.
Teenagers, especially athletes, are required to eat full nutritious meals three times a day. Since most teens are still growing over the course of their high school years, it is even more imperative that their bodies receive the amount of calories they crave. It is perfectly okay to eat two hot dogs and a salad during one sitting as a student in high school because, chances are, your body is begging for the nutrients because it is not done growing.
Mr. Smith’s second argumentative point was that food will never taste as great as it does today. It is a scientific fact that our sense of smell diminishes over the course of our lifetime, just as it is scientifically proven that our sense of smell is chemically connected to our sense of taste. Therefore, this means that the food we consume during our childhood and our teenage years will physically never taste as satisfying as it does today. So why pass up the opportunity to have six tacos for dinner? Or to go out for burgers with friends after a long day? Or to treat yourself to an ice cream sundae after a hard-fought win in a high school game?
Adults often say that high school will be the best four years of our lives. In more ways than one, this is correct. Not only are we allowed to have carefree fun with our friends, but we also receive the opportunity to eat whatever we want. Food is vital to human survival. Why would one pass up the opportunity to fully indulge in all the greatness that food has to offer?
WHY TEENS SHOULD NOT DIET
In Middleboro High School, a poll was given to over 50 students on how many hours of sleep they got per night, and also on what their average grades were. With common sense knowledge, many would conclude that the more hours of sleep an individual gets per night, the more awake they will be the next day, influencing a better grade outcome. Doctors recommend that the average 15 year old public school student needs 8-10 hours of sleep per night, however they found that only 15% of students actually met that requirement. Their results mirrored the outcome of our poll. We found that around 90% of students got around 6-8 hours of sleep per night. Only 3 students said they slept more than 8 hours a night. However, a big majority of our students said that their grades were above average (B’s and A’s) and exceptional (all A’s). In conclusion, this proves that although students should be getting more than 8 hours of sleep each eat night, but students who sleep 6-8 hours still manage to be successful students.
Shannon Berry and Jess Therrien
What Happened To English IV?
If students choose not to take an Advanced Placement english class they must choose from a variety of english 12 classes. The classes are all a semester long and are worth 5 credits. At the end of the course each student will write and intensive research paper which will serve as the common assessment for each course. Honors courses will have to write a longer research paper and will do more independent reading and writing. The english 12 courses include a wide variety of topics and interests so everyone can choose one that best fits their personalities.
English 12 courses include:
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Theories of Violence in American Culture
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Dystopian Literature
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Literature and Film
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War Literature
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Communicating Your World
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Contemporary Literature
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Literature of Diversity
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Sports Writing and Literature
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Memoir Writing
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Contemporary Rhetoric
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Gothic and Horror Literature
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Literature and Psychology
All of these courses come with the option to take either honors level or college prep level.
Theories of Violence in American Culture: This course will examine what lies behind America’s simultaneous disgust and obsession with violence, and the social and psychological effects generated by living in a culture of fear.Students will focus on the following essential questions: Is our culture truly built and maintained by violence or the threat of violence? Who has the “right” to use violence? Is violence an integral part of the American character?
Dystopian Literature: In this course, students will investigate dystopian themes in literature, exploring how authors from various cultures and time periods have attempted to answer the essential question: Could a utopian society ever exist, and why does such a search for the perfect world typically backfire? Students will examine the use of propaganda, the restriction of freedom, constant surveillance, and the dehumanization of societies.
Literature and Film: This course will explore the intersection of film and literature. In the process, students will be introduced to the history and theory of film by studying some masterworks of cinema. The course will also study how literary texts are translated into film.
War Literature:Given its perennial and pervasive nature in the world in which we live, war is often the subject of notable pieces of writing. In this course, students will read a selection of poems and novels as well as a variety of primary source materials. When appropriate, students will also examine passages from soldier’s diaries, documentaries, and films.
Communicating your World: In this course, students will explore topics of individual interest and strengthen their communication skills in several modes. Students will begin by telling about their lives via first person narratives and memoirs. Students will also investigate individually chosen topics ranging from pop culture to politics, science to sports, education to entertainment, and inform and entertain others through short nonfiction pieces. In the second part of the course, students will use digital storytelling modes to transform selected first quarter pieces into podcasts and short videos.
Contemporary Literature: In this course, students will study post-1950s literature from around the world and examine how this literature addresses contemporary issues. Students examine multiple genres to develop a sense of how particular genres are used today to represent ideas and events. Students analyze how the interpretations and themes of contemporary literature read in this course relate to the current time period as well as historical moments.
Literature of Diversity: The artistic expressions of people of color (African-Americans, Asians, Latinos, and Native Americans) are celebrated through the readings of novels, short stories, poetry, drama, and nonfiction. Special contributions of ethnic and religious racial groups to the American community are explored.
Sports Writing and Literature: In Sports Writing and Literature, students will read both nonfiction and fiction sports writing. This course will focus on the use of sports in literature and journalism and its relevance in today’s society. Students will examine various short stories, novels, and magazine and newspaper articles, as well as write their opinions about several themes within the writing. Students will study main ideas that include leadership and character, current trends, rivalries, definitions of success and failure, jinxes and fate, heroes, and coaching ethics.
Memoir Writing: In this course, students will decide what story to tell and the best way in which to tell it. Students will compose their own memoirs and will read excerpts from a variety of famous memoirs. Through varied and comprehensive writing exercises, students will learn how to sharpen their instincts and hone their storytelling craft, and how to find their true voice, which will make their stories unique and authentic.
Contemporary Rhetoric: Rhetoric is the study of how we make meaning through purposeful communication and persuasion. In this course, students will explore our contemporary understandings of cultures and identity through an investigation of mass media, political culture, social trends, and current issues. The goal of this course is for students to investigate rhetoric in their daily lives to become informed citizens who are able to think critically, argue effectively, and communicate clearly about the world in which we live.
Gothic and Horror Literature: Students will study both contemporary and classic authors such as Hawthorne, Shelley, Poe, and Stephen King. Topics of study connected to these works and authors will include the psychology of horror, why people like to be scared, and how the genre has evolved to what it is today.
Literature in Psychology: This course uses psychology as a lens through which to more accurately view and understand humanity as it is expressed in literature. The nature of personality, human motivation, conformity, and the search for identity are some of the psychological topics that will be analyzed within the context of literature. Sensitive issues such as suicide, abuse, and depression, will be examined. The aim of this course is to specifically examine written literary works and unusual patterns of behavior and emotion. Using psychological theories as a guide, students will examine the minds of literary characters. Students will also examine the interconnectedness of mental instability, power, gender roles, perseverance, and the struggle to escape
Alex Kielty
HOW MUCH SHOULD SLEEP FACTOR INTO YOUR 168?
There are a plethora of activities in which one can partake over the course of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The question is: how do high school students utilize those 168 hours? As an introductory activity, each student in my psychology class was instructed to create a breakdown of his or her personal 168s. The breakdown included the average number of hours that each of us spent on: homework, driving, work, sleeping, sports, technology, and socializing. The focus of our discussion shifted to how many hours a week, on average, we sleep. As high school students, many of us do not attain the amount of sleep that is necessary in order to wake rested and full of energy. Out of 168 hours each week, 3 students in my class reported that they sleep an average of 12 hours per week, while just 2 students noted that they sleep an average of 56 hours per week. So how important is the percentage of sleep when it is factored into a student’s 168?
Laura Vanderkam, in “Are We Over-Scheduling Our Children?,” stated, “teens spend 30 of their weekly 168 hours in school,” and that did not factor in her calculated average of an extra 4.9 hours of homework per week. Through this class activity, it became apparent that with the extraneous work students are tasked with completing for school—not to mention their other obligations such as sports or jobs—some students do not fall asleep until after 1 in the morning regularly, which leaves them only about 5 hours to allow their body to rejuvenate.
As psychologists have learned, there are 5 stages of sleep. The first stage only occurs once per night. In this stage, which only lasts a few minutes, a person is partially awake and partially asleep. For high school students, using cell phones or iPads in bed before going to sleep can delay this stage by at least an hour. The second stage of sleep consists of short bursts of rapid brain waves. If awoken from this stage, one would feel refreshed. The third and fourth stages of sleep are closely related to one another, as they both boast slow waves. These two stages are vital for restoring the body’s growth hormones and overall health. If awoken from one of these stages of sleep, one would feel groggy. People fluctuate between these 3 stages throughout the course of a night in no certain order. The final stage, Rapid Eye Movement (REM sleep), is when the brain is highly active. During REM sleep the body is essentially paralyzed and dreams occur. On an average night, during the recommended 9 hours of sleep, one is dwelling between stages 1 through 4 for 75 percent of the night and REM sleep for 25 percent of the night.
High school students should prioritize how they factor sleep into their 168, in order to increase the chances of be awoken by their alarm for school in the second stage. The science clearly identifies that our bodies require sleep in order to perform at the highest level. Clinical assistant and journalist, Juliann Garey cited a recent study reported by the Journal of Adolescent Health, in which they revealed, “...only about 8 percent of American teenagers get the sleep they need.” Lack of sleep can lead to skin problems, such as acne, and can limit functions necessary for success in school such as: concentration, learning abilities, listening, and solving problems. By avoiding or postponing sleep, students not only penalize their bodies, but also their brains.
So on a scale of 1 to 168, high school students should strive to spend 63 hours of their week sleeping.