Forget 9 to 5: Student/Athletes Work Overtime on Academics and Athletics
Susannah Bard
A normal day for a high school student is long and incredibly tiring mentally, and for some, physically as well. Filled with tough classes, loads of homework, and on top of that, sports. With days that start at 6:00 a.m., and don’t end until 5:00 p.m., some teenagers are on the go longer hours than their parent’s workday.
To remain eligible, athletes are required to maintain a minimum 2.0 GPA without an F, making sure that they don’t slip between the cracks while their sport season is going on. But for those whose sport becomes their life, and the most important thing, homework does come second.
Junior Tyler Gateman is a wrestler for VHS, and has wrestled for almost as long as he can remember. He hopes to wrestle in college. When it’s wrestling season, it’s his first priority.
“I do worse in school because I put more effort into wrestling. It means more to me,” Gateman said.
Luckily for him, teachers here try to help athletes with the process of juggling both academics and athletics.
Gateman’s coach and teacher, Anders Blomgren, has a large influence on his athletes’ effort in school. With some of them in his classes, he sees them twice a day, and knows them better than most.
“We encourage athletes to be extra organized, and to use their time efficiently,” Blomgren said. “I expect them to give their full effort.”
Blomgren is hip to the fact that it can be hard to fit homework in after a tiring day at school and wrestling, which is why a study hall is offered after school during the season from 2:25 until 3:00 in the band room.
Like Gateman, senior Bryan Amstrup, a basketball player, also hopes to play in college.
He found that basketball used to structure his day, and he would often do better in school because of it.
“When I was a freshman and sophomore, it helped me focus. I would go home and do my homework,” he said.
But as he grew older, and the amount of homework grew larger, Amstrup found that there just wasn’t enough time for it all.
“Last year it was kind of a problem because I had so much homework; I didn’t have time to finish it all. Other than the weekends, all I do is my sport and homework,” Amstrup said.
Although basketball sometimes causes his grades to slip, Amstrup still believes it’s worth the sacrifice.
“I’ve played since second grade. It’s a lot of fun, I like the competition,” he said.
Because Amstrup hopes to play in college, he realizes now that playing is becoming more important than his homework. It’s also playing a factor in where he will choose to go to college.
“I’m looking at UPS and Whitworth, schools that I wouldn’t have normally choose to look at if it wasn’t for basketball,” he said.
Although for some, sports are the only “in” to college they have, English teacher John Rees thinks academics should come first.
“Priorities seem really skewed. For example, when finals get moved because a team is going to state, I don’t think that’s right,” he said.
Rees has seen students get behind because of sports, but it really depends on the student he said.
“Some can handle it, and it’s a positive thing for them. For others it gets in the way,” Rees said. “I think that for the folks that want to do well in both, it can become one thing they need to let go of.”
Graffiti at VHS Displays an Under Appreciated Art
Ben Slaughter
We all saw it as we filed into the gym for our first Open Mic of the year. The Pabst Blue Ribbon can stood four or five feet tall and was hard to miss. Underneath, the words “For those who drink don’t drive faded,” echoed a standard message to teen drivers. Senior David Twietmeyer understands the message, but also supports the school’s quick response removing the graffiti.
“I guess the people might have had good intentions and a good message, but you just can’t have that stuff at school,” said Twietmeyer.
Principal Susan Hanson agrees but takes a much harder line. “If you have a positive message, you don’t use graffiti,” she said citing a district wide policy banning painting on walls. Hanson said that any and all graffiti on school buildings will be removed as soon as possible. She questioned the motives of such vandalism asking, “Why waste so much time, energy, and money?”
While the beer can caused the most interest, there is a lot of other innocuous graffiti littering the campus. For a nice little scavenger hunt, keep an eye open for Bob Marley, playing cards, skulls and crossbones, and a painted rock or two. Hanson said that messages such as the “2006”s that have appeared on a few trees will stay up because they are inoffensive. While the PBR can came down fast, these smaller images seem to be safe from the custodian’s cleaning brush and Hanson’s wrath.
While graffiti in this country began as a response to mainstream art during the late 1960s and early 1970s when rap was beginning to provide an alternative to the elitist disco clubs in New York City, it is not a purely American tradition. The word graffiti comes from the Latin word graffito meaning to write. Graffiti has been traced back all the way to ancient Rome. Writing on public walls quickly became associated with the word vandalism that was named for a German tribe that raided and plundered the city in the fifth century.
Levinson’s Turkish Romp Comes to an End
Amanda Zhuetlin
Our well known American Studies teacher, Harris Levinson, is back from Turkey. Through a teacher-exchange program called Fulbright, he stayed in Istanbul for a year and taught English to grades fourth through eleventh excluding eighth. As all travelers, he returns with many anecdotes and some wisdom from the far side of the world.
Choosing to live in 99% Muslim country, a city with more people than New York and a culture very different from the American way clearly had its interesting aspects and different qualities.
“[In the home] Mom rules. It isn’t uncommon for children to live at home until they married. Some people—we’re talking 20-30 year olds—will call or receive calls from their mom five or six times a day,” said Levinson.
He observed that in one sense, independence is not encouraged and adults not yet married are likely to be incapable of taking care of themselves. On the other hand, their sense of family, he said, is much stronger and more important than in America. family members. I don’t want to rush through life,” he said. “I’ll drink more tea.”
Kirk Aids Hurricane Victims in the South
Millions of people stared at their television screens in total shock, horrified at the events that were unfolding in New Orleans. Images of complete destruction left people in disbelief and struggling to make sense of the utter chaos that flooded the news stations in the days after hurricane Katrina swept through the southern coast. Of these millions of people, thousands of brave volunteers jumped into action asking what they could do to help. Vashon Island is proud to be home to ten of these people.
Many of us have gone to school on Vashon since kindergarten. This includes attending McMurray Middle School. Roaming the halls of this school was a man in charge, monitoring our behavior and keeping us out of harms way. This same man has flown down to Atlanta to help bring order to the devastating aftermath of hurricane Katrina.
Former Principal Mike Kirk has worked as a volunteer firefighter for many years now. When the disaster hit and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) started looking for prospective volunteers that were fully capable of handling the responsibilities that would be given to them. The Vashon Island Fire Department was immediately recognized, out of a pool of 1,250 teams, as having some of the top fire fighters around.
Fire fighters are called on in times such as these, not to fight fires, but to work as incident relief workers along side organizations such as the Red Cross and Amnesty International.
The Vashon Island Fire and Rescue dispatched ten volunteers down to Atlanta, Georgia to help with FEMA. Three of these men had to fly back home due to illness, but the remaining seven, David Dodge, Cedric Gagnaire, Jordan Laughlin, Jeremiah Mushen, Michael Schlossman, Randy Tonkin, and Mike Kirk, stayed and are continuing to work with FEMA in different management responsibilities.
When the original ten volunteers signed up, the only thing they were certain of was that they were committing to stay there for a duration that would last between 30 to 120 days. There was no guarantee as to what they would be doing, where they would be staying or whether they would have any form of transportation. Kirk was chosen as the leader of the group and is responsible for the six other people that have accompanied him down south. Kirk and the other six people are working hand in hand as employees of FEMA.