The Bluffer - Red Bluff, CA
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/383977
SPARTAN THUMBS Too much PDA *These Thumbs came from Mr. Sinclair's 4th period class. Yearbook pricing Freshman containment Page 2 September 19, 2014 Great rally The first rally was a great start to the year. Students have been a little too friendly in the halls recently. Freshmen are frustrated that they must stay on campus. Yearbooks are really expensive this year. Staff Editorial Embrace the exchange students... Editorial Policy: Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the district, staff, or student body. We welcome signed letters to the editor. Names may be withheld upon request. We also reserve the right to edit submission based on length and/or clarity. THE BLU FFER STA FF Ryan Fisher Editor-in-Chief Ryan Fisher News Editors Brianna Tackmier Opinions Editor Ceighlee Fennel Features Editor Tymberlyn Bealer Sports Editor Savannah Sutliff Topics Editor Rebecca Blanchard Editor-in-Chief Madison Waelty Advertising Director Alisa Pelanconi Adviser Cartoonist Karla Nowicki Staff Writers Josiah Vasey Kaylie Capps Jay Boone Juanita VanMeter Hailie Willey Lexi Pritchard Opinions Rebecca Blanchard Jay Boone Staff Writer We as students of Red Bluff High, are fortunate enough to have a unique opportunity in terms of the amount exchange programs we have. It is exceptionally important to take advantage of the situation and befriend as many of the foreigners as possible, as they can teach us so much. It is also important to remember that not every school has a program such as the one that exists at our high school. Students from different countries, different continents, are coming all the way from a completely different culture, to our town of Red Bluff. We, as a community, would not want to leave a bad impression of our way of life, and ourselves in general. Not only do we have the handful of students who stay for the entire school year from around the world, but we have the shorter exchanges with both the Italians and the Austrians. By amercing ourselves in such vast and rich cultures, RBHS students-whether they are hosting or not- can have an experience that not many students of California have. We can learn not only the results of language barriers-and how to overcome them-but we can learn how small our world is by showing that a student from Italy and a student from California can get along so well. Some may even form lifelong friendships. Extending a hand of friendship may seem uncomfortable for some, however students of RBHS should seem as comfortable as possible in order to make the exchange students more comfortable. It is likely nerve- wracking for the exchange students to be placed in such an exciting yet intimidating situation as being in a foreign country. RBHS, however, simply has to join together to make the students feel welcome and give them a positive experience that they will remember for the rest of their lives. A & E Editor Josiah Vasey Opinions Editor Juanita VanMeter Staff Writer/Cartoonist Grades create too much pressure Club variety Students are satisfied with the new clubs this year. I t's depressing that censorship is still such a big problem at our school. They keep changing the system, making it even more restrictive. Censorship like this is detrimental to all students' education. A minor step forward was taken last year when YouTube was unblocked, but this huge step back will make using the internet at school even harder. The huge step backward I'm talking about is the removal of the teachers' ability to bypass the censorship system. In the past, teachers have been able to get past the system by typing in a special code. This was especially useful to The Bluffer staff as it allowed us to do research for stories on sites that the school blocked. I had to get this done at least once a day to get access to a site that was blocked for "Blogging" or "Chat rooms/Instant Messaging". Now, information and pictures are much harder to access. Often the best way to contact people for information is through Facebook, which is blocked. It is also really frustrating that we can't access any news that revolves around entertainment. If I try to do research on movies or video games, everything is blocked. Why would they block this? Do they have a grudge against me? Did I mistake one of the tech guys' kids for a speed bump or something? One has to question the logic behind taking away our teacher's abilities to access certain content. I understand limiting the student's access, but why the teachers'? This is very frustrating to teachers who want to show their students information on the web. Lots of teacher get videos or slide shows online to teach their students. Now this material will be harder to find. I honestly do not understand the school's logic in restricting our teacher's access to the internet. Do they not trust the teachers? Were teacher messaging on Facebook during class? I think my biggest problem with our school's censorship system is how ineffective it is. I feel like it limits my ability to learn while still allowing me to access unscholarly content. One doesn't need to look far to find examples of students getting past the system. Everyday in the library during lunch I see kids playing flash games online or watching anime. Lots of sites with inappropriate content, like Cyanide and Happiness and Imgur are unblocked at school. Honestly, I think our school should be rid of the system all together, or at least make it block only very harmful material such as porn or racism. Blocking potentially distracting material is pointless. If a student wants to be distracted, they will find a way to be distracted. Blocking some harmless humor site won't change that. School broadens censorship programs Photography club causes P hotography club! I saw the advertisement in the bulletin on Tuesday last week and enthusiastically attended the meeting at lunch in Mr. Dais' classroom on Thursday. I think this new development is absolutely fabulous, from an artistic standpoint. I had almost considered starting a Photography club myself a few weeks ago, but someone beat me to it. It's through the assets program and as far as I know, will be on Mondays and Thursdays every week. It's a film photography class, which means the provided cameras will not be digital, but will record the photographs directly onto rolls film, to be developed by us during the meetings. The nerd in me is flipping out, because we will be learning dark room film development, a skill I have been yearning to master every since I became engrossed in photography about three years ago. The fact that this service is being offered to me for no larger price than my time is amazing, and I hope more and more clubs like this can come up over the years. A lot more kids than I had expected showed up at the meeting (I had almost been worried I would be the only one attending) and it restored my hope in the artistic future of this school, and of Red Bluff. I am super stoked for this class, but also a bit clueless as to what exactly the sessions will be like. I'm praying for hands on activities. I'm not one to shirk the technicalities but I think that more can be learned by going out and actually taking photos than sitting and listening to someone tell you how. I'm also especially excited for the showcase at the end of the year. Every student will choose their favorite photograph that they have taken at the end of the year to be framed and displayed in a show, with snacks and fancy clothes, music, the whole nine yards. The photographs will be up for sale, which is also a plus, because now I'll actually be making money off this club! If anyone buys my photo that is…all in all this club is looking to be an exciting, educational and fun experience and I for one am looking forewords to it with zeal. I n today's world us students are led to believe that we need to be perfect and that failing is unacceptable. From a very early age we are put under enormous pressure by our parents as well as our teachers to get good grades. This pressure is most often directly caused by fear of what will happen if we fail. It is the fear that our parents will punish us or think less of us. It is the fear that we will be compared to those who do well in school and thought of as "not smart" or "stupid" by our peers and those adults who we look up to. It is this fear that causes the majority of us to stress and worry throughout our four years of high school. Students are pushed to make goals to go to college as early as middle school. Although it is great to set goals for yourself, the message is often portrayed as required and not optional. This tends to stress students out and puts pressure on us to figure out what we want for our future. Too many of us students are stressing ourselves out attempting to make ourselves appear as the perfect student so we can get accepted into the best colleges. A large majority of us spend far too much time worrying about school and what we are going to do once we graduate instead of enjoying high school and making fond memories with those friends and family that we love. Now the point I am trying to get across is not that we as students and young adults should not care about our future or school for that matter. I am not saying that we shouldn't try our best in our academic courses or that we shouldn't strive to meet our full potential. We should all create goals for ourselves and attempt to accomplish those goals. The point I am sharing with all of you is that we should not be afraid to fail, in not only school but life in general. Nobody in this world is even close to being perfect. You do not need to have outstanding grades in school or have a perfect application to get into college. I strongly believe that colleges would much prefer to know who we are, what we struggle at, and how we have over came these struggles. They want to know that we can take challenges head on and over come them. We all have our flaws and our struggles and we should all learn to make the most out of our imperfections. excitement among students