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OPINIONS PAGE 3 OMAHA BRYAN HIGH SCHOOL THE ORATOR FEBRUARY 13, 2015 Scheduling conflicts lead to advanced headaches Drop out age affects other’s education Love hidden behind colorful wrappings, high prices Kalynn Copenharve Asst. Editor-in-Chief Valentine’s Day no longer holds true meaning, corporate America’s doing February is the short- est month, but nonetheless eventful. Holidays vary from Thank A Mailman Day, National Tortilla Chip Day to one of cooperate America’s favorites, Val- entine’s Day. Every year, many people enter a near apocalyptic anxiety attack over one little day provoked by the money hungry. Valentine’s Day was created to honor Saint Valentine. Valentine was a Roman Saint who would wed couples in secret when marriage was banned during the Roman Empire. Instead, through several centuries, a day that was meant to praise love and ro- mance has aged like cheese. It started off nice, but now it’s blatantly ostentatious and is only appealing to the pretentious. Feb. 14 is the day for Hallmark and other corpora- tions to almost dictate how love is personified in our society. For one 24 hour span, love no longer comes from the heart, but from the wallet. Love is embodied through giant teddy bears, flowers and chocolate. “The whole holiday is blown out of propor- tion,” junior Raphael Ayers said, “It’s created a certain interpretation that we have on love.” Love is purely abstract and its concrete manifes- tation in our culture has influenced the masses. Obviously that influence is strong since so many people feed into it. “We have more about the idea of love than love actu- ally,” Ayers said. It only grants money into the pockets of corporations. There are even standards that go along with Valen- tine’s Day. Some people feel like they have to give and receive the perfect gift. If there’s failure in the slightest, they’re a horrible lost soul incapable of love. Surely many could admit that the holiday does in fact have some perks. Just think about all the discounted candy the day after. No complaints there. Even if it’s packaged in the gaudiest heart adorned wrapper, it’s still candy. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating Valentine’s Day, but sometimes it’s just a little much. Romance doesn’t have a schedule so it shouldn’t be amplified on a designated day. Therefore, people should just do it all on their own terms. Buying a lavish gift for a significant other shouldn’t be motivated by the works of Hallmark and Lifetime. Holidays can be a great way to commemorate something, and no one should be shamed for tak- ing part in them, but the more commercialization is forced upon them, the closer they become to losing their meaning. “It makes a specific im- age of what love is supposed to look like opposed to what you’re supposed to feel,” Ayers said about the degra- dation that comes along with materialistic tangibles of Valentine’s Day. Many of us have sat in classes where students show clear signs of not wanting to be there. They talk during instruction and when they are not talking, they are sleeping. They show that they don’t care about passing their classes, and they don’t even give much thought to the fact they might not graduate. As much as many of us wish these types of students would just drop out, it’s not as easy as it seems. The drop out age for students is 18 or older to drop out of school without parent consent or at least 16 years old with par- ent consent. This law was put in place across the nation by Presi- dent Barak Obama in order to keep kids in school and increase graduation rates. Although the law has good intentions, many students are being nega- tively affected by this older dropout age. The students who want to drop out are not the only ones being negatively af- fected by this. Some students who do not want to be in school tend to be a disruption in their classes and negatively affect the learning environment of those students who do have goals of graduating. There are a handful of students who see going into workforce at a young age more beneficial to them than spending seven hours of their day, five times a week for four years at high school. While they all have their reasons, whether it be finan- cial issues, a job that doesn’t require a high education or another reason, this law is holding students back from the path that they want to choose for their lives. “If people don’t want to be here don’t force them,” senior Ian Hirsh said. Students who would drop out in a heart beat if they could, mainly only come because of truancy laws. According to guidance director Jeanne Simmons, the kids who don’t want to be in school are typically the kids who don’t make a pres- ence a lot in their classes. “If they don’t come, they end up in truancy court and then on probation,” Sim- mons said. She said that the school tries to get these students in programs that will help and encourage them not to drop out. The General Educational Development (GED) test is harder than students think and it’s hard to get anywhere without it or a high school diploma. Though the schools do put effort into helping these kinds of students, forcing a teenager to spend their days doing something that they see as non beneficial to their lives is not teaching them to start making their own adult decisions. It’s like telling a dog to fetch while still holding on to its leash. $31- $40+ $21- $30 Valentine’s Day Spending: How much do students expect to spend on Valentine’s Day giſts this year? $11- $20 $0- $10 20% 56% 28% 16% 0% 24% 32% 24% What females and males expect to recieve on Valentine’s Day Female Male Food Stuffed Animal Flowers Jewelry 16% 36% 20% 28% 60% 0% 16% 24% 28% Do Do you expect to get a Valentine’s Day present? Female 72 % Don’t Male 52% Do 48 % Don’t Orator Staff Editorial Ian Jordan Chowning Cartoonist I can’t wait until I turn 18. The moment I do, I’m droppin’ this place. NO ONE CARES! SOME OF US ACTUALLY WANT AN educaTIon. PeoPle lIke you RUIN IT FOR THE REST OF US! *50 students were interviewed for this poll. Educational experience ruined by few Orator Staff Editorial The class scheduling here at school has proved to be a problem among many students who take Advanced Placement (AP) classes. With the amount of AP classes that students have the option of taking increasing from tenth, to eleventh and to twelfth grade, students are forced to decide between taking essential AP classes, required core classes or even various electives that they are interested in. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough spots in students’ schedules; it’s that the classes are scheduled during the same periods. Obviously, it is true that not everyone can have the perfect schedule that they want. However, it is true that administration is more focused on assuring that the scheduling appeals to the masses, rather than the select amount of students trying to take rigorous classes. It seems that it is more important that non-honors classes and electives such as foods or woodshop are offered during different periods because they are more “popular”. It is unfathomable that classes such as AP Biology and AP Chemistry would be offered during the same period, but they are. These classes surely attract the same type of motivated students with an interest in science, yet students are forced to choose between the two. Furthermore, last school year, the only Honors Physics class was offered during the same period as the only AP Calculus class. These are also two classes that would attract the same type of students. This means that any junior or senior that wanted to stay on track with their science credits while advancing to AP Calculus was forced to take a non- honors physics class. This does not just limit the students’ learning, it also hurts their grade point averages and therefore their transcripts, which colleges and scholarship committees look at. Also, classes such as AP English and AP Government are offered during the first and last periods of the school day, rather than the second and third periods. This has upset many seniors as they are unable to have early release or late start. On the other hand, most students not enrolled in AP classes have not seemed to have any trouble fitting early releases and late starts into their schedules. “I wasn’t able to get an early release or late start because I have AP English and Marketing during my first blocks every day and a career center class during my last blocks every day,” senior Bryanna Copenharve said. Hopefully administration will realize that this is a problem and make changes in the near future. Students should not be penalized for pushing themselves and taking more difficult classes.
