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Congratulations to the MV Halloween window painters this year! Have fun in GB. Megan Dupont Bridget Stevens Rowan Boyer Courtney Ostrander Emily Mueller Clemintine DelSignore Soumya Ait Hazem Athena Wingo Evie Grossman Livia Reynolds Zoe Parsons Erin DeCelle Nick Kierstead Lucca Peacock Zambezi Rama Michael Bowser Nicole Shanahan Aria Grossman Lili Sprague Sophie Toutnas-Hardt
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Hey Gazetters! Recently there have been anti-Semitic and racist acts at both the middle and high school. We are disappointed that students feel that it is okay to abuse the rights given to them by the First Amendment.
This week at Monument Mountain is ‘Homecoming Spirit Week;’ each day has its own theme. Last Tuesday, the 25th, was “America Day.” Halls full of red white and blue is what was expected, however, Monument was appalled when a student entered wearing the Confederate Flag. As quoted in a Berkshire Eagle article released Tuesday September 25th, “a student caused an uproar Tuesday at Monument Mountain Regional High School when he wore a Confederate flag to school as part of "America Day," one themed day of homecoming week.” At the middle school, a large Swastika was recently drawn in the second floor boys bathroom. The Swastika was drawn in thick black sharpie on the door of a bathroom stall. Custodians tried removing the graffiti with alcohol, but sharpie remains are still covering portions of the wall. MVRMS has enforced a temporary rule that male students are no longer allowed to use the restrooms during class periods. When male students are on their way from one class to the next they must have a staff member escort them to the bathroom, if need be. We are currently unsure of who the student is that defaced the school facilities. Hopefully teachers, students, and MVRMS community members will begin to take charge and asking for something to be done about these matters. Instead of limiting boys from using the bathroom, we need to educate the student body. A conversation with our community was very necessary. Students are uneducated about these infamous events. Change will only occur if we take action. Recently, conversations have been led by our advisors in homeroom and as a team. Mr. Doren spoke to Team Green, addressing the issues to the community, as Mr. Wheat spoke to Team Orange. Julian Beadell, Student Council president says “... in future instances when dealing with this sort of topic, we must change our ways. The conversations led were a great start, but progress should be a goal in the future of our school. Why punish 99 people when one person is responsible? Instead of punishing we need to educate. This is a perfect opportunity for us to bring up a much needed discussion about our school culture and what we are not educated on.” We appreciate these discussions, however, one talk is not enough. As said previously, our school needs to take part in most necessary educational discussions about such impactful events. The National Basketball Association season is coming back in a couple of days, so I wanted to bring up a topic that has been big around the NBA. Should the NBA allow players to go from high school to the NBA? The One and Done rule, where a player must be 19 years old or 1 year removed from college, rule was established in 2005-2006 NBA season. For many NBA players, their athletic ability is their family's meal ticket. A lot of players don’t grow up as fortunate as others, and their family struggles to pay the bills. Being able to take care of their mom and dad immediately after high school is a huge burden off their backs. If other high school graduates are offered that opportunity with other jobs, why not NBA players? Ever since the NBA put in the One and Done rule, eight of the last 11 No. 1 overall picks in the NBA draft have been college freshmen. People say that skipping college would cause the athletes to miss out on a important learning stage in life. Before the rule was establish these are some players who made the jump, Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, and Tracy McGrady. With players making the jump straight to the NBA, they miss out on learning the more advanced learning of subjects such as Math, ELA, or Science. In addition, if a player were to get injured, the player doesn’t have a education to fall back on. The NBA has been talking about changing the rule as soon as 2020. Lebron James is for the NBA to change the rule back so he has the chance to play with his son in the NBA. So all in all, I’m for the NBA to change the rule back because players have families to feed and most of the time don’t have a year to waste in college, and potentially get hurt. That’s my opinion, what’s yours?
Dinner time at the Seckler house is like no other. My mom spends a majority of her day preparing a delicious home cooked meal for us. After the table is set, everyone sits down for a meal. Sounds pretty normal right? Well here is where it gets crazy. The food is devoured in the span of 15 minutes, and my parents spend the rest of the night arguing over political topics. Almost every night, I am caught in the middle of an intense back-and-forth. My father, a conservative, and my mother, a liberal, gear up for battle.
One night, after Nike’s advertisement release with Colin Kaepernick a much anticipated argument made its way to the table. My dad insisted that Kaepernick’s actions were unpatriotic, disrespectful, and a national embarrassment. He sided with the millions of people who were burning Nike’s products in order to make it clear that they were unhappy with this new partnership. My mom completely supported the NFL players’ right to peacefully protest. She said that our nation's best changes have come from people protesting for what they believe. She praises football players who use their public platform to remind us that America is great, but we can do better. Up until that night, I would observe these intense political battles as a spectator. My head would jolt from left to right as each parent made strong persuasive points about whatever topic they were debating. But when I listened to them fight about Kapernick, I realized I was sick of listening to them argue and not being able to engage in their heated discussions. I wanted to be in the game, not watch from the sidelines! I wanted to decide for myself what I believed. So, I read about the issue, discussed it with my mom and dad separately, and talked it over with with my enrichment teacher, a major role model in my life who has been working with me since kindergarten. Even after our discussion, I haven’t figured out where I stand on this issue. But I have discovered that it’s a little less black and white and a little more gray. I am continuing to listen to what others have to say, and encouraging them to speak up! A friend and I were so curious to see what other people thought about this Kaepernick controversy that we created a blog article for our school newspaper. We ended the article not with stating a position, but asking the question “What do you think?” We then left a comment section allowing kids and teachers to voice their opinion on the topic. Sometimes I think it would be more relaxing to sit at the dinner table and share what I learned in math class that day or complain about how hard coach made us run in soccer practice. But I know that these heated dinner conversations have challenged me to form my own ideas. Going to boarding school will give me the chance to expand on the journey of finding my own voice. I want to continue listening to what others have to say and investigating new controviersities. This will help me find my own voice, and will allow me to say something during the dinner conversations! |
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February 2020
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Photo used under Creative Commons from mastermaq
