The Good The Bad, and The Technology. Technology has affected almost every aspect of life today. Whether it's to call friends, take a selfie, check Instagram, or FaceTime a relative. Education is no exception. Technology has overcome and affected the learning environment dramatically. There is a widespread belief that students’ constant use of technology is hampering with their attention spans, and their capability to persevere in the face of challenging tasks. Technology can easily be overused in the classroom environment, and can overall ruin the learning experience. We as students have the entire world their fingertips Which can affect them both positively and negatively. These days students have unlimited access to any information and any topic that they may need a wider understanding of. This may be harmful to students and school environments as well; copy and paste has negatively affected online writing assignments ever since its birth in the 1970’s. All students need to do is find a phrase relatively similar to something they would write, copy and paste, and they find themselves with an easy A. This, of course, is not true to all students. Many students and administrators use the internet and technology for the good. In fact, teachers utilize the internet to find videos relating to the content they are covering in class. It helps to enlighten the classroom and create diverse learning environment. For the majority of students, it is an easy way to gain information, and to keep themselves engaged within the learning environment, so a technology overtake may not be so horrible after all.
How to Organize a Student Life In a Couple of Easy Steps. Finals are just around the corner, meaning students may be overwhelmed with loads of homework, sports practice after school, and maybe a part time job, In Success Magazine’s article titled “6 Tips to Create a Balanced Life,”, it says those who are stressed should imagine themselves as a tightrope walker,; walking over a circus while balancing a large pole. “If at any time the large pole should start to drift off balance, you must stop until you can get all of them in perfect alignment again—for a tightrope artist does not begin until all the elements above him are aligned. Only then does he move forward, carefully and slowly, across the rope”. The pole is meant to symbolize life, and how it is important to go slow and stay balanced. Otherwise people will ‘“fall’” metaphorically, and literally out of line in their life at home or school. To insure they do not ‘“fall’”, there are steps to help stay in alignment with the activities throughout life. One of the first things that can help with balancing a student lifestyle is having good time management. Maintaining decent time management can help keep people on task and balance stress levels. When stress levels rise, it tends to cloud the brain and prevents tasks from being completed. A laid out schedule to accomplish each task will help that task be completed faster and more efficiently. The next thing to do to help balance life is getting good sleep. Having a consistent sleep schedule is key to being successful with a busy agenda. It is ideal to get between seven and eight hours of REM, or dream-inducing sleep; this decreases drowsiness and improves chances of having a positive attitude. When there are many things to accomplish throughout the day, it is best to maintain as much strength and energy as possible. This ensures productivity during school, sports, extra curricular activities, and more. Another thing to keep in mind with having persistent energy levels throughout the day, is having enough food to keep the brain fueled. Good ‘“brain food’” to keep in a backpack at school include an assortment of nuts, trail mix, granola or energy bars, and popcorn. Snacks with high sugars and unhealthy fats can lead to an energy crash in the middle of the day. Try to avoid those types of snacks, such as potato chips or candy bars, in order to keep going strong all day long! The final way to keep a balanced life is being surrounded with positivity. In Lifestyle Magazine’s article titled “7 Ways a Positive Attitude Can Make You More Productive”, it states that attitude and environment can affect the presence of creativity and an increase of productivity. This means that if one should find themselves feeling down due to the people or /environment they put himself in, they should make some changes to create a more positive lifestyle. Timothy Moser states that, “your attitude determines your productivity. More than almost any other factor, your perspective on the current situation affects your ability to get work done. If you need to be more productive, make sure you bring your positive attitude.” The more positivity surrounding people, the better they will feel, which will likely lead to increased productivity. By incorporating these tricks into the daily agenda, it will lead to a decrease in stress levels, help keep life together, stay in order, and help maintain a balanced mentality.
Cut the Hair Or Get Cut. Being an adolescent navigating their way through high school is a struggle in itself. Imagine being a teen trying out for a sports team and being told that your hair needs to be cut in order to play. This is a reality in high schools across the nation. Boys on athletic teams all over the country are being required to cut their hair as a regulation to play sports. Denying young men this uniqueness is now deemed unconstitutional, due to a ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. In Nathan L. Essex’s book the 200 Most Frequently Asked Legal Question for Educators, it quotes “because students enjoy a level of constitutional freedom in schools, they should expect, for example, fairness and equality of treatment” along with “protection against unreasonable invasion of privacy, a right to be themselves within reasonable limits.” despite this, the discrimination still happening. Coach Stacy Meyer (Greensburg High School, Greensburg Indianapolis), said that he enforced this rule because it promotes team unity and projects a wholesome, clean-cut image for athletes. Patrick and Melissa Hayden stated in the lawsuit in U.S. District Court that their son was kicked off the Greensburg High School basketball team after he refused to cut his hair and comply with team rules, which require that players' hair be above their eyebrows, collars, and ears. The Indianapolis Star reported that the Haydens want court to rule that the policy is unconstitutional, force the school district to stop enforcing the policy and award any necessary damage refunds to the family. Tuck Hopkins, an attorney representing Greensburg Community Schools, said the boy was not denied an education or kicked out of school. "It's two different standards," he said, "There is no right to engage in extracurricular activities." How students are supposed to maintain their individuality if adults surrounding them continuously tell them to change aspects about themselves in order to maintain a professional look for that school or specific team is baffling to parents and students. If students wish to play a sport while maintaing their own style of hair, whether it be long or short, they should be allowed to do so as they please. Keeping a unified and well put together look for a team does not seem to be as much of an issue for the female sports teams as in the case of male teams? Thus giving the males a harder time in keeping their own identity. Being part of a sports team is an wholesome opportunity to contribute factors that one uniquely contains. Again from the book the 200 Most Frequently Asked Legal Question for Educators, Nathan L Essex states that “teachers can develop rules for student conduct in their classroom if such rules are considered reasonable and necessary to maintain order and proper decorum and do not unduly infringe upon students rights and freedoms.” This means that administrators, teachers, and coaches cannot make students cut their hair legally. It is infringing upon their constitutional rights of self expression. The last step to take in this debacle is ensuring that students are able to express the right use of their constitutional rights. This means being respectful while calmly discussing options with the adult or faculty member that they are finding an issue with.
Vessel Vacations to New Location
When thinking of a good eatery, market, and good coffee many Bigfork folk may think of the Vessel. The Vessel has a wide variety of menu items from sandwiches, salads, smoothie bowls as well as take-and-bake pizzas. The Vessel’s previous location was 8089 MT Highway 35 in between Harvest Foods and the Flathead Jackpot Casino, but that has changed. Vessel has recently announced that they have moved to a location in town. The small building that once was home to “Cravings,” will now house Vessel. The new location is connected to the Stage Stop gas station, right off Highway 35. This move will make it more accessible to community members and students, especially now that it will be closer to the center of town. This change to a small town such as Bigfork can be refreshing and exciting, possibly bringing more attention to the beloved Vessel. Vessel has been open for 3 years now and are widely enjoyed by the community because of the lovable staff. The inner workings of the new building has a warm and cozy aesthetic that students are beyond excited about. It makes it easier to those students who do not have a driver's license to walk to in between school and practice, it is also closer to school for students to access healthy, homemade food. Freshman Mackenzie Holton believed that “being next to the gas station can bring [Vessel] more business especially if people want more authentic food than what Stage Stop might have to offer.” Holton goes on to say that Vessel moving brings more diversity and health conscious choices to that area. She also says that it could intrigue visitors and new people to the town bringing Vessel a good amount of new business. Vessel is opened from 7am to 4pm making it the perfect spot to grab breakfast before school or stop and get an after school snack. To see how awesome Vessel actually is make sure to swing by and check it out for yourself.
Anxiety’s Impact on Today's Teens
Having stress and feeling overwhelmed are very real feelings amongst high school students, but in recent years, they seem to be been occurring more frequently. 49% of the general population have a history of anxiety, depression, substance abuse or some of all three major problems. In any given year, about 17% of the population will have an anxiety disorder. Anxiety symptoms are in the form of intrusive, obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors or mental acts. There are different categories of anxiety disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, post traumatic stress disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. Each area under the generalized ‘anxiety’ category has something about it that differentiates it from the others. For example, social anxiety is, by definition, “Intense anxiety or fear of being judged, negatively evaluated, or rejected in a social or performance situation.” Yet in the instance of someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder, they have much different symptoms. “Obsessive-compulsive disorder is a personality disorder characterized by excessive orderliness, perfectionism, attention to details, and a need for control in relating to others”. Anxiety is something that varies in many different ways. The average teenager, in recent years, has the same level of anxiety as a psychiatric ward patient in the late 1950’s, which leaves professionals wondering why the stress levels are increasing. The increase in stress seems to be related in the normalization of obtaining anxiety disorders. Anxiety seems to be brushed off in today’s society, therefore lacking awareness among the population. Psychologists have looked into the increases in anxiety and depression. Humans have experienced a decrease in connectedness, which means that humans are more reluctant to do things in the community, such as participate in civic activities or participate in religious communities, all while moving locations, changing jobs, and living alone. These are all triggers for an increase in anxiety. Stress and anxiety share many of the same physical symptoms, making them hard to cope with. One can identify anxiety at home; symptoms include stress that is out of proportion, inability to set aside a worry, and restlessness. If or when one feels anxious they should take a time-out, focus deep breathing, count to ten, and try to shift back into reality. After calming down, one should try retracing their steps to attempt to discover what triggered the anxiety. After, one could try to reduce the anxiety by figuring a solution to whatever it was that triggered them. Figuring out the triggers and reducing them could lead to a decrease in unwanted stress and anxiety.