Author: Elizabeth Bacharach

By Josh Haywood

Writer

The U.S. education system needs to restore its integrity and capability to produce a strong workforce, which in recent decades has faded. There are three definite issues in need of reform: the emphasis on standardized testing, forced education of irrelevant material and the ease of access to charter schools. All of these things are what hold our industrious nation from reaching the levels of achievement it had in the post-World War II era.

The issue of how much weight should be placed on standardized testing is far too great as it changes the role of education from actual learning and focuses on rote memorization. Standardized testing just forces teachers to meet standard requirements, whether the information is relevant or not. Why do we waste time and tax dollars trying to make a one-size-fits-all education system?  The world does not, and should not, work like this. Standardized testing does not measure a student’s creativity or innate knowledge of the world. I witnessed the negative effects that standardized testing brought on my class when 130 out of the 300 people didn’t receive their diploma as a result of failure to pass their 10th grade standardized test. I saw some great friends miss the chance to walk across stage with a diploma over a test that should in no way serve as a determinant for employment. 

Some people want to be a mechanic or a hairdresser, so why are we trying to teach them Shakespeare? Teach students what they want to learn. Do not force-feed them nonsense information they will never use. Our fill-in-the-bubble educational system ignorantly ignores the fact that, putting all other things aside, certain people end up going into a blue-collar profession. Let students choose what they want to learn, because it will de-emphasize the lack of respect school systems put on trade skills and provide support for those students who want to enter such trades. There is nothing wrong with being a blue-collar worker; they are the people who built America. From the steel high-rises of major cities to the highway system that pumps the economy’s blood, skilled workers have built this country. Too much emphasis is placed on going to college, and such focus acts as a depressant for those who do not want to attain higher education.

For anyone that does not know about charter schools, they are essentially privately run schools who get public assistance. These do not resemble that of Kent or Hotchkiss. These schools are designed for students who have failed at traditional public schools. The major problem with charter schools is that while they are publicly funded, they do not have to adhere to the curriculum guidelines of public schools. These essentially are graduation factories that churn out “degrees” that are worthless due to the dissimilarity between various charter schools and thus, possess no known value. Educational guidelines act as a set of loose state curriculum requirements that each school can hand pick to teach depending on what the school district sees as important. This is different from standardized testing because it is a set of information that the state seeks to test students on to make sure the teachers are able to complete their job. The issue is that standardized testing does not look at other knowledge possessed by students, such as trade knowledge, which is impossible to test for on a state level.

We need to continue our domination of world industry, and education is the key. Give students more variety when it comes to high school education because it will allow them to focus on fields that best suit their own abilities. Scale back how much we rely on standardized testing and eliminate these “cop out” charter schools that just waste money that could be used on education somewhere else. There is nothing wrong with trying to prime students for college, but you also need to remember that students need to fulfill their own dreams, not someone else’s.

By Jennifer Mok

Writer

Invisible Children, an organization dedicated to stop Joseph Kony and support those affected by the war in East and Central Africa, has caused quite a stir due to its Kony 2012 movement. While many, including myself, were quick to jump into the general sentiment of hope and excitement for change, others were skeptical. Unsure of the reason behind the growing number of hesitant individuals, I decided to step back from the hype and examine the event and organization with a more critical point of view. The results? Not so great.

If you own a Facebook account, you have most likely seen the inspirational film promoting Kony 2012. Whether or not you have actually watched the video floating around on your newsfeed, you probably have at least heard of its existence. Using easy-access tools such as YouTube and Facebook, people have spread this video and its motive with much success. There is no doubt that this 30-minute video has greatly influenced the public sentiment in a short period of time. The film was designed to be informative, tear-jerking, inspiring and easy to digest. Viewers were left informed about the atrocities occurring in Uganda and motivated to make a change. The video created this feeling of great ability: that everyone was able to contribute in one way or another. The film asks viewers to participate in the event by donating and sharing the film with as many people as possible. Many opted to contribute by using their precious time to perform the meaningful push of a “share” button.

I do not wish to undermine neither the efforts nor the intentions of Invisible Children. However, I feel this approach is highly ineffective as it provides people with an easy way out. Simply reposting a video and sharing articles and images on a matter of such great importance is simply not enough. What Invisible Children has started is not an actual, substantial act but rather a virtual illusion of action and a powerful sentiment.

This is the main problem and center of controversy surrounding Invisible Children. The non-profit organization focuses much on raising awareness on the war and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The profits made from their merchandise and donations are used to create films such as “Kony 2012.” But not even 40 percent of their profits are directed toward supplies and support for the people of Uganda. This means that a whopping 60 percent is distributed to employees, offices and filmmaking. I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sit right with me.

A movement with the purpose to help others should do much more than just raise awareness. Children are able to raise awareness by simple acts of speech, poster making and fundraisers. Why should I buy a customized kit designed to promote the need to arrest Joseph Kony, yet utilized as profit for a group of individuals who are incapable of handling money in a more well-constructed manner? Also, in sharing of these posters, bracelets, handouts and other products branded by Invisible Children, the focus shifts from the criminal acts of Joseph Kony to the organization.

I even found myself thinking how wonderful, perhaps even heroic, Invisible Children seemed for its forward approaches. This cause and effort should be inspiring others not to join and applaud the group, but to educate one another and create effective ways to not only halt the activities of Joseph Kony, but also help survivors and those suffering because of this injustice.

I partially blame our generation’s craving for hype, creativity, forward thinking and need for cause of unity for the outcomes of this event. We are often so swept up by an emotional fever of heroism that the feeling of ability and empowerment makes us forget the core of the undertaking. We begin to live in this frenzy of elated, high optimism.

Invisible Children has done a fantastic job in raising awareness. Now, to actually make a difference, it is our job to use the knowledge given to us and turn it into action. Raise money and donate to the African Militia, write to the politicians–those for and against American involvement–contact survivors, reach out to affected communities and do something other than point out a problem. You can make a difference, but emphasizing the existence of an issue is not the proper–or effective–way of doing so.

By Sarah Morris

Writer

Over the past few months of writing for The Bucknellian I have realized something very important about humans: they will take anything you say and change it in order to understand it better, even if that makes their understanding inaccurate. I am actually a bit dumbfounded that it isn’t something that I noticed before this year. I guess we all recognize it subconsciously, but to have it thrown in your face is a completely different situation.

The funny thing is, this happens to writers all the time. Most people have probably mistaken a phrase or quote from a famous passage as meaning something completely opposite from the original meaning. This is where we English majors get to have a good laugh at the rest of you. Being an English major allows me the beautiful opportunity of being told that I’ll never get a job, that my major is pointless and that there’s nothing that I can really do with my major. The people who say this are not only wrong, but they are also usually the ones who make these literary faux pas in the first place.

Now I know you’re thinking that there is not really one scenario in which we could actually feel so great about correcting someone about their knowledge in the field of literary excellence (which we love to do, by the way, at every opportunity), but there is one specific instance that always makes me laugh: tattoos. I absolutely love it when I see someone with a very well-known quote etched onto his or her body, with a seemingly important and valuable meaning in mind, and they are completely wrong. My absolute favorite is the quote “This above all: to thine own self be true” from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” The line is a quote from Polonius, a wretched old man who is telling his son not to be original and unique as those with the tattoos might say, but rather is telling his son to always perform in his best interests before those of others. The fact alone that so many people have this tattoo contradicts the very reason they are probably getting it to begin with.

My second favorite quote is from Emerson’s poem “Hamatreya” and the line I speak of is quoted as: “The earth laughs in flowers.” Most people see this and think it would be cute to get this tattooed around their ankle or on their shoulder next to a small flower, but the actual message of the line describes the earth laughing at all of the people who die to create the flowers that come out of the earth. The earth isn’t having some happy-go-lucky time in the open air; the earth is making fun of those who use her and then are used themselves once they die.

I suppose there are two main points to my rant. The first is that you really should look deeper into the ideas that you tattoo your body with permanently so that you do not look like a jerk to everyone who is educated. The second is to read all literature, newspaper articles, magazine clippings and all other writings much more closely. If you want to consider yourself an educated and logical person, you must take into account that a writer might have meant something that you do not realize the first time through.

Sarah Morris

Writer

Those who walk the path of drug use have a very thin line to keep track of. It is incredibly easy for people to slip into patterns of negativity associated with drug abuse, and I think a lot of young people that have never seen these effects firsthand do not fully understand the consequences of their actions. While growing up awkwardly in the suburbs of Atlanta, my mom caught me sneaking out of the house and said, “There’s only so much you can do until you succumb to peer pressure.” I hold this to be very true. I think it is important that kids grow up, break some rules, learn from their mistakes and get on with their lives. However, so many people do not understand that getting on with your life after suffering from drug abuse is not a choice you get to make to end it; a drug addiction is more than physical, it is mental. And it is extremely difficult for abusers to move on mentally after quitting, especially if their peers are users as well.

I am not talking about drinking with your friends, or even smoking marijuana at a young age. For the majority of people, such actions do not manifest into larger issues. But for some, they can be gateways into hard drug use. I know that the term “gateway drug” conjures images of the eighth grade lecture delivered by your P.E. teacher, but once you’ve seen people delve into drug use, you can actually understand how easy it is to slip from one substance to another. Drugs are becoming easier and cheaper to get and have a very social connotation to them.

As fun as experimentation can be, children need to stay as far away as they can from hard drugs like cocaine, methamphetamines, heroine, Percocet, Vicodin and nitrous. These kinds of drugs alter the way you behave and function in your daily life. The truth that needs to be realized is that you won’t have better or cooler friends because you do hard drugs and you won’t even have real friends if you do; you will just have a bunch of junkies to keep you company while you get high on the weekends.

It is true that not everybody has an addictive personality. Not everyone will take cocaine once and be hooked immediately, but I have seen it happen to people I love. You will never know if you are the type of person who will get addicted until you actually try it. Drug abuse is all so glamorous now. It always has been, but we cannot allow ourselves to romanticize such a dark habit. I had best friends in high school with severe cocaine addictions. They stole from their parents and friends, they lied to everyone around them, and the worst part was, they could not stop. It was not their choice anymore as the drugs were making decisions for them. The drugs were ruining their lives.

It seems like something so silly and easy to do just one time, but the truth is, addiction can fall onto anyone. I’ve seen drugs hurt loved ones and ruin relationships. People have to understand that drug abuse is not a romantic place to explore. It will not make you a deeper or more interesting person. It might tear you away from the people you love. I have seen it first-hand, and I know how horrible it can be. Just testing the waters might lead you into a place you never thought you would enter, and I do not think even risking that is worth it for a minute.

Jasmine King

Contributing Writer

Molly Brown

Writer

The stereotypical imitation of a teenage girl’s speech, an up-talked sentence with an added poor imitation of Mae West and punctuated with several “like’s,” is a pandemic across college campuses.  These vocal devices are popular and are infiltrating the speech patterns of everyone who comes into contact with affected individuals. It has been recently examined in “The New York Times” as an example of women pioneering cultural norms, but I believe that young women are not the culprits of furthering these rather unfortunate linguistic trends. 

In my own experiences, and I’m no Henry Higgins, I’ve heard just as many guys punctuate every prepositional phrase with a “like”—or four—as girls. The same goes with up-talking, the phenomenon in which a statement ends like this? All the time? This trend is not something driven by young women because they are looking for an outlet to express themselves. People and communication evolve together and are interdependent on one another. If someone hears a way of turning a phrase or perhaps has moved to a different regional area and is surrounded by that regional accent, he or she will mimic and implement the speech patterns from the environment into his or her own. This is why it is ridiculous that people see the above linguistic trends as solely a female device.

Occasionally, the up-talking happens, but when it is a deliberate choice by individuals to speak in this matter to try and fit in, these speech patterns become problems. A huge problem, both for listeners and the speaker’s vocal health, is the idea of adding vocal fry constantly in their speech. A vocal fry, the sort of growling, not quite that of Barbara Stanwyck’s, but rather an intentional upward intonation that forces the vocal cords to peak at the fundamental point at which one’s voice begins to crack, is considered normal. The Kardashian reality television empire has only furthered this assumption of speech patterns. When speaking this way for a prolonged period of time, an individual will harm his or her vocal chords by placing them under so much friction day after day. The worst part about the habit is the fact that it has become so ingrained within the national speech pattern that fewer people realize they use it themselves.

In terms of speech, females are no more to blame than males for projecting their vocalisms into the vernacular.  Rather, the use of these patterns is a natural part of language, not solely in the hands of one sex. Vocalisms and language will continue to evolve as long as people continue to use them, so if the vocal growls and up-talk annoy you as much as the next person, don’t use them yourself?

Jen Mok

Writer

On Feb. 26, Hollywood gathered its finest specimens for the annual Academy Awards (The Oscars). Whether you were highly invested in the event or just one of the millions watching the spectacle, there is no denying that you participated in the big event in some manner. What exactly enticed you? Was it the attire? The night’s award-winners? Whatever it was, you were probably interested enough to Google or watch the event. The problem here is not whether you were interested but why, and what such interests say about today’s society.

If you haven’t noticed, Hollywood and its products dictate our lives. The immense impact Hollywood has on our lives is too prevalent to ignore. Our society is heavily invested in modeling ourselves off our most prized starlets. We closely watch their fashion and everyday lifestyles–-idolizing them in every way possible. People of all ages attempt to imitate the styles of those revered by the media. Their social influence goes beyond the superficial cultural aesthetics; even their political beliefs garner much interest and ultimately influence our own. Videos like those posted by Will.i.am in support for Obama spread like wildfire and most definitely swayed some to vote for him.

Our President is not exempt from this infatuation with Hollywood. He is known to often reference pop culture and has transformed himself into a pop icon. Just recently, when speaking at the 2011 Governor’s Dinner he said, “I want to welcome some of you back, and I want to welcome those who are here for the first time. I know some of you may be confused and think this is the Oscars … There are some similarities.”

While the acknowledgement of the present pop culture is refreshing, it makes me wonder how this reflects upon our society. In supporting this cult devotion to those of Hollywood, the President is in part responsible for validating the ever-false pretense that “everything is alright.”

I believe that we, as a whole, are desperate to mollify and somewhat romanticize reality. America has always been an idealized land of opportunities and limitless possibilities. With the financial crisis and war that struck our country, this need to comfort our concerns has been immensely emphasized and we have found escapes in our obsessions with Hollywood. By occupying ourselves with those on the big screen, we are continually lying to ourselves that greater problems do not exist. Our biggest concerns become not of those fighting overseas, but those who were caught drinking excessively or whose marriage lasted the shortest. We have decorated and created a false image of simplicity and ultimate glamour.

The population’s unhealthy addiction to our celebrities represents not only the increasingly superficial sentiments of the general public, but also the denial of the more pressing events of the world.

Ginny Jacobs

Contributing Writer

Utah’s House of Representatives recently passed a bill that gives public schools in that state a choice: teach sex education that is all about not having sex, or drop sex education completely. The bill not only allows schools to skip sex education, but also prohibits those that do opt to teach the course from discussing contraception. Having attended a Catholic girls’ high school that taught an abstinence-only approach, even I think it’s a bad idea.

Young people need to know the facts to protect themselves. Avoiding the topic of sex entirely leaves teens unprepared to have safe sex. The United States has the highest rate of sexually transmitted diseases in the industrialized world, with approximately half the population experiencing an STD in their lifetime. Obviously students can pick up basic facts here and there from friends and family, but a firm groundwork is necessary. Without it, teens rely on misinformation and half-truths acquired from their friends.

Realistically, a certain percentage of teens will have sex and they need to be prepared. At my high school, we were constantly preached a message of abstinence, but never taught anything about preparation for sex. The truth of the matter was that many girls were having sex. I knew of fellow classmates who, unprepared to have sex responsibly, faced the consequences: pregnancies, which resulted in abortions, and even a few cases of STDs. It wasn’t until I arrived at college and listened to the infamous “Condom Lady” that I realized how prevalent STDs actually are.

Teaching abstinence-only merely tempts teens rather than giving them tools for handling sex maturely and responsibly. Watching an adult put a condom on a banana or realistically describing sex in class isn’t going to cause us to go crazy and have sex like maniacs. For me, it was the opposite: good information made me more careful and thoughtful about my choices.

I’m not saying that abstinence is an entirely unrealistic option for teens and therefore shouldn’t be taught. Abstinence is always a choice one can make, but it shouldn’t be forced upon teens. If not abstinence, perhaps restraint could be taught: taking steps to be safe physically—using protection, etc.—and to be safe psychologically—waiting until you at least trust someone, and maybe even love the other person. Even if it is not emphasized, it is important for sex education to include teaching about the psychological consequences of sex. People can make their own moral decisions about sex, but our schools need to provide accurate biological and practical information. Even if you wait until marriage, for example, you will likely need to know about contraception.

When sexual information is presented in a matter-of-fact way, teens will begin to think of it less as a naughty, alluring thing. Remove some of the mystery, and they’ll be less likely to experiment recklessly. If all of the facts are laid out on the table before it begins to enter their minds, young teens can think of sex as something that is normal but an individual decision–best considered carefully–as to when to begin sexual activity, and with whom.

Teaching abstinence doesn’t ensure that young people will remain abstinent. Students are going to decide their own moral politics and the law should prepare them, even when they make bad choices. Kids are going to be exposed to sex at some time or another, whether from friends or in the media. We can’t hide this topic from kids forever by taking it out of school.

Sarah Morris

Writer

I want this to be a call to arms for girls across campus. We as a group need to take charge of our sexual experiences. Sexual assault is an enormous issue across college campuses in the United States, and yes, that includes our coveted “Bucknell bubble.” No longer can we allow ourselves to be subjected to attacks on our bodies and emotions. It pains me every weekend to see girls so drunk they can barely remember where their dorm rooms are, instead going back to the rooms of sleazy guys who just want to get it in.

Usually, it seems, girls are so drunk they cannot remember whether or not a condom was used, whether or not the guy asked if she wanted to have sex or whether or not she even said yes. Sexual assault is tragic for anyone, but what we need to realize is that while sometimes it is unavoidable (as in cases of date rape and Rohypnol, more commonly known as “roofies”), we need to be responsible for taking care of ourselves and knowing when a situation is getting dangerous. That way, we can remove the possibility of sexual assault before it even happens.

A perfect way to minimize sexual danger when you go out is to keep track of and control how much you are drinking. The more you drink, the more difficult it will be for you to clearly express your decision of whether or not you want to have sex with someone. Another way of helping yourself is to think about the guys you will be hanging out with. If you do not feel comfortable being alone with a guy, you need to make sure you are doing activities where other people are involved until you trust him enough to be alone together.

I think the most important key to remember is to look out for your fellow women. We have to work together to prevent sexual assault. Watch your friends at parties and make sure they are in control of themselves; if you see a friend slipping up and drinking so much that she cannot make smart choices, make sure you walk her home at the end of the night. She will thank you in the morning, even if she may seem mad at the moment. The more we help each other, the closer we are to eliminating sexual assault on our campus so that women can be safe every weekend.