4 | February 2015 Hawkeye

STEM classes lead the way to a brighter future

Stem in the new age

You don’T nEEd To bE a gEniuS To bE in STEM

Technology has been evolving ever since tools

were used. Today, we are at the point where we have discovered many things, but the knowledge we have today is just the tip of the iceberg when dealing with the hundreds of thousands of secrets waiting to be discovered. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) classes are trying to teach and prepare students for careers in these fields of study.

Not only do these classes teach about technology, but they also teach about leader-ship. Leadership is another important part to this career path and many others. This can help with jobs, community work, team or group work, projects and even families. You could think of it as teaching all of life’s requirements in just a few classes.

I began the STEM program in middle school and I’ve loved it ever since. Continuing the program into high school was no mistake. The bigger and bet-

ter tools available gave me and many others a greater opportu-nity to design and create cooler and complex products.

I do not regret joining and sticking to the STEM pro-gram. This program has defi-nitely helped me in pursuing my dreams to become an aerospace engineer. I have been intro-duced into a designing program where you could make almost anything. Because this class provides “hands on” experienc-es, I believe this is a great and forever memorable class.

This generation is stepping towards a more advanced and technical future, alongside with a better community rela-tionship. STEM classes are beginning to be integrated into school systems across the United States. If you have any interest in building and design-ing things to your wildest imagination, try out the STEM program for yourself.

Josh IgnacioFreshman

Letters to the editor

A Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) class offers something you can experience

almost nowhere else. Students are offered a large number of new opportunities, this gives them a chance to break out of their comfort zone and try something new. It doesn’t matter if a student takes robotics, rocketry club, or TSA; any of these organizations gives students the chance to expand their knowledge and experiences.

It’s possible that a student might even find out what they want to do after graduating from MTHS by tak-ing a STEM class. STEM allows students the freedom and independence to express their creativity through their own creations and their own products. Sadly, what I think people don’t realize is that they don’t need to

be a genius to join and enjoy the benefits of STEM. In fact, many people who work in STEM professions don’t have to have a Ph.D.

“These STEM jobs are not just growing for those with higher educational degrees,” Jonathan Rothwell wrote in a report titled “The Hidden STEM Economy.”

“Half of all STEM jobs are available to workers with-out a four-year college degree, and these jobs pay…10 percent higher than jobs with similar educational requirements,” Rothwell wrote.

STEM is not only for engineers. It’s a safe path to a successful life.

Nicolas Wolff-GeeFreshman

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) classes are very powerful and important

for our future, and will produce tomorrow’s geniuses. I think that STEM classes teach important skills that everyone should know.

The difference between advanced math classes, other advanced science classes and STEM, is that almost all of what we learn in STEM is applicable in daily life. This isn’t to say that advanced math and science aren’t impor-tant. We actually use some of the things we learned in those classes daily in our STEM classes.

STEM classes also teach us the things we need to

know for the changing world. Engineering jobs are in demand, and the demand is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. The STEM field is bigger than a lot of people think it is, and is a lot more important to every human on earth than people realize. Look at anything man made, it was designed and built by engineers, this is why I said it can be applied often in every day life.

We use the laws of nature and the properties of certain materials along with a lot of creative thinking to improve and advance the human race.

Ryan DunneSophomore

Preparing you for the professional world

Have an opinion about something that appeared in the Hawkeye? Want to talk about an issue or topic important to you? We want to hear from you. Write a letter to the editor and you could be featured in the next edition of the Hawkeye. Bring

your letter to Room 130 after school or email editor@thehawkeye.org.First off, I would like to thank you for a newspaper that is

very well done. I appreciate the different viewpoints, especially on topics and sides that the media, in general, doesn’t really display. I also really enjoy how it seems that your writers are not afraid to express their opinions, no matter how different or controversial they may be. The liberalness of this paper is inspiring and eye-opening.

That being said, I would like to request that when you do a story, especially one with more than one or two sides, that you expose the school to more than one side of the story. Maybe you put them side-by-side, or maybe you don’t, I don’t know. But I

would definitely be interested to see what more sides of the story thinks, instead of just one person or one side.

An example is when you covered “White Privilege in America.” I was excited to read how black people feel, from a black point of view, living in America, but I would have liked to see a white person’s point of view on the same topic.

If the paper is going to be liber-al, and I’m glad it is, then please let us make our own decisions as far as sides and facts.

Keep up the good work!

Mindy FelberSophomore

MorE pErSpEcTivES Should bE rEprESEnTEd

WE WanT To hEar froM you

February 2015| 5 Hawkeye

“No good deed goes unpunished.” I heard this phrase roughly 10 years

ago from a person I have come to trust and admire.

This comment was never as true as it was last week when opposition to the “Battle of the Sexes” week took on a life of

its own. One of the benefits of being in ASB is the

opportunities you get to visit with student leaders from other schools. Our student leaders have had the chance to share ideas that have been successful at our school, and vice versa. One thing that always rings true is the fact that what works at one school may not work at ours.

For the past three to four years now, Big Six officers have pushed to have a “Battle of the Sexes.” To make a long story short, I felt they had a good plan and I spoke to two other advisors from others schools who said it worked great at their school. So, we decided to give it a shot.

Now, I am not here to defend or apolo-gize for the Big Six attempting, with my blessing, to make Battle of the Sexes come to pass. I am here to voice my contempt for how some students choose to use social media to express their opinions. I always tell my leadership students that I can’t

grade you down for your opinion when presented properly.

And those who choose to be in a posi-tion of leadership also learn the fine art of being “empathetic.” Simply put, “be a good listener.” You may not agree with what is said, but if you choose to be in your posi-tion, it’s part of the gig to listen.

The ASB students were elected by you, the students, to take on the tasks of keep-ing traditions alive, trying new activities and creating their own legacy. When they ran for office there was nothing warning them that it’s possible at times that they would get roasted, verbally abused, chas-tised and ridiculed via tweets, Facebook, texts, etc. And most of these comments are signed “anonymous.”

Every student in this school has a voice and a place where this voice will be heard and taken seriously. We have an ASB meeting every other Friday in which we welcome every student to attend. It’s a place where we want and welcome your feedback and yes, need your opinions.

When you send things through the void of social media that’s where they stay, in the void. And as another wise man always says, “be nice to everybody.” H

NOTE: Hawkeye provides the MTHS Athletics and Activities office space each issue in the Op/Ed section as part of our

mission as a designated open public forum.

WhaT doES iT rEallY MEan To bE an incluSivE School?

The days leading up to this spirit week were some of the most interesting in

my years here at MTHS. Without really intending to create controversy, the planned “Battle of the Sexes” week created a real opportunity for us to learn and grow as a

school.Thanks to the willingness of a couple of

brave students who chose to speak up, we learned about the unintended exclusion that this theme created for some students who felt discrimination because the theme forced them into assigning a gender role that may not fit their identity.

And thanks to the willingness of our ASB to listen and make adjustments to the week, we learned that our school can be sensitive and respond to all students who make up our school.

In the end, the theme of the week and the spirit days were modified to allow all stu-dents the opportunity to participate without feeling discriminated against or excluded for the way they see themselves.

We are not alone in dealing with this issue. Other schools are likely addressing this as they plan for their school activities. I am

proud of how we responded as a school. It reminds me yet again how MTHS is a really special place. Yes, we have students who continue to struggle with this issue. I have seen the comments on social media- most of the comments were in the theme of “if the students felt discrimination, they should just not participate if they don’t like it.” So here’s the problem with that thinking; we claim to be a school that values inclusion. If we value inclusion, then we must be 100 percent inclusive.

You can’t be inclusive when it suits you. We need to be all-in when it comes to inclusion. This decision by our ASB to adjust the plans for the spirit week is a step in the direction of ensuring inclusion for everyone.

So, thank you to the students who raised this issue for us. We learned that we still have more work to do when it comes to being a school that supports all of the students who come here.

And thank you ASB for the action taken to address the concerns. It was not the easy course of action and it certainly opened the door to criticism. But in the end, adjusting the plans for the week was the right thing to do and for that I applaud everyone who was involved in this issue. H

NOTE: Hawkeye provides the MTHS Administration space each issue in the Op/Ed section as part of our mission as a

designated open public forum.

When the Executive ASB was thinking about creating a spirit week for Valentine’s Day, we wanted to try

something new. We wanted a theme that was different from “The Week of Love,” which is a theme that we have had many of the previous years. We wanted a unique assembly that didn’t involve the classic “something’s stolen” theme or have the usual class vs. class games. We wanted something fresh. What we came up with was “The Battle of the Sexes” where the whole week would be a competition between boys and girls.

Kim Stewart, our advisor, informed us about what had happened at other schools that have done a “Battle of the Sexes” week. He told us in the past, the boys and girls got too competitive and things got out of hand. Keeping this in mind, we made a proposal for “Battle of the Sexes” week. Our objective for this week was to create a fun, healthy com-petition between the boys and girls at our school to increase our school’s spirit.

While planning out the spirit week, we were very mindful that things could go wrong. We wanted to make our objec-tive very clear by setting the tone with our games and spirit

days. After creating our proposal we scheduled an appoint-ment with Principal Greg Schwab to get it approved. With a few concerns, he asked us to make some minor changes and we acted accordingly.

The following week we made a poster, as we’ve done for every spirit week, to inform the student body of our theme and spirit days for the coming week. A couple days later we received several unexpected com-plaints regarding the spirit week. These letters, emails and tweets accused ASB of creating a spirit week that was “extremely unnecessary” and didn’t “make this school feel like a safe, comfortable place for stu-dents of all genders or sexes.” They informed us that there are many students who “do not identify with a gender, or identify with a third gender.” We took this issue very seri-ously and followed standard procedure.

During our ASB meeting on Feb. 6, we gave everyone the opportunity to state his or her concern. Later that day, the executive ASB had a meeting to discuss this issue. Our final decision was to change the theme of the week to “The Power of Love.” We also changed Tuesday’s spirit day to “Royalty Day” from its original “Prince and Princess Day.” We also changed Friday’s spirit day from “Blue vs. Pink” to

“Valentine’s Day Colors.”ASB’s job is to serve others, to be servants to the student

body. We are constantly losing sleep and staying after hours to improve our school and make everyone feel like they belong. We don’t do it for the awards or recogni-tion, we do it because we genuinely care about each and every person that walks through the halls of our school.

Like Principal Greg Schwab said at our Friday meeting, “Our school has worked very hard and done a great job of creating an inclusive atmosphere. We can’t be inclusive 90 percent of the time or even 99 percent of the time, we have to be inclusive 100 percent of the time.”

We didn’t make changes to the spirit week because we were worried about losing people’s support, and we didn’t change it because people were “disappointed with our judgment.”

We changed the spirit week because we believe everyone deserves to be accepted, respected, and most importantly, loved.

We are looking forward to this new spirit week as we believe it will bring everyone together and display “The Power of Love.” H

NOTE: Hawkeye provides the Associated Student Body space each issue in the Op/Ed section as part of our mission as a designated open public forum.

aSb changes spirit week theme to make Terrace inclusive for everyone

Kim StewartAthlEtic dirEctOr/ActivitiES

cOOrdinAtOrGreg Schwab

PrinciPAl

Alisha ClinganaSB PuBlic RelationS officeR

“We don’t do it for the awards or recognition, we do it because we

genuinely care about each and every person that walks through

the halls of our school.”

A better way to voice your opinion

6 | February 2015 Hawkeye

rEquiring STudEnTS To STand for plEdgE of allEgiancE violaTES STudEnTS’ righTS

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one

nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Since it was last edited and approved by Congress in 1954, this phrase has been ingrained into students’ minds, as the Pledge of Allegiance is recited daily in most of the nation’s public schools.

However, Washington state law regarding the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance explicitly recognizes each student’s right to choose not to participate. The law says, “those pupils so desiring shall recite [the pledge of allegiance].” Students are not in any way required or expected to recite the pledge. Simply put, reciting the pledge cannot be made compulsory for public school students in this state.

However, state law is also clear about the expectation for students who choose to opt out, saying “Students not reciting the pledge shall maintain a respectful silence.”

It is this provision that several MTHS teachers are misin-terpreting or perhaps are unaware of. Based on input from numerous students and on Hawkeye staff members’ own experience, some teachers have been known to require stu-dents to stand while the pledge is being recited. Teachers who require their students to stand are acting inconsistently with Washington state law and may be violating students’ First Amendment rights.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state (ACLU of Washington), “Remaining seat-ed during the Pledge is a form of silent expression,” protected

by the First Amendment.In the landmark 1969 case Tinker v. Des Moines, it was

affirmed that the First Amendment applies to students in public schools and protects students’ rights to expressive speech while at school. Remaining silent and sitting during the Pledge of Allegiance is expressive speech and is should not be limited by teachers.

Legal rights experts also point to the 1970 case Banks v. Board of Public Instruction in which the court ruled, “The right to differ and express one’s opinions, to fully vent his First Amendment rights, even to the extent of exhibiting disrespect for our flag and country by refusing to stand and participate in the pledge of allegiance, cannot be suppressed by the imposition of suspensions.”

And the basis of this ruling stems from the 1943 Supreme

Court decision, West Virginia v. Barnette, in which Justice Robert Jackson wrote: “If there is any fixed star in our con-stitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, national-ism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.”

Public school educators who require their students to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance are clearly in direct violation of the First Amendment as well as federal and state law. As a school and community that has a long, storied tradition and powerful reputation for valuing and supporting students’ rights and responsibilities, this really shouldn’t be an issue at MTHS. H

hawkeye staff editoriaL

erika fisher | hawkeye

Public school educators who require their students to stand during the

Pledge of Allegiance are clearly in direct violation of the First Amendment as well

as federal and state law.

ASB made the right call in changing the spirt week theme after hearing students’ concerns

The staff editorial represents the views of the Hawkeye Editorial Board

asB meeting time and structure needs serious rethinking

The structure and scheduling of ASB meetings must be changed so that the meetings are more open, more accessible and more transparent.

The time and setting of ASB meetings restrict many students’ ability to attend. Held every other Friday at 6:30 a.m., ASB meetings are inconvenient and inacces-sible for many students. In order to attend meetings, students are required to arrive almost an hour before school begins. This prevents students who either cannot provide their own transportation or have a zero period class from attending.

Instead of the early morning meetings, ASB meetings could be held every other Friday during PASS period. If this were the case, students would not have to go out of their way to attend meetings.

Additionally, many students do not even know that ASB meetings occur regu-larly. There is seldom advertisement of these meetings. And when meetings are scheduled, agendas are not made available ahead of time for students to view. The lack of information about the meetings discourages students from participating.

In order to increase attendance and promote inclusivity, ASB needs to rethink when and how it conducts its meetings.

spirit week theme change a great decision by asB

After ASB announced the spirit week theme “Battle of the Sexes,” many students criticized

the idea, saying the week was based on gender stereotypes and excluded students who identify as something other than male or female.

In response to this criticism, ASB encouraged those who felt strongly about the subject to speak at the ASB meeting last Friday.

Taking the students’ input into account, ASB changed the week’s theme to “The Power of Love.”

As elected officers, it is ASB’s responsibility to listen to the opinions of the public and make deci-sions accordingly. ASB’s actions concerning “Battle of the Sexes” week exemplified how disagreements between students and their elected representatives can and should be handled.

February 2015| 7 Hawkeye

More woMen needed in positions of powerSchools, businesses and governments need a more representative

distribution of male and female leadersPicture a CEO and the secretary of a major company.

Our society’s standards and values have conformed us to picture a male CEO who is a dominant and powerful, and a

female secretary who is weak and submissive.

There are 190 heads of state in the world, just nine of them are women. Out of 100 senators in Congress, 20 of them are women. Out of 435 members of the House of Representatives, 80 of them are women. At the CEO level, women

make up 3 to 4 percent. Even in the non-profit world, which is primarily believed to be “women’s work,” they make up just 20 percent of the leadership.

The majority of minimum wage and tipped workers are women. This begs the question on why women can’t make it to the top. Is it because the United States ranks 23rd globally in gender equality? Is it the lack of representation of women in leadership positions? Or is it that, according to a poll done by ABC News and the Washington Post, one in four women reported to have experienced sexual harassment in the work-place?

Women also face harder challenges between professional success and family life. When men plan for success at work, they don’t have to think about the possibility of getting behind or failing to get a promotion because they have to take time off to have a child. If you are a mother, the chances of you getting a job are reduced by 70 percent.

The reason the workplace and the policies that impact the workplace don’t accommodate mothers is because the value of a woman is still believed to be at home. Men are rarely asked to put aside or change their career path to care for their children because the patriar-chal system we live in says that men are sup-posed to be the workers while women should stay at home and tend to household matters.

Today, women are now leading in higher education. Women are earning the majority of associate, bachelors, masters, and doctor-ate degrees. For every 100 degrees men got last year, women earned 140. It is clear that women are just as capable, if not more, than men in the workforce.

Yet, we are not seeing that represented. Names like Mark Zuckerburg or Steve Jobs are regular household names while women who are equally as successful are not given the recognition they deserve. Indra Nooyi, current Chairperson and CEO of PepsiCo, is the second largest food and beverage busi-ness in the world. Ursula M. Burns also serves as Chairperson and CEO of Xerox, being the first African-American woman to head a Fortune 500 company. Neither of these women are widely known, however.

We cannot ignore the widely perceived notion that women as workers are valued less than men. Men’s authority is respected more than a woman’s. A commanding and authori-tative man is seen as good leader while a woman who pos-sesses these qualities is seen as bossy and rude. I have faced this problem myself in my leadership positions at MTHS.

Men have been brought up to believe they can show ini-tiative, while women have been acculturated not to ask for things themselves. We saw this idea being presented by the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, when he said that women should not ask for raises, rather they should sit and wait to be recognized. As if Nadella became one of the top CEOs in the country, earning more than $18 million a year, by sitting around and hoping to be recognized.

The role of gender stereotypes reinforced by social and cultural norms highlight certain expectations about gender. There exists an unconscious bias for what a woman’s work is and what a man’s work is. This idea is started as early as elementary school.

Math and science are often perceived as “masculine” sub-jects because they lead to jobs in medicine or engineering which are primarily male dominated fields. Women are not usually encouraged to join these fields and when they do join, they are generally less represented.

An example could even be made of MTHS. All of MTHS’s administrators are men. The main, attendance and counsel-ing office secretaries are women. Our school leadership and staff needs to be an accurate representation of our school. Girls need to see that there are higher positions than being a

secretary or a nurse so that they will feel empowered to aim higher.

When women are not being represented, young girls don’t see an opportunity for themselves. They don’t see someone doing something that they might want to do eventually. The more young girls see that they are not well represented in the world’s top positions, media, and other areas, the more they believe that they are not capable of being successful.

This perpetual cycle is reinforced by the social norm for girls to doubt themselves and question their worth.

According to the Dove Real Beauty Campaign, 42 percent of third grade girls want to be thinner, 80 percent of 10-year-olds say have been on a diet, 53 percent of 13-year-olds are unhappy with their bodies, which increases to 78 percent by the age of 17. Girls are so preoccupied with the idea that their self-worth is tied to their physical characteristics that they undermine their capabilities. This is why when you walk into a classroom in a high school, the majority of students participating and voicing their opinion are male.

Due to the substantial efforts of our past generations dur-ing the Women’s Rights Movement, we now have laws in place that protect women from being discriminated against in the workplace. However, we still need to address the psy-chological factors that prohibit or discourage women from wanting to lead and the social stigmas attached to women leaders.

Therefore the pre-established gender roles in our society must be completely eliminated in order for the advancement of women and the chance for true equal opportunity. H

Stephanie GarciaHawkeye STAff

Michaela chase | hawkeye