DRAMA DAYS

photo by Novah Ulm

Junior Paige Rice, performs as a monkey during the Showcase event in the bright lights of the Columbus North auditorium.

Columbus North High School’s Erne Auditorium was established in 1954

Showcase is a longstanding tradition at Columbus North, with a collection of student-driven features.

John Johnson, who usually directs for North Drama, was excited about this year’s showcase. “Showcase is an opportunity to develop acting skills, and feature those who normally don’t get to be featured in shows,” Johnson said. “They direct, they tech it, they do all the things to make the show happen. It gives an opportunity to develop acting skills. I often ask the kids if their first major role was at showcase, and almost half of them say yes.”

Junior Ben Richards was featured in the showcase and described his role as something that gives him an interesting change in perspective, It was his first opportunity to watch what he helped to make. “I’ve never directed something before and it is an interesting change in perspective. It’s called ‘Words, Words, Words,’ and it follows three chimps in a lab experiment trying to type Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet.’ One of them has a more conformist attitude, one of them has a very socialist attitude, and one is shyer and peacekeeping,” Richards said.

Senior Jaime Garcia

Over one million dollars have been invested in the auditorium after being significantly damaged in a fire, including the loss of 35 seats.

by Natalie Brown design by Ananya Adur

was also featured in this year’s showcase, and looked forward to following in the footsteps of upperclassmen before him. “I wrote my own monologue, and I’m very excited about it. I’ve wanted to do one since freshman year because I’ve seen all the upperclassmen do it before me.”

This showcase is another shining star in a line of theater productions Garcia has been involved in, starting with a play in fourth grade. “In this play called ‘Bed Bugs’ in the fourth grade, I played the bed bug. I thought it was just really fun. And from a little kid, it just kind of made sense, because at one point he gets two of his legs torn off, and I got to explore how he was a little afraid and a little confused, and I remember thinking that it was fun to think about how the character thinks,” Garcia said. Like in his bed bug role, Garcia enjoys connecting with the character that he is playing, “Acting is a uniquely human experience, it allows us to compare ourselves to the characters that we play and I try to find the similarities and the differences that we have, be introspective,” Garcia said.

The theater features grand statues and 1,201 Stussy brand seats.

by Kaitlyn Ayers and Addy Rogers design by Katharine Brunette and Abinaya Ganesan

The classroom has become a factory. Lesson plans are posted online for examination each June. Teachers stick to each plan. For this, textbooks and worksheets have become a trend. Each class is the same. No questions steer the course of class discussion, books that talk about social issues are not being studied. Finals arrive, and stress runs high, but many are left with only the emotional guidance of the school counselors. The only option is to try to forget what used to be and focus on the planned worksheet. This was the Indiana education under proposed House Bill 1134. Many observers considered HB 1134 to be the latest in a wave of bills against Critical Race Theory, a college-level academic concept, according to the Brookings Institution. “CRT does not attribute racism to white people as individuals or even to entire groups of people. Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race,” an article by the Institution said. A significant number of parents are concerned that their children are learning CRT in school, to the extent where state legislatures are taking action. “These fears have spurred school boards and state legislatures from Tennessee to Idaho to ban teachings about racism in classrooms,” the article said. Specifically, Indiana’s HB 1134 planned to ban content that might make students feel “discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of the individual’s sex, race [or] ethnicity.” HB 1134 required the creation of a parent curricular advisory board in each school to make recommendations, students to have parental permission to receive mental health counseling, the placement of limits on social-emotional learning, restriction of books that are “harmful to minors” and that teachers must post lesson plans on a public website so that they may be reviewed ahead of time. Parents would have been given the ability to opt their child out of lessons at their discretion.

“It only makes jobs for teachers harder,...jobs for administrators harder,... cause financial issues and time issues for school corporations” science teacher Victoria Shireman

In an interview in the Hamilton County Reporter, the bill’s author, Representative Anthony Cook, explained his motivations for writing it. “We are trying to require transparency and really reinvigorate a curriculum advisory committee, which I operated under as a teacher,” Cook said. “Until about 2010, we had curriculum advisory committees that were required. The statute moved to a ‘may,’ and when it moved to ‘may,’ not all school corporations are doing that at all.” If passed as it was originally proposed on Jan. 4, HB 1134 would have had significant effects on both teachers and the students who could find their curriculum altered. This bill had the potential to affect how teachers work and teach their students. It puts restrictions on material and has to be open for other people such as parents to view at all times. A biology teacher, Victoria Shireman, shared her concerns over the bill. “It’s really going to put really big barriers on what we can and can’t do,” Shireman said. “A lot of teachers try to find out what students are interested in and sort of apply that with what’s going on in the world and current culture, but that’s not going to be able to be a thing.” It is acknowledged that this bill could have been helpful in some areas or schools. “There might be schools somewhere in our nation that have this issue, but this is not a problem in our school, it’s not a problem in our corporation, it’s not a problem that I am aware of in any of our surrounding corporations,” Shireman said. “They are trying to create a solution for a problem that’s not there.”

Another concern was that fewer students could decide to go into education, leading to a decrease in teachers. This could also limit the amount of courses for future students, according to education professions teacher Amanda Godwin. “It looks like teachers will be spending a lot of free time preparing for a curriculum that needs to be finished by ‘x’ date,” Godwin said. “I know I spend my current prep time planning, keeping up on email, disciplining, grading, making copies, in professional development, updating itsLearning, working with students, and a few other things I’m sure I’m missing.”

Student needs are the focus for most educators.

Senate Bill 167 House Bill 1134

Forms a parent curriculum review board; requires that teachers publish all curricular materials for parents; parents can opt their children in or out of specific lessons; students may not receive mental health counseling without parental permission; students should not feel guilt due to their race, sex, religion, gender, or political affiliation.

The bill was killed in the Senate on Jan. 14, 2022 and is currently being rewritten by the authors.

Same provisions as SB 167, but allows teachers to go through cultural competency training. Curriculum review board must be 60% parents of children who attend the school. Specifies values that must be taught in civics education.

The bill was passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 60 to 37.

The bill was killed in the Senate on Monday, Feb. 28 .

“Based on how students are reacting, and how quickly or slowly they’re gaining certain concepts, is going to determine activities and pacing,” Shireman said. “With HB 1134, that’s going to eliminate that. “

Other teachers share some of the same opinions and have the same concerns and worries including AP government teacher, Dan Marsh, uses examples to explain his views on the bill. “The one example I use is that in my AP Government class, last year Ruth Bader Ginsberg passed away and it allowed me to kind of go, ‘Hey, here’s the politics behind judicial selection.’ So we were able to take a current event that actually happened right then and there instead of having to wait until the spring semester, when we would actually be talking about the Supreme Court,” Marsh said. “That’s not good teaching. The whole point about the curriculum and the impact of it is that it would be very restrictive for us to address current events, to address student struggles, to really hit the importance of our job as educators.”

Some teachers worry that it would only have made material harder to teach and harder to learn.

“The majority of us as teachers don’t want it. We want parent involvement -- that’s 100 percent the case. But this bill is not going to provide that,” Marsh said. “All it’s going to do is [create] more division between teachers and parents in the big picture. From my perspective, what we’re seeing here with this legislation is a small group of “Our job as a teacher is to respond to your learning. If you’re struggling with this activity, we need to spend another day teaching it. The whole point about the curriculum and the individuals impact of it is that it would in the state getting riled be very restrictive for us to up and the state legislators address current events, addressing that, not the big picture.” to address student The bill would have struggles, to really affected not only teachers and parents but also would hit the importance have been impactful on students. Junior Ishna Kesti shares her of our job as opinions on certain aspects of the bill. “I don’t think that parents should educators.” have too much of a role in selecting social studies class materials. The teachers have certain topics they have to get through teacher that teach the students about various things,” Ketsi said. “If the parents Dan didn’t allow their child to learn about some topics, the student wouldn’t be Marsh as educated, and it wouldn’t be as beneficial to go to that class.” Originally, a provision of HB 1134 was that material such as books and textbooks could be restricted or banned, but amendments edited that concept along with others out of the bill. Kesti sees both sides of the argument to ban books. “I think that schools should be able to ban books to some extent. If the books teach or promote harmful things or ideas, they should be banned,” Kesti said. “However, if books are educational, and they teach us about history, they should not be banned.” Although Kesti hasn’t found a book she believes should be banned, many people debate whether certain books are too offensive or inappropriate for certain groups of students.

A list of books that have been banned from US schools.

Banned for complaints that the series was anti-family, violent and Satanic.

Banned for language and other words that promote racial hatred, racial division and racial separation.

Banned for language and depiction of African Americans.

Banned for the indoctrination of distrust of police.

“All of the books that I have read through English class or school have taught me about history or have been fun to read,” Kesti said. “They have also taught me about hardships that different people have to face around the world, they didn’t promote any harmful ideas.”

Teachers and students are not the only groups who see potential flaws in the bill. Principal David Clark regularly attends online meetings with other school administrators and says that the concern is widespread. One of Clark’s chief concerns is the effect it would have on teacher flexibility. “This legislation says you can’t be spontaneous, you can’t have those ‘a-ha’moments, for fear of it taking the class or a student in a direction that might make them feel guilty or uncomfortable,” Clark said. “Or, you might be teaching something a parent doesn’t like.”

He added that teachers must go

Senate Bill 172

Mar 19, 2018 Senate Act 132 Apr 9, 2019

Senate Bill 288 Feb 1, 2021

All schools will be required to offer at least one computer science course. It also provides funding to help train teachers in computer science to teach the classes. (passed)

All public high schools must administer a civics exam to students in their U.S. government class that consists of the same material on the U.S. Civics Test. (passed) Schools and public libraries can be punished for sharing “harmful material” with minors. (was killed)

House Bill 1040 Jan 1, 2022

Students must be taught that concepts like socialism, communism, Marxism, or similar political systems are incompatible with the concepts of freedom. (still in House) back and update their online lesson plans if they deviate from them. Instruction could become more formulaic, as penalties are high for teachers found to be in violation. “If [teachers] don’t do what this bill says, they could potentially lose their teaching license. Hypothetically teachers would say ‘Here’s the textbook. Read the textbook, answer the questions at the end of section 1,’” Clark said. “As you’re going through lessons, you get questions, right? ‘I want to know more about that.’ And this process kind of stifles all of that creativity.” In addition, there is already a framework in place for parents to take an active role in schools’ curriculums. School boards already have an influence on this. At North, parents can already choose to opt their children out of certain lessons. “For example, if you don’t like a book in literature class, or your English class, there’s a way already in place that parents can complain about that or talk about that,” Clark said. “If your parent didn’t want you to read a particular book, we’ve given you another book to read.” Finally, HB 1134 would have damaged teachers’ ability to apply their knowledge of the learning process to their classes. “If [parents] want to come in and change something in the curriculum -- they’re not experts. They’re not sure where we’re going with this. We might set up something for a week from now, or three days from now. If we take that out, there’s no scaffolding to support what we’re doing later,” Clark said. “It’s just scary. Again, we’re professionals. “Most I’ll go back to that. We know what we’re doing. We should be allowed people to do that without having to be questioned at every turn. It’s get into insulting. “ teaching The original draft of HB 1134 created significant outrage because among educators and school they love students and they want to participate in lives, to motivate, inspire, and encourage, but this bill really would eliminate the ability to do that,”

officials, several of whom went to the State House to testify and protest against it. After going to the Senate Education Committee, the bill was approved on Feb. 24 with significant amendments, before failing on Feb. 28.

“The amendments that the Senate has proposed have taken a lot of the teeth out of the bill. The question is, what’s the purpose of this bill in general?” Marsh said. “The bill does absolutely, in my opinion, nothing from what the original of it is if it passes the way it currently is.” Though the bill failed before the Senate, an amendment or similar language could still be a possibility as of March 2. It seems to point to a deeper debate: the extent of the role parents should have in education. Cooperation between students and teachers, parents and community members, could be the key to bridging the gap. “Do I think we need to try to find ways to work with parents more? Yes, 100 percent. It is a team effort,” Marsh said. “We can’t do this alone as teachers, parents can’t do this alone as themselves as well. I think that as a society, as a whole, we have kind of forgotten that there is a role of the community in raising kids as well.”