Nov. 20, 2015
page 7
opinion
Letters to the
A prickly problem
Editor
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Editors in Chief: Yasmeen El-Hasan; Stella Gianoukakis Managing Editor: Vaidehi Gandhi News Editor: Lizzie Fauver; Shaniya Markalanda Opinion Editor: Christopher Paludi Features Editors: Zach Hatakeyama; Caterina Hyneman; Jon Mallen; Samaya Rubio; Reema Saad Sports Editors: Jessica Johnson; Adam Yorke Design Editors: Shawn Mallen; Grace Zoerner Writing Editors: Kayla Nicholls; Amanda Shaw Photo Editor: Ted Cavus Copy Editors: Micah Ezzes; Carmen Hamm Online Editors: Romy Moreno; Mylene Silver Illustrators: Alina Bieschke; Luma Wegman Staff Writers: Gianna Aquilina; Cass Anderson; Brittany Baker; Mia Berger; Ben Brill; Malek Chamas; Reem Chamas; Jasmine Dube; Micah Ezzes; Miriam Farah; Yasamin Fazeli; Jason Fong; Dina Ghanim; Kelly Harraka; Hannah Hastings; Patrick Henry; Kayla Hiken; Shyanne Landers; Gerika Macalino; Tanner McEveety; Eden Millan; Micky Munns; Davina Nguyen; Austin Nunis; Faith Petrie; Hayley O’Connor-Rigby; Luke Peterson;Justin Pioletti; Samaya Rubio; Summer Saad; Angie Tait; Simrun Ursani; Lulu Weg-man; Kylie Yorke; Erika Zlatkin Photographers: Syd Alli; Samantha Bendall; Angel Blanquel; Megan Contreras; Elise DiPaola; Sander Fink; Hiroki Goto; Ilene Guerrero; Anam Khan; Serena Maanum; Gisela Pedroza; Faith Petrie; Laua’e Schweitzer; Keiko Shingu; Nita Villas; Karen Vuong; Ania Webb This is a wholly student-managed, designed, and written newspaper that focuses on the school and community.. Signed commentaries and editorial cartoons represent the opinions of the staff writer or cartoonist.
PHOTOS BY MITCH ZIEGLER AND TED CAVUS
Micah Ezzes
To keep student donors coming back, ensure those taking blood do so more smoothly
As I reclined in my seat, patiently waiting for my blood to be drawn in the small gym, I decided to make some small talk with the man taking my blood, a pleasant, 20-something Asian guy. We got to talking about how he got into the medical profession. He was relatively new, as he had just graduated college. “So how long have you been doing this? Taking blood, I mean?” I asked. He checked his watch, smiled sheepishly, and replied, “About 45 minutes.” Well, at least he was honest. Needless to say, my donation did not go well the day of the blood drive last Spring. Without getting too graphic, it was an unpleasant experience that was more painful than it needed to be. As it turned out, I wasn’t the only one who had such an experience at that blood drive. Senior Frank Guerrero had a similar time. The person taking his blood missed his vein multiple times, and subsequently stabbed at his elbow multiple times. Unsurprisingly, Guerrero had the same person as I did. If these were the only two cases I’d heard of, I would chalk the incidents up to an inexperienced phlebotomist and leave it at that. However, another student (who wished to
remain anonymous) had the needle jammed through his vein and into his muscle tissue, and it was a painful process to get it out. This was not the same man who took my blood — this was a middle-aged woman. I don’t expect every phlebotomist to be a master at drawing blood — after all, nobody’s perfect, and everyone has to start somewhere. However, the last people to mess up on are the young, impressionable teenagers of a high school. Many of the people donating blood at the blood drive last Spring were first-time donors, not unlike the 38% of people who are first-time donors at Red Cross blood drives. (http://arcblood.redcross.org/new_site/ quick_facts.htm) The importance of getting it right on these first-time donors is immense; That first experience can seriously affect whether or not the person will donate again. As a person who has donated multiple times and is unaffected by needles, a bad experience doesn’t bother me too much. But what about the person who is terrified of needles, who decided to overcome their fear for the sake of other people? The incompetence displayed very well could scare them away, turning what should’ve been a noble dona-
tion into an unnecessary, painful experience. A majority of the people who went to the blood drive had an easy, smooth donation, and I don’t mean to insinuate that my experience is the only such situation people had. Having said that, simple mistakes like the ones mentioned above can be easily avoided, and can scare away people from donating again. My doctor has drawn my blood before, and I’ve had multiple surgeries in which I was given an IV by an anesthesiologist these people can do it in her sleep. Why can’t they get people like that? How hard could it possibly be to get people to draw blood who haven’t been doing it for 45 minutes? This isn’t a PSA to avoid the blood drive this December, and this shouldn’t be considered an affirmation of how bad needles are, to those of you who are afraid of them. It’s merely an observation that of all the people to make a good impression on, it should be high schoolers, people who could be donors for life. I will be donating blood at the drive myself. I have faith in the system and the school’s ability to get qualified professionals, and all in all, giving blood is the right thing to do. That said, my fingers will be crossed when I sit down in that chair again.
Don’t pull the trigger Classroom conversation and curricula should not be censored by misguided ‘trigger warnings’ Christopher Paludi College campuses used to be utopias for discussion. However, today many classrooms of higher education are subject to the student-driven push for ‘trigger warnings,’ alerts that some students believe teachers should use to preface potentially discomforting material. They believe this will protect students and create a safer classroom environment. But while nobly intentioned, this push for trigger warnings is misguided and counterproductive. Assistant Principal Jens Brandt observes that whether or not you are exposed to potentially controversial or uncomfortable situations or content, “you’re going to deal with issues throughout your lifetime that are going to make you uncomfortable. [This exposure] is also preparation for life in general.”
He’s right. To grow up sheltered is to grow up unprepared for the world, and life isn’t going to give you trigger warnings. Classrooms are safe spaces for discussion of disquieting subject matter. But for students to truly learn, a safe space cannot be transformed into an overprotective or trepidatious one. Students should be challenged, not sheltered. “The best type of learning typically exists in an environment I call ‘productive struggle,’ where students are challenged mostly intellectually but also on a social-emotional level as well,” Brandt said. Trigger warnings that insulate the student from anything potentially uncomfortable impair that student’s ability to grow intellectually and personally. If there is a situation where a student feels uncomfortable
or unsafe as a result of a discussion or book, that student should of course be helped to feel comfortable and safe, but not at the expense of other students’ educations. According to Brandt, “the majority of students are either open-minded enough, understanding enough, empathetic enough, to be willing to discuss most issues.” While this is apparently not the case at many college campuses, with the majority of kids at RUHS, I’ve found this to be true. Largely thanks to our teachers, our classroom culture is one that facilitates reasonable discourse and even productive disagreement between students. This is not a campus that needs trigger warnings, and if this movement continues to grow, we should keep it out of our classrooms.