Final Isearch Issue

May 2015 Volume 85 Issue 4

East Leyden High School

Each school year, senior English students finish their coursework with a capstone research project: the ISearch . During the process, students name their own topics, and they range from strange curiosities to profound , personalized inquiry.

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EDITION Our journalism class is no different. After completing weeks of research and writing our papers, we’ve adapted them for the page , turning the research sections into infographics and finding people living inside the issues with stories to tell .

The Eagle’s Eye

2

Sleep Deprivation The dangerous effects of chronic sleep loss What I Knew

A

s seconds continue to pass by, my brain continues to slowly shut down. I began my homework around 11 p.m., and it’s currently 12 a.m.

I know that I cannot stop and leave it for tomorrow because I will become more paranoid than ever. I start my Psychology assignment and feel as if I’m a step closer to sleeping heaven. By the time I finish all of my subjects, it’s almost 3 a.m., and I’m more tired than I’ve ever been. When I lie in bed I, instantly fall asleep.

The one noise I hate hearing every morning is the pulsing sound of my alarm clock because I know it’s time to get up and do it all over again. As I get up from bed my eyes are more than halfway closed, and I don’t even know what I’m doing. Meanwhile, I start walking to the bathroom and hit my elbow on the side of the wall. I sleepwalk through getting dressed, taking clothes from the dirty pile thinking that they’re new. When I get to school, I look like a monster, a corpse risen from the dead. I cannot focus or concentrate for about three hours. I feel like my brain’s shut down. As noon approaches, I begin waking up and realize that I have a bruise on my elbow and that my clothes stink.

Since I often run on three or four hours of sleep, I wanted to know the effects of chronic sleep deprivation on the human brain. I had previously taken Psychology and learned about sleep and our brain structure in general. Throughout the course I learned that there are five stages of sleep. Stage 1 consists of alpha waves. Stage 2 consists of theta waves. Stage 3 and 4 both consist of delta waves. Finally, REM sleep consists of rapid brain waves, increase in heart rate and breathing becomes rapid and irregular. In addition, I learned about the different type of sleep disorders such as insomnia, narcolepsy, sleep apnea, night terrors, sleepwalking, and sleep paralysis. Lastly, I learned about the cerebral cortex and the four regions, which are frontal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe, and temporal lobe. Even though I knew a lot of information about sleep and the human brain, I wanted to dig in deeper. I wanted to know why sleep is important. How does sleep deprivation affect people from different age groups? What are different strategies for improvement in the future? But most importantly, I wanted to know the effects of chronic sleep deprivation on the human brain..

Yonka Angelova

I get up from “ As bed my eyes are

” Photo by Yonka Angelova

Facts Found

more than halfway closed and I don’t even, know what I’m doing.

Sleep deprivation can definitely drain your brain.

Individuals Inside the Issue

A

“Brain Basics: Understanding Sleep.” : National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

Brody, Jane E. “At Every Age, Feeling the Effects of Too Little Sleep.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 22 Oct. 2007. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

Brody, Jane E. “Hard Lesson in Sleep for Teenagers.” The New York Times. 21 oct. 2014: D.5 DB - ELibrary. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

Colten, Harvey R., and Bruce M. Altevogt. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation: An Unmet Public Health Problem. Washington, DC: Institute of Medicine, 2006. Print.

vram Ivanov, 19-year-old college student sits in a wooden desk during his mathematics class having no clue about what is going on. Ivanov sleeps about 4 hours every night. That’s half the amount that he should be getting. Ivanov is like many other college students who are chronically sleep deprived. One study reports that “more than a quarter of high school and college students [report that they] are chronically sleep deprived.”

As Ivanov looks around the room one girl in particular seems to be doing much better. She’s focused, able to solve all the problems at a fast pace, and only get a couple of them wrong.

Ivanov, with his limited sleep, has problems with thinking logically as well as focusing. “I have to take my time and think about every detail because if I begin to rush I won’t come up with a proper solution,” he explained. It might be the effects of long term sleep loss, which includes damage to the frontal lobe, which produces “problems with learning, focusing, and reacting” as well as “a slower reaction time, and... more mistakes.” It gets worse when the lecture starts. Ivanov’s eyes slowly begin to close, and he hears his teacher’s voice echo around him, and everything goes dark.

“I feel like my brain’s shut off,” Ivanov described. When Ivanov cannot possibly concentrate, he eventually finds himself going to class to catch up on sleep, rather than learn. By the end of the class Ivanov is still sitting in the same wooden desk, not knowing a single new concept. His brain is drained, and as all of his classmates begin to leave, Ivanov is just sitting, wishing he had an idea of what happened during class.

But the dangers of sleep loss don’t end in the classroom. Senior Agnes Belski is also chronically sleep deprived. Seated in her Honda CRV, Belski is about to take the wheel feeling like her brain is in some other universe. Once she opens the driver’s door, she puts her backpack and chromebook on the passenger seat and thinks she’s all ready to go. However, what she doesn’t know is that “The level of impairment associated with sleep-deprived driving is equivalent to driving drunk.” In other words, Belski thinks she’s just driving to school, but in reality it’s as if she’s driving to school drunk. While Belski puts on her seat belt and starts the engine, she begins to play soft, relaxing music. As she begins to drive she stops at the first red light on Grand Ave and her eyes fall shut.

She fights falling asleep, and the car behind her honks when the light turns green. Research demonstrates that, “Sleepiness makes your reaction time slower, a special problem when driving or doing work or other tasks that require a quick response. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that at least 100,000 crashes reported to police each year are due to driver fatigue.”

When Belski begins to approach the railroad tracks, she sees the flashing red lights and stops the car. While the Metra passes, she considers squeezing in a small nap. By the time the Metra passes, Belski is half asleep, and once again has to be awoken by the honking of other cars. Now that she’s back to driving, Belski fails to notice that other cars are trying to pass her because she’s driving too slowly. Belski is completely unaware of her surroundings. By the time she arrives at the East Leyden High School’s parking lot she thinks to herself, “I have no memory of what just happened because I was just so spaced out.”

Teens like Ivanov and Belski realize the immediate problems of sleep loss, and there problems may not end there. Extended sleep deficits can lead to even more dangerous conditions in the long term.

May 2015

3

Digital destruction How Social Media Works Against of Us and Others

L

What I Knew

iving In the age of social media, my peers and I are falling into the bottomless pit of thoughtlessness and inappropriate posts that will damage our possibility of a successful future. Being in a high school where every student has access to one’s own personal laptop, I have found that many students have not only switched to having more communication online, but they have also changed their language to fit the 140 or more characters available.

We are not only losing our ability to speak proper English, but we are also sinking deeper by not having the ability to show emotion. Ever since I

received a cell phone, I’ve been bothered by not being able to communicate, or feel,emotion through a message. I found the same complication when I first got a myspace. If I want to have a genuine, heartfelt conversation with someone, I feel like I need to either be with them face to face or on the phone with them.

I don’t understand how one can sense emotion when they might not know what the other person is really trying to say.

I’ve also begun to worry about those who are troubled in some way and are constantly posting online about their sadness. Do they feel as though they have no one to talk to, no one

who relates? Is it okay that they are only comforted with likes and favorites? It’s happening all the time, but instead of someone trying to contact them to try and find what the real problem is, they are blogging, tweeting, and posting things that may look unappealing to employers, peers, and others in the future.

Then there are the damaging “fun” posts--and pictures-online. Whether it’s posting a revealing picture or one of a 15-year-old holding a beer in their hand; these posts can cause problems.

These observations have made me curious. I’m a part of the generation that is the heart

and soul of online and telecommunication. It’s interesting to see what people are posting, but where will their posts take them?

During a Future Ready summit I helped with in March of 2015, my principal, Mr. Jason Markey, gave a presentation on #leydenpride, our school’s method for creating a powerful digital footprint. I didn’t think much of it at first, but as Mr. Markey was talking about blogs, tweets, and more created by students, I began to think about the digital footprint that we all are creating for ourselves. I started to think about all of the employers that may not hire some of my peers due to their lack of knowledge in posting on-

Samantha Caputo line. This is so important because this is the way that people will be able to find us, perceive us, and judge us before they even have met us for the rest of our lives.

This has really made me wonder: how much power does social media have to create or destroy us?

Facts Found

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Individuals Inside the Issue

eated on her queen-sized bed, Julie Williams felt like things were looking up. But then she looked down and scrolled through her social media feed.

She read horrible comments on her instagram pictures, facebook posts, and more. And her past--which featured bullying over her gay fathers, her mental illness, her conflict of being different than others--came racing back to ruin her perfect present. Julie, having gone through at least two cycles of cyber bullying , is well equipped to talk about the many ways our misuse of social media is destroying others and ourselves.

But why would this happen? What was the point in someone coming after her? Jealousy.

Julie had finally found a boy worth talking to. A boy that understood her, wanted to help her be positive, and saw a bright future ahead. She found this too good to be true when Jessica, the bully, came up to her in school one day and told her to stop talking to “her” boy. Julie fiercely told her online to leave her alone, but soon later found another rude awakening.

Walking down the narrow, bland halls of her high school, Julie felt a slimy, wet feeling on her. It was spit. Spit that had come from none other than Jessica. When Julie looked back at her, Jessica then stated, yeah, I spit on you. get over it. Stop making a big deal about it, and go kill yourself off.”

Then, Jessica moved the attacks online, posting that Julie was a “drama queen” and should go “kill herself.” Even though the school responded and issued Jessica a three-day suspension, the negative impact of the experience lingered for Julie.

Julie stated, “People don’t realize that even though they think they can say what they want, it may get them in trouble in the long run. Especially with social media because your post stays online forever.” Studies show that nearly 29% of teens said that they thought that bullying was more likely to happen online than offline. Also, because ‘e-thugs’ have the ability to hide behind a computer screen, they think that they are a million times stronger and have no harm coming to them behind their posts.

But not everything was negative. Julie found lots of comments and posts to her telling her that they love her, care for her, and hope that everything is going okay. She also found random people coming up to her looking to give support. “I think it (the support) helps depending on the person. If I talk to them, then yes it helps if they know me. If they are random, then no, it doesn’t help. It’s nice to know that they want to help, but I don’t want to have to tell everyone everything that is going on with my life,” said Julie. There was one time where there was a girl in Julie’s class who came up to her. Even though they didn’t talk, Julie liked the support from her because she spent a lot of time listening to her. “It seemed like she really cared,” Julie said, “It was nice to know that she was worried about me.”

Jessica high school actions might have some real future consequences. Future friends and potential employers who have the ability to see what she has posted online may see her bullying past. They’ll certainly be looking. 93% of recruiters review someone’s social media profiles before hiring, and 55% of recruiters have reconsidered a candidate based on their social profile, with 61% of them being negative.

(Names have been changed for confidentiality purposes.)

4

The Eagle’s Eye

two of a

kind

What do twin studies contribute to the nurture vs. nature debate?

What I Knew

W

oah, didn’t I just see you a few periods ago?,”: the most common, unavoidable question I have heard almost every single teacher ask me the first day of each new school year. I could not believe that after almost 18 years of altering our appearances to look different from each other, people still thought my fraternal twin sister and I looked exactly identical.

Answering that question various times really provoked me to really think and ask myself some more in depth questions. How exactly were my sister and I different from each other? And besides the obvious differences in physical traits such as hair color and skin tone, how was someone who grew up in the same exact environment as me and someone who shared genes almost completely identical to mine grow up to be almost the exact opposite of me?

I already knew that fraternal twins form from two separate eggs, unlike identical twins that form from one, and that the two separate eggs will have more than half of their genetic makeup in common. I also briefly learned about how twin studies could have a role in answering the question of whether genetics or the environment are responsible for a person’s development such as how they makes choices, develop traits, and characteristics (also called the nurture versus nature debate) in my psychology class. That was all the information that I really knew.

I needed to know more about what exactly a twin study consists of, but I also needed to find any statistical data and evidence that had been discovered due to the use of twin studies. What type of twins are typically used for twin studies- identical, fraternal? Or both? Do the results from twin studies lean more towards environment or genes? Is there enough reliable and valid data around that has caused psychologists or biologists to form a conclusion, or even a theory due to twin studies to answer nurture or nature? What are the two sides and supporting arguments of the nurture versus nature debate?

After asking myself these questions, I formed my central question for my research: What have twin studies contributed to the nurture vs. nature debate?

Joanna Leski

“How

exactly are my twin sister and I different from each other?

”

Facts Found

Art department chairperson Lynette Rosen has seen the nature vs. nurture debate up close with her sons, fraternal twins Kyle and Sam.

I

Individuals Inside the Issue

t is a typical morning at the Tazic household. Little Caitlyn wakes up the family members, fussing. While being independent is something both the Tazic twins like, sister Adelenne is more independent than Caitlyn. Though they have similar looks, the girls’ father, social studies teacher Mr. Michael Tazic reports that his two daughters behave in completely opposites ways. Adelenne is quiet and determined; as soon as she begins a task she needs to get it done. While Adelenne is quietly completing her tasks, Caitlyn is most likely attending to hers somewhere else, loudly. Both seek the support of their parents, but Caitlyn enjoys the support a lot more than Adelenne.

“I wouldn’t say we treat them exactly the same, but we treat them similar.

It’s two different personalities, they both have different capacities but the environment that they are growing up in isn’t drastically different.”

For a long time, Kyle Rosen followed in the shadows of his fraternal twin brother, Sam. “They both used to be shy, they’d just follow each other around. And then it was like in one day Kyle just woke up and decided he wanted to go socialize with the other kids, while his brother wanted to be on his own.” Mother Lynette Rosen stated.

“It’s almost like they were born from separate wombs!” Rosen jokes about her fraternal twins. Kyle Rosen has blond hair, tan skin, and an average build while Sam Rosen has brown hair, pale skin, and has a significantly smaller build than Kyle. Kyle loves to joke around, needs to have his mind stimulated all the time, and is overall a social butterfly meanwhile Sam would rather keep himself busy, working on little projects of his own. Rosen reports that both the boys receive the same treatment at home and their environment at home is almost exactly the same. Attending a public school, the boys are separated for the school day, where they are exposed to completely different environments and social interactions from one another.

The boys used to share more similarities concerning attitude and personality before they started attending school, but after being exposed to different environments, those two traits started to change. For their mother, it is a constant challenge to keep the comparisons others make from hurting her children.

“One day, Sam came home really upset after spending a day at the park.

Some older girls were commenting that Kyle was the cute one, while Sam was the weird one. They are very different from each other, but what they need to understand is their differences aren’t a negative thing,” Rosen reflects.

Both the Tazic twins and Rosen twins only share about 50% of the same DNA as their sibling, contributing to their significant differences in both personality and attitude. In the future, their parents will be able to study, up close, which has greater power: these genetic similarities or their environmental differences.

May 2015

5

reintegration THE PROCESS OF COMING HOME What I Knew

I

n 2013, my brother-in-law’s sister, Lina Aguilar, returned home from the military. She returned to her two kids, Javi and Alenna, and her husband, Luis. I got the chance to talk with Lina a couple weeks after she returned home. We had a long conversation about how she felt and what she went through. It seemed like she was a little nervous talking about it, so I told her it would be okay if we didn’t, but she insisted that we should. She said that it was a way that she could let out all of her thoughts and feelings.

I also recently watched a movie called American Sniper. It is about a Navy SEAL named Chris Kyle. When he was a teenager he decided that he wanted to be something special. His mission is to protect his fellow SEALs, but his skill with a rifle is so good that he eventually breaks the record for the most confirmed kills in military history. Chris goes on to become a legend in Iraq and keeps signing up for more tours of duty. When Chris finally decides to come home for good, he finds he can’t get the war out of his head--until he discovers that helping other veterans and victims of PTSD brings him peace. This movie was really good. It made me think about everything that service members and their family have to go through. It tells a great story about someone who is in the Navy and wants to change for their family but just can’t get the war past their head.

All of this motivated me to write my ISearch. I thought it would be interesting to write about not only the service member’s return, but also how it affects the family. It wanted to look into the physical, psychological, and social challenges veterans all face and how to help.

Also, I wondered if those involved with military families understand the reintegration process and its effect on the service member and their family because when they return home it can have a huge impact in the life of the family.

Facts Found

Jasmin Villalpando

“ He finds he

can’t get the war out of his head. ”

Individuals Inside the Issue

T

he day that Lina Aguilar returned home, she expected to be the happiest she had ever been. As for her family, they were excited to be getting her back. She returned to her two kids, Javi and Alenna, and her husband, Luis.

“Coming home was exciting and nerve wrecking at the same time. I was so happy to be coming back home to see my family and friends again,” Aguilar said. “But I was also really nervous because I didn’t want anyone to treat me different like they did before.” Coming home from the Air Force, or any branch of the armed services, creates this type of tension. “It took a couple of weeks to get rid of that nervousness and anxiousness,” Aguilar said.

In addition to anxious feelings, some service members report frustration upon their return because of how different their roles are when deployed and when they are home. Aguilar stated, “I did feel like it was two completely different people at certain times. When I was deployed it was a time for me to be serious, and everyone was Returning to the life they once knew can be a struggle strict. When I am home I am able to just be for veterans. myself, who is not strict at all.” For many, the psychological effects of this can be difficult to overcome, but Aguilar reported only minor stress. She wasn’t accustomed to being home. It was hard for her to come home and deal with a complete change in lifestyles.

One of the stressors at home is due to a lost role in the household. “In the absence of the soldier, many spouses learn how to run a household alone and do the work of both people,” claims one researcher.

She said, “I know that it was difficult for him to take on the role of two parents. ”

Luis added, “The biggest challenge was definitely taking care the kids. With both of them being so young, I think that it made it easier to explain it to them, but they did ask a lot of questions in the beginning.”

Returning veterans also sometimes experience difficulty reconnecting with their spouses. Aguilar and Luis, her husband, didn’t see any major changes in their relationship. She explained, “But at first our relationship was a little quiet, not awkward, it’s just that we didn’t talk as much as we should have.”

Research suggests that an important part of reintegration is that the couple take time to talk to each other about the experiences that they both went through during the separation. Aguilar said, “It was something that we felt we needed to do, to get rid of the quietness. It was difficult to talk about what I saw and went through, but he listened to me and reassured me that everything will be fine.” she added, “He also told me what he did while I was gone, because I know he had a hard time taking on the role of two parents. He got stressed out sometimes.”

Another difficult thing to go through during reintegration is reconnecting with the children. One report claimed, “Young children view the deployed parent as a stranger. The Aguilars have two children.

During the time of their mother’s reintegration, Javi was four and Alenna was five months. Aguilar said, “My son, who is six now, acted shy around me. He didn’t really want to talk to me as much as he did before.

But after a while he realized that I’m home for good, and that I wouldn’t be leaving home anymore, so our relationship grew. With my daughter, who was only 5 months at the time, she just didn’t recognize me at all, and she would cry when I would carry her sometimes. It broke my heart to think that my own daughter thought of me as a stranger. But the more time I spent with her, the more we grew closer. So I decided to spend most of my time with my kids.”

Because of all these potential concerns, the military attempts to send service members home prepared. Aguilar explained, “Before the reintegration process begins, they have us read pamphlets and papers with information about the whole thing. We were also able to talk to people who went through the same things as us.”

The last step is important as research shows “service members want to be with others like them.

They want someone who understands them and knows what they have been through.” This is important for service members to know, because sometime they feel like they are never going to get better, so they want to give up. With this, they are able to find a way to talk about what they went through with someone who went through a similar experience.

Reintegration is a difficult process to go through. It takes patience, not just from the service member, but from their family and for those who support them.

6

The Eagle’s Eye

Generation stress

What difficulties maturing do members of Generation Z face that Generation X and Y did not?

What I Knew

“B

ack in my day, if I didn’t eat what Mom cooked, I didn’t eat!” or “Back in my day, the best summer job you could find paid 9 cents an hour!” We have all witnessed parents and grandparents saying something along these lines in order to get their children or grandchildren to be grateful for getting to grow up in these modern times. However, never will we hear parents or grandparents say “Back in my day, social media ruined my relationships!” or “Back in my day, I was diagnosed with depression when I was just 15 years-old.”

Although it is convenient that there is always a McDonald’s within close proximity if we don’t like what Mom made for dinner, or that our summer jobs actually provide us with a decent income, growing up in modern times exposes members of this generation to tons of new difficulties and challenges that parents and grandparents never even had to worry about, let alone go through.

I already knew that most of our grandparents’ generation, our parents’ generation, and our generation are classified into three different groups: Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z. I knew that these labels existed and that I belong in Generation Z, but I didn’t know any specifics on these different generation labels.

I wanted to know what criteria one has to meet to be classified as either Generation X, Z, or Y, or the specific attributes of growing up in each generation. I was especially in the dark about the details of growing up in Generations X and Y and how their experiences growing up affected their maturation process.

Based on a list I made of various categories, such as generational differences in technology, education, the workplace, etc. I was able to pinpoint what exactly I wanted to get out of researching the differences in growing up in the three generations and form my research question: What are some of the new difficulties in maturation for Generation Z that Generation X and Y did not have to face? After completing all the steps of the research process, I was able to find answers.

Facts Found

S

Martha Leski

Members of “Generation Z who

decide school isn’t for them will be lucky if they are flipping burgers at McDonald’s.

”

Individuals Inside the Issue

chool. Work. Technology. Mention any of these to someone in their teens, their 30s, and their 60s. Will they think of any of these in the same way? Definitely not. People categorized under these age groups grew up in three very distinct generations: Generation X, Generation Y, and Generation Z.

Business Education teacher Sally Lakdawala is a member of Generation Y. While it may be hard to believe, when she attended high school only 15 years ago, there was “no cell phones and no digital drama.” Sending a text message or scrolling through Twitter while a teacher was teaching class was unimaginable. The closest thing to a text message you could receive was a handwritten note scribbled to you by a classmate, and the closest thing to a chromebook was a computer lab which consisted of six computers.

Everything was either on pencil, paper, or a chalkboard.

Although there is a wide technological gap between Generation Y and Generation Z, some factors still remain the same.

“Graduating high school and going to college was absolutely expected of me, as well as of my peers.

It was rare if someone didn’t graduate, and not graduating was looked down upon. Everyone either joined the army, went to community college, or straight to a 4 year university.” shared Mrs. Lakdawala.

Today, a typical teen spends their weeknights and weekends making minimum wage at their part time job. In Mrs. Lakdawala’s case, she, and “most of [her] peers had part time jobs. A lot of my friends worked in retail, or at Walmart, and I worked at Sears. Some people worked at grocery stores and restaurants.” However, “it wasn’t because they needed to work, it was because they wanted to work.”

The money earned from their part time jobs typically was spent on clothes and other material items.

“When I wanted things, my parents wouldn’t give in and just buy them. A lot of my friends were in the same situation,” recalled Mrs. Lakdawala.

Asking a modern day teen what they are stressed about would most likely elicit the response “school.” During Mrs. Lakdawala’s

teenage years, she also worried about her grades and getting into college.

While Mrs. Lakdawala’s experiences with school, work, and technology are similar to a Generation Z teenager’s experiences, it is safe to say that things get more different the further back one looks.

Science teacher Mr. Kim Gerber’s experiences with these things while growing up as a member of Generation X are barely comparable. When asked to find the closest similarity between present day high school and high school while he was a student, Gerber listed: “Sports, girls, boys, dating.” Even the difference in structure and size is drastic.

“Schools had a limited number of classrooms. We used a slide rule to do math and a typewriter to type English papers,” recalled Gerber.

As for graduation expectations, those remain the same for all generations. However, “about half of [his classmates] went to college, and half of them didn’t.” The academic pressure put on high school students was tremendously lower in Generation X in comparison to Generation Y and Generation Z. The moderate amount of high school graduates who did not further their education typically went straight to the workforce or joined the army.

Because of the lower academic pressure, Mr. Gerber claimed to not “worry about college or finding a job out of college. A lot of people got married right out of high school or in college, so I worried about getting married before 30.”

Work wasn’t an option, and the money earned wasn’t spent on new shoes or fashionable clothes.

“Almost everyone worked when they were in high school,” shared Gerber. The money earned by teenage, part-time employees went towards helping their family, purchasing a car, or paying for college.

Changes to the school environment, workplace, and technology are seen from generation to generation. The technological gap grows wider and across generations. While younger generations must recognize these changes and embrace them, older generations must adapt to them and, hopefully, understand what we’re going through.

May 2015

7

The Return Injuries happen every day, but more goes into returning than just therapy What I Knew

D

uring the Fall of 2007, I was a happy go-lucky fifth grader without a care in the world. I had just finished up a successful baseball season and was in the middle of my fourth year of football. This was before all the concussion research, before all the former NFL player’s deaths, and before my mom would say I couldn’t play. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty chubby at this stage, so I was primarily a defensive end and offensive lineman. However, I did play fullback when they needed someone to plow through the line of scrimmage for a first down.

Flash forward to the last regular game of the season. I had been playing very well and hoped to continue my play into the playoffs. It was about half way through the first half, and I was playing fullback. The play was simple: take the ball past the right tackle and get the first down.

I remember the nerves and excitement, finally getting the chance to advance the ball on offense. It all happened in what seemed like an instant: The ball was hiked, I got it from my quarterback, and burst through the hole the offensive line had created. I sprinted down the sideline, going as fast as my legs could take me. To the 40 to the 50, I wasn’t about to stop until I got my first touchdown. To the 40 to the 30, the safety was approaching quickly. To the 20, he was right on top of me. To the 10, and then, impact. All I remember is hitting the ground and then feeling the most excruciating pain I had felt in my life.

I had broken my leg on that hit, which was an illegal one too: I was horse-collared. All I can remember is lying on the ground and feeling an intense, throbbing pain in my right leg. The aftermath of that hit was devastating for me. I was out of any physical activity for eight weeks ,and I missed the entire playoffs. All I could think about was getting back onto the gridiron and preparing for next season.

As it would turn out, that was my last play I ever made in organized football. I was entering junior high the next year, and I wanted to explore all the clubs and opportunities it offered me (a choice that I am grateful I made). I never had to deal with the nerves of returning to playing the sport I loved, but many others do every day. My experience with injuries led me to become interested in the mentality athletes, professional and amateur, have when returning to a sport after an injury. I know I was nervous just returning to physical activity. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for someone like Derrick Rose to keep coming back after getting injured. I was originally interested in not only the mentality of athletes when returning from injury, but the support they receive, if any, from coaches, teammates, and owners. I aimed to know what psychological factors an athlete must overcome when returning from injury and how much support teams offer in this area. I hoped to not only learn more about this and how traumatic injury affects athletes’ mental health and how they can overcome it when returning to play.

I

Individuals Inside the Issue

t was just another soccer tournament for Cristian Silva.

Just another day of fun with his team and hopefully, another tournament win. They had made it to the final game. Silva subbed into the game and was bound and determined to put his team on the scoreboard. The ball came right at him, the perfect ball for a header. With a defender on him, he jumped. But when the ball came, it did not bounce off his head as it usually did. Instead, he had slammed heads with the defender.

Silva, a lifelong soccer player, had lived what every athlete tried to avoid, getting injured. Silva had suffered a concussion on the play, which caused him to experience severe headaches and memory loss long after the initial time of being injured.

After Silva fell to the ground, he didn’t feel like anything was wrong. Continuing to play, Silva actually helped create a play for a goal after the blow to the head.

He now jokes, “I actually played better after the concussion than before.”

When all was said and done, Silva’s team won the tournament. He celebrated with his team though he seemed a little off. “I felt a little cloudy after [the game], but nothing seemed wrong.” Silva said of the post-game speech from his coach, “He was speaking of many different things. I would listen to them, but they weren’t registering. I was having a really hard time understanding what was going on around me.” At this moment, Silva knew something was up.

Silva can’t recall many of the events that happened that day, but he can piece together what happened.

What happened to Silva is a common occurrence in organized sports. Every day, players get injured and have to work through rehab, and themselves, to get back on the playing field. What I mean by themselves is that players must overcome their own anxiety about being injured and about returning to play afterward.

Many athletes try to deal with injuries on their own and refuse treatment. While attitudes of doctors have changed, some athletes may be more likely to keep their feelings on injuries private when they should say something about them. “Athletes sometimes worry that admitting to [injuries, mental illness, etc.] will make them feel less confident in their athletic abilities,” said the American Psychiatric Association.

Silva, however, chose to do the right thing: tell his parents how he was feeling. “I got to the car and told my mom something was wrong. We drove to the hospital after [the tournament], and I was diagnosed with a concussion.”

In the days after the concussion, Silva began experiencing memory loss. “I thought to myself, ‘How is it possible to remember something and then you’re not just able to recall it all of a sudden because of an injury?’” The memory loss left a mental toll on Silva. He became very frustrated that he couldn’t remember the simplest things, such as what he had for breakfast the previous day. Stress is a regular occurrence during the recovery from an injury.

When athletes can’t remember things like Silva, or aren’t

Alexander Mennella

“All

I remember is hitting the ground and then feeling the most excruciating pain I had felt in my life.

”

Facts Found

explosive as they were before, they can become frustrated easily.

After two months of rehab, Silva finally was ready to make his return to the game he loved. He had practiced a week before his return, and everything seemed to go according to plan. Silva had the pleasure of having a very supportive coach throughout his rehab. “My coaches were very understanding. They told me that whenever I was ready to come back, they would look forward to it.”

Silva’s coaches listened to what his doctor said when determining when he was ready to return to play.

Much like Silva’s coaches, Leyden varsity baseball head coach Mr. Robert Hamann understand the importance of a coach when an athlete is out. Hamann makes sure he knows exactly what a doctor says and looks at “a doctor’s note or looks at it with the trainer.” A former minor league baseball player himself, Hamann knows the importance of being on the same page as his players. This allows for a good relationship with his players, and, more importantly, a safe return.

In Silva’s first game back, he couldn’t hold back his excitement. While studies show the majority of play-

ers returning to action from an injury are hesitant to return, Silva was the complete opposite. “I remember being extremely excited to play again.” His coach subbed him in the middle of the game, but after a few minutes, Silva asked to be taken out. “I don’t know what happened. I was very hesitant. It seemed like reality hit.” The only way Silva can describe it is that he was afraid to get hit.

After spending some time on the sidelines, Silva gathered his thoughts and told his coach he was ready to re-enter the game. After he went in, things finally clicked for Silva. Silva said he played not as well as he usually did, but he was pleased with his performance.

After this game, Silva said that his play improved.

“Thereafter, it seemed like I was fine.”

Silva experienced the ups and downs of recovering from an injury, and like most players, he made a full recovery. By working through the mental sides of an injury along with physical therapy, Silva made “the return” a reality.

The Eagle’s Eye

8

May 2015

Endgame for Marine Parks How much impact is anti-captivity media having on SeaWorld?

A “

This is the life of an orca. From the moment the young whales are taken from their families, the torturous life begins.

”

boy walks hand in hand with his mother and father, completely at ease on their afternoon outing. The boy senses his mother and father become tense, and they begin to move and communicate frantically to one another. The parents urge the young one to follow them. But people are following them, clearly trying to drive them apart. After traveling a safe distance from the place they call home, the family comes up with a strategy: the mother will move in a direction with their son while the father goes in a different direction in hopes of distracting the captors. It works, but not for long, eventually the mother and son are spotted and captured. What the males wanted was the boy; he is younger and has more work potential than his parents. However, in the capture, the mother is accidentally killed, and the attackers cut apart and hide her body. The young boy watches the whole thing, and he never sees his father again.

This is the life of an orca. From the moment the young whales are taken from their families, the torturous life begins. They are taken to a place to live that is much too small for them. There they meet other “killer” whales of different colors, shapes, and sizes. However, not all of the whales get along, and it gets to the point where the whales violently fight. Due to the small space they live in, a whale cannot swim away from a fight. Arguments can end in the death of one of the whales since the least fortunate whale has nowhere to escape. From the moment the young, family-deprived whale is brought to this small enclosure, they are forced to perform activities to entertain watching human families, who smile and hold hands in the seats.

The whales are only fed when they perform their activities successfully, and it may be the only time they get to eat that day, the same food they ate yesterday and the day before. Some whales are physically ill, due to the malnutrition of the small environment they live in. The captivity has led some of the whales to what is assumed by experts to be a psychosis. These whales usually stay in the same spot for hours, or swim in circles. At times, these whales lash out at the people commanding them to do tasks causing injuries and sometimes even deaths. Many of the whales die young in this enclosure.

I knew that these animals are not meant for captivity. I came to this knowledge through watching documentaries like “Blackfish.” So I knew the conditions in which the orcas are kept is not healthy. What I wanted to know is whether or not the media criticizing their captivity was starting to work? Were “Blackfish” and other efforts to criticize SeaWorld starting to work?

I was happy to find that the release of anti-captivity documentaries has affected marine parks negatively in many ways. Since the release of Blackfish, SeaWorld’s stock has plummeted 45% in the past year. Their attendance and their revenue continues to decline. According to an earnings report from SeaWorld Entertainment, 22.4 million visited the park last year, compared with a 23.4 in 2013. The revenue for the fourth quarter of 2014 was a reported $264.5 million, compared to the $272 million earned in 2013 showing a significant loss in revenue. The company then attempted to cut $50 million by the end of the year, and laid off 300 SeaWorld employees. The CEO of SeaWorld stepped down as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fa6inwzLlA

Connie Barron

What I Knew

Facts Found

In an effort to regain customers, SeaWorld has tried to make more commercials to recapture its lost audience. Mr. Alex Jomarron, pictured below on a kayak trip to see orca in their natural habitat, isn’t buying it.

Individuals Inside the Issue

This is it: a perfect setting, a perfect moment. Social studies teacher Mr. Alex Jomarron rests his paddle in front of him and to takes it in. He is at Orca’s Island by Vancouver.

In Mr. Jomarron’s memory, the place and the animals there are majestic, and watching such animals perform tricks at parks, he says, doesn’t come close. It’s a moment that confirmed Mr. Jomarron’s anti-captivity stance, a position he’s held for as long as he can remember.

“There was a show called Wild Kingdom. You would always see the animals in the wild, and I think...I can’t pinpoint it, but I remember seeing animals in a zoo and wondering ‘How do they feel about their lives?’”

He was even conflicted when it came to taking his son to the zoo, only taking him once. He understands the purpose of confinement for breeding for re-population but does not see the research aspect as a valid reason because so much research has been done, hardly any captivity is necessary anymore. Mr. Jomarron is a strong believer that if you want to see animals, you should go see the animals...in their natural habitats.

“Blackfish reaffirmed what I was thinking, that my thoughts weren’t so left field,” he commented about the documentary and added that SeaWorld is a “commercial enterprise” that is only looking to make money. Mr. Jomarron says he is “excited” because SeaWorld is “getting killed” since the release of Blackfish. “I don’t know if this Blackfish phenomenon has peaked, or will there still be more growth? I know that people are protesting outside of SeaWorld as well, but there are a lot of Americans who are oblivious to this. Those people are potential customers of SeaWorld. I can only hope that is continues. If they don’t make enough money, they’re not getting any more animals. Eventually the population will be enlightened by education,” he hoped.

As for the effects media can have on a movement generally, Mr. Jomarron thinks it’s all about distribution. He believes we will be seeing a lot of media activism for a lot of different causes. Distribution and how people get their hands on something helps form an opinion.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to forget that,” said Ariana Flores, who used to love visiting zoos and marine parks. But since a friend showed her Blackfish and The Cove, her beliefs changed. “I think since the films were so graphic, it’s the reason they are so embedded in my brain.” Flores says the films evoked emotion in her, she felt bad for the whales she saw on the screen of her television, and she saw a deeper meaning, and a back story, to what really happens to animals in captivity. Flores said that an emotion grabbing scene from Blackfish that helped change her opinion was the back story. She refers to the capture scenes of Tilikum, when he was only two-years-old and taken from his mother and family.

“I feel sad and mad at the same time,” she said. “You can’t unsee that.”