Issue 3: Through the Looking Glass

2

’

What’s G

d?

3

H

NORT

IHSSA

The past few weeks a group of students went to Ankeny Centennial High School to compete in the district Large Group Speech Contest. Many groups got superior ratings and went to Valley High School the following week where they would continue to compete. Eighty percent of the groups got superior ratings that day. The groups that performed are below.

(Ensemble Acting) Jerry Finnegan’s Sister: Isabel Camacho and Caleb Slater (Ensemble Acting) The Damsel Game: Kalen Truong, Natalie Jackson, Madelyn Rehor, Aline Marino-Moreno and Emily Dobberke (Musical Theater) Little Shop of Horrors: Caleb Slater, Aline Marino-Moreno and TJ Morrison (Group Improvization): Brady Sebern, Karrieem Muhammad and Justin Wygle (Group Improvization): Natalie Jackson, Madelyn Rehor, Morgan Perdue and Sara Perdue Photo Credit: Amy Rost

Design: L. Christensen/ D. Oxenreider

This Just In...

11. New Year’s Resolution

12. Valentine’s Day

13) Video Games

ON THE

CHOPPING

BLOCK

Inside Des Moines Public Schools’ newest schedule change

8

The Mysterious Disappearances Of The Illusive Spanish Teachers

MISSING If found, please contact North High School.

Reward($), publicity, and/or North High merchandise handed out (fake or other wise).

News

9

Tasha Brown, Reporter Today, we solve the phenomenon here at North High that has baffled experts for years.

Those whom have been here at North, have heard of the mysterious disappearances of past Spanish teachers. Some would call it the “Defense Against the Dark Arts” of North High, the cursed teaching position.

Throughout the years, North has taken in and spit out multiple Spanish teachers. Many students wonder why there seems to be so many people that leave the position.

The reason the position at our school seems to fluctuate between teachers is that the work load is such a considerable amount compared to other elective options.

It’s difficult for teachers to handle so many students. With so many students coming in every year at a constant rate, it can be hard for teachers to keep up when they barely have any time to plan out what is supposed to be learned in class.

Jessica Temple, a North school improvement leader who used to teach Spanish at Goodrell Middle School and East High School, spoke of her years teaching the course. “We had a lot of kids […] I had over 200 every year,” Temple said. “The hardest part was a lot of kids and not a lot of class time.”

The reason why there are so many students taking the course is because Spanish is one of the most sought out courses in our school.

Students have been under the impression that it is a requirement to take two years of a foreign language or more. While it is not mandatory to take a foreign language, many do either way, some for college and other reasons as well. To get into any of the regent universities — Iowa State, Iowa and University of Northern Iowa — students must take two years of a

foreign language.

Spanish is the only foreign language offered at North High. While students can go to Central Campus to take multiple other languages such as French, German and Japanese, most students pick Spanish as the language they decide to learn.

One reason many people decide to take Spanish as their desired language is because of how popular the language is here in the northside community. For those who grew up with the language, the class is an easy A; for others it’s a way to learn a language that they can use in their community with others around them.

Here on the northside, Spanish is either a first or second language for many families.

“We aren’t allowed to speak English at home so we can remember the language,” said Cassandra Contreras-Franco, a sophomore whose parents were raised in Mexico. In their home, they only speak Spanish to preserve the language, so the younger generations of the family don’t forget where they come from. Many other households are the same as Contreras-Franco’s in multiple areas of our country.

This may be why Spanish teachers seem to leave after only a year of teaching. Due to having so many opportunities to teach at other schools, there are many positions for teachers to fill, and plenty of teachers to fill them.

In our country, there are many communities just like our own that speak Spanish.

Those who can teach it can go to practically anywhere in the country to teach the language.

The opportunities are endless for those who teach.

So, there you go, gentlefolk. The age-old phenomenon of the mysterious disappearances has been solved.

Design: T. Brown

10

Disclaimer: This article was written when the government was under shutdown. The shutdown ended on January 25. As this issue goes to print, another potential shutdown is looming.

The United States is no stranger to government shutdowns. When it comes to the national budget, Congress has been unable to pass spending bills on multiple accounts including in 2013 when President Barack Obama tried to include the healthcare bill: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. However, no shutdown has ever had as much of an impact or consequences as the longest one in the country’s history in 1995, which lasted an astounding twenty-one days.

That is until now.

December 22 marked the beginning of a seemingly endless government shutdown after a Trump imposed 5.7-billion-dollar budget for the Mexico border wall.

It all began with a spending bill, also known as an appropriations bill, had to be passed by Congress and signed by Trump.

As we know, this did not happen because the House of Senate put in the bill a 5.6-billion-dollar fund for Trump’s Mexico border wall which was a core promise of his presidential campaign.

What does a government shutdown entail?

A government shutdown is when major agencies of the government such as Homeland Security, Department of Agriculture, Commerce and Transportation and others deemed non-essential are halted.

This means that over 800,000 government workers either furloughed or working without pay, news source CNBC reports, the country is becoming more restless.

Americans are worrying if they’ll get their tax refunds and Congress is getting antsy as we near the 35 day mark, making it the longest shutdown in U.S. history.

This means that government workers will miss multiple paychecks when the shutdown passes the previous record of 21 days in 1995. Proving to be a problem as on Jan. 4th hundreds of Transportation Security Administration workers at multiple airports call in sick rather than work without pay, New York Times tells.

As Congress grew more

News

antsy at the number of problems piling up speeches were made by both Republicans and Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, who have been scrambling to end the shutdown as its cost climbed to a staggering 11billion-dollars.

Then, on January 19 current president Donald Trump proposed a deal that would allow people protected under DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) to stay in the country for an extended amount of time.

However, this deal did not end the shutdown and government workers missed their third check.

Time continued to pass by, the country began to move on to other news storieswhen on January 25 Trump signed a bill that would allow for a three-week opening of the government.

By giving a February 15 deadline, he insured that if Rep ublicans and Democrats cannot reach an agreement over the money for the wall, he will reengage in the standoff threatening to declare a national emergency and bypass Congress altogether.

However this shutdown unfolds and the battle between Democrats and Republicans continue, the struggle for Americans is far from over and the consequences are soon to follow.

So You Want To Build A Wall Brianna Cobb, Photo Editor White House lays groundwork to declare national emergency after Trump’s shutdown marks longest in U.S. history

Design: B Cobb

Inside the Mind of a

United States Marine

Laura Christenesen, Editor-In-Chief

16

Yes or

No?

Adrianna Campos, Photo Editor Below is a personal story that a student at North High School has experienced firsthand. They have decided to be disclosed as anonymous for privacy reasons. Here is their story.

“I guess I was around four years old, that’s as far as I can remember it, and my grandfather would molest me/sexually abuse me. It stopped when I was around seven or eight because he moved into a retirement home, it’s hard to remember.

But I thought it was a game, like any child would, but it obviously wasn’t. My mind pushed it away for such a long time that I don’t really remember all of it, but I know it happened and I can remember feeling it happen.

I didn’t even realize it happened until he passed away when I was 12. At his funeral I got all these flashbacks and I was so scared and just confused and all I did was cry and everyone thought I was sad about him dying, but I wasn’t.

I waited about a year to tell my mom and she didn’t believe me.

She said, “He never did it to hurt you, you were just his favorite.”

I told my mom’s sister, my aunt, who also didn’t believe me and said I was lying because her dad wouldn’t do that. And that made me feel like shit and that it was okay and that he didn’t. But I

Features

knew it wasn’t okay, but no one in my family believed me, so I just never told my dad or anybody else.

I still feel like a liar and that it was my fault when I’m thinking about it and that I shouldn’t talk about it, so I don’t really talk about it.

In 8th grade, I finally wrote about it; it was a really bad poem that was just super bad, and I let this one girl, who I was friends with at the time, read it since she had similar experiences in her life.”

When asked if telling someone for the first time was hard, they said, “Yes, because no one in my family believed me and said I was lying or doing it for attention, so every time I’d think about telling someone I just thought I was lying and that I just wanted attention. They believed me and gave me so much support, it felt great, and then that helped me write a new poem about it.”

17

Does Not Mean “Convince Me.”

What exactly is consent?

Among the younger generation today, and sexual activity whenever they please. even with the older generations, consent is Consent is about communication between something that can be a little confusing in someone and their partner. Although somesome situations. Consent has been known one may give consent for one encounter of as when someone verbally agrees to follow sexual activity, it does not mean they are givthrough with intimate actions. ing consent for the activities to recur.

Legally, consent is when someone agrees, According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest Nagives permission, or says “yes” to sexual tional Network’s website, “For example, agreeactivity with other persons, according to ing to kiss someone doesn’t give that person University of Michigan’s Sexual Assault and permission to remove your clothes. Having Awareness Center’s website. sex with someone in the past doesn’t give that Whenever someone is in a sexual situa- person permission to have sex with you again tion, they should always feel comfortable in the future.” and that they have the freedom to stop the

Design: A. Campos

New Year’s Resolution Tyler Sochit, Reporter

Amanda George, Reporter

Delicia Oxenreider, Copy Editor

22

Alizia Guzman, Events Director There are a lot of misconceptions about culture. Many people like to categorize different cultures into one box because many don’t understand or want to understand that many things are different.

Take the Latinx community for example.

People categorize Latinx people under one category as being Mexican, but there are many more that fall into that category. There are: Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran, Brazilian, Puerto Rican, Venezuelan, Spanish, and more.

There are so many things that make them different. Some examples of Mexican American’s getting stereotyped according to cultural misconceptions blog is that Mexicans, are lazy and/or involved in some sort of gang activity, as some being illegal. They also have different, food, religions and holiday customs.

Latinx often do the jobs nobody else wants to do and are poorly paid. They either work to provide for their family or to send money back to their families in their home country.

They also flee from their home country and all they have ever known to have a better life and escape poverty or gang violence. There are so many things that many cease to understand or

Opinions

try to consider.

But many seem to categorize them under one category. There are many others that also get categorized, such as African Americans, Chinese, Vietnamese, lao, Thai, Japanese, Indian, German, Arabic, Islamic, etc. Although people like to think that they are all the same, they are extremely unique.

Another example keeping all Asian people under one category is all being Chinese, but they are: Vietnamese, lao, Thai, Japanese. There are many things that keep them separate, such as Japan starting anime and manga, but they are not crazy about it. At first they created for the audience of children, just like comics are in the western countries, but as their audience got older, they directed it the content towards more mature themes for older audiences. Another example with the Chinese is Chinese New Year, which is a holiday custom that they like to celebrate every year.

Not being able to understand one’s culture often leads to stereotypes. Sometimes people don’t really realize that they do it.

23

Design: A. Guzman

painKILLER

24

Cassandra Contreras, Reporter

Opinions

Design: C. Upton

26

On November 20 against Valley High School, Aime Mukiza, sophomore, took down his opponent with 19-4. Photo Credit: Itzayana Melo-Garcia

AL WI OT

T

25

S

AL LOS T O

8

S SE

Sports

fore him so he can get some moves from them.

His most memorable moment was when he was wrestling for second place at the district match.

“I wrestled so hard and it was one of the toughest matches because I won by one point,” he said.

He rode the guy out for 30 seconds, which on the mat felt like a long time. He soon went to state but didn’t do so well.

“I was injured at state, first match, high sprain to my ankle,” he said.

This was his first time at state, and he was not prepared for it.

Though he didn’t do well at state last year, he is improving this year.

Mukiza hopes to keep getting better and moving forward on his journey through wrestling.

N

At North High School, the wrestling team has one star who is really shining, sophomore Aime Mukiza. Mukiza is 16 years old, and started to wrestle freshman year and by the end of the wrestling season he went on to state.

Mukiza’s motivation for starting wrestling was because he was a small kid at school.

“Being the smaller kid at school.

Getting looked over and wrestling shed a light on me a bit and showed to people I’m more than just a brain,” he said.

Being involved in the activity, he can show people who he really is. Many wrestlers have people they look up to and who have inspired them, just like them Mukiza looked up to Jordan Burroughs.

“He was the first African American professional wrestler I heard about,” Mukiza said.

Wrestling is a tough sport, which means you must manage to keep your weight the same or as for some people they must lose weight in order to wrestle. Mukiza managed to stay the same weight by staying active.

During his off season, he goes to Grand View University and wrestles; he also practices in the summer. His coach told him about some of the wrestling tournaments that he could participate in so he could improve while it is not wrestling season. In school, he is also involved in cross country, baseball and soccer.

Before a match Mukiza shakes off and watches the matches be-

T

December Paw, Reporter

Design: D. Paw