news
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Feb. 10, 2011
Teacher Spotlight: Flash Gordon Helm By Brynna Heflin This year marks Flash Helm’s fifteenth year of teaching at Centreville High School. During his time here as a Wildcat, he has taught Spanish at all levels except for AP Spanish. “There has always been someone better to teach the AP classes,” Helm said. He has taught 38 sections of Spanish 1 and one year he even taught a class of Spanish 2 and Spanish 3 to the same students in the same year. Prior to his teaching career, Helm spent 25 years in the army. He first served as a field artilleryman and then served as a foreign area specialist in Latin America. For over 15 of those 25 years he lived in Latin America, specifically in Panama and Columbia, and in Spain with his wife. Helm has worked and traveled in every single country in Latin America, with the exception of Cuba. “My primary job was to train and assist Latin American military organizations to fight the growing and shipping of illegal drugs from Latin America to the United States,” Helm said. “My favorite part of the army was the importance of the missions and doing an important job with the other professional people I worked with. The military is a unique place in our society. Most of the people I worked for and with were honest, hard-working, selfeffacing people of conviction and were dedicated to an ideal.”
Helm has traveled all over the world, but his favorite country is the United States, although he also loves Spain and Chile. He has lived with his family in a variety of locations in the US, including Texas, Oklahoma, California, South Dakota, and the Washington, D.C. area. In his free time he plays golf, enjoys traveling, plays bridge, reads, fishes, cooks, and bakes. “Maybe more than anything else I like to eat great food and drink great wine,” Helm said. In regards to his teaching career, there is a widespread notion that his classes are some of the toughest at Centreville. Many students discontinue Spanish after Spanish 3 in an effort to avoid the workload that is associated with Helm’s Spanish 4 classes. “To those students who think my Spanish 4 class is the hardest class at CVHS, I refer them back to what I said previously, I teach life lessons: LIFE IS TOUGH AND THEN YOU DIE!” Helm exclaimed. All of his students have heard this phrase before, mostly on a daily basis in response to complaints. “It is a difficult class,” Helm said. “And there are difficult demands placed on students. The great part is that most of the hard-charging students here do very well and they move forward with a better understanding of Spanish, of themselves, and of the world at large.” Helm only teaches because he loves young people, even the “knuckleheads,” as he would say. “I am a super patriot and in my belief system young
people are the future of this country,” Helm said. “It is very important to me that they learn important life lessons such as self accountability, honesty, the intrinsic value of hard work and a love of what we have in this country. I believe that it is very important that they understand that no one owes them anything, that success is measured in how they help their neighbor, that abdication of their individual responsibilities to each other is wrong.
In my life I had teachers who changed my life, made me see things accurately, gave me inspiration to perform at my best, and helped me through difficult times. I want to return some of that to my students.” Helm teaches life lessons to his students, and uses Spanish as a medium to do so. “Some of the lessons are hard,” Helm said. “And many of the lessons are learned best the hard way – but then, that’s life.”
Senior Ducktapes His Way To Scholarship By Daniela Medina It all started the summer of 2007 when Colin Fitt (12) was at film camp at Penn State University. When his film instructor assigned the class to fix something with duct tape, Colin decided to fix his wallet, and with the extra duct tape he made a brand new wallet. What initially was just an assignment turned into a hobby that eventually earned him a $600 scholarship. Once Colin discovered this talent, he began making wallets, purses, backpacks, and pencil pouches for fun. Soon after, Colin had random people at school asking him to make them items out of duct tape. “I agree to make people stuff as long as they give me the money to buy the duct tape,” Colin explained. Colin’s duct tape items are customized with zippers and Velcro, and are even coded so they don’t get sticky. The wallets have a special compartment for the driver’s license and a separate coin pouch. Though Colin does not gain any profit from his business, he was able to make money through a duct tape scholarship contest called “Stuck on Prom.” This scholarship asked individuals to make a duct tape suit to wear to the prom, and then take a photo of it for proof. Colin won the scholarship last year and plans to do it again this year. After having won the $600 scholarship, Colin made even more money by sell-
ing the suite on eBay. “I didn’t think someone was going to buy a duct tape suite, but I was actually able to sell it for $140 bucks,” Colin said. Apart from the “Stuck on Prom” scholarship, Colin has also been able to apply for others from different universities. The Music Technology Scholarship for Apple, offered by DePaul University, earned him $1,000. For this scholarship, Colin was required to write a short essay and send in a multiinstrumental tract, which is essentially an electronic portfolio containing all of one’s work. Although Colin won the scholarship, he is still waiting to hear back from DePaul University. Colin was also awarded The Ukulele Scholarship for $500. Along with making suits out of duct tape, Colin’s current goal is working on a scholarship for New York University (NYU) that requires individuals to take a current song and put a twist to it. Colin decided to put a folk twist to the MGMT’s song “kids.” He is still waiting on NYU’s response. “I love randomly searching for scholarship, “Colin said. “The assignments they have you do are pretty fun.” Being colorblind is not a problem for Colin. When working with different color duct tape, he simply labels each color onto the tape and is able to create unique items with one magical ingredient: his creativity.
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1. Colin Fitt playing his remix of MGMT’s “Kids” at Gumbo XVIII. 2. Fitt messing around with duck tape. (photos/ Colin Fitt)
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OMG the English Lang is Like Totes Dead By Mackenzie Carson
Spanish teacher Mr. Helm with two of his Spanish 2 students. (photo/ Brynna Heflin)
News
Feb. 10, 2010
Recently, technology has become more and more advanced. People can do technological things they’ve never been able to do before on something as simple as a cell phone. The human race grows gradually more impatient, and technology advances to find ways to accommodate their busy lives. But what do we give up just to save a little time? Out of 700 youth aged 12-17 who participated in the phone survey for Times Daily, 64 percent report inadvertently using some form of shorthand common to electronic text, including emoticons, incorrect grammar or punctuation outside of texting. Many children raised in this new era learn acronyms like “lol” (laugh out loud) or “omg” (oh my gosh) before they even learn what an adjective is. If use of the English language continues like this, it will be disappointing to see how adults even talk in ten years. “The writing skills of today’s teens are already in pretty bad shape due to wanton ignorance of the way sentences
work and the basic structures of English grammar,” said Dr. David Campbell, Latin, AP European History, and World Religions teacher. “This is aggravated by the shortcuts in spelling and grammar that teens take in their texting. Many students use those same shortcuts in their school work and often don’t understand why it is not acceptable usage.” Television shows like Jersey Shore on MTV contribute to the problem. Shows advertise new acronyms like “GTL” (gym, tanning, laundry) that become popular sayings. These terms then become so common in teen conversations that they are considered real words. Many students hide behind texting to avoid face to face contact because they’re afraid of it. “Many students have told me that they find it “awkward” and “intimidating” to speak to an actual person – by phone or face to face,” said Campbell. “Teens appear to be more comfortable communicating with a screen than a real person. Teens may send a vast volume of messages, but not say very much – this is verbal diarrhea, not communication.”
SUPERBOWL XLV
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Kristy McKain (12) and Brynna Heflin (12) texting. (photo/ Mackenzie Carson)
Do you enjoy writing and helping other people with their writing? If so, the Wildcat Writing Center is looking for you! We are currently recruiting students to volunteer as writing center tutors. This opportunity is open to ALL students regardless of grade level or experience. If you are interested in learning more, see Mrs. Grace in room 220.
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