Page 2
MAY 10,1996
Support for
the ETC, etc.
The Educational Technology Complex (ETC)
is coming to NCSSM. The ETC construction prom
ises to be noisy and a little inconvenient at least un
til May, 1997 (its scheduled completion date), but
neither this year’s senior class nor the class of ’97
will benefit a great deal from it. It’s easy to see how
that could make some current students a little sour
on the idea. Despite all this, the ETC is still a good
thing.
The ETC contains some things that will make
life a lot better for NCSSM students. A theater large
enough for the entire student body and faculty will
put an end to hard bleachers at assemblies, as well
as providing a good facility for student productions.
The Student Center will be better suited for dances
and large gatherings than the gym. Also, there will
be added computer and science labs.
The new building is not just for students at
NCSSM, though. The new Distance Learning fa
cilities will allow broadcasting of more courses. In
this way, students around the state will be benefiting
from the ETC. Those facilities will help students
here, too, by giving them the opportunity to take a
greater variety of classes.
Living with the racket and inconvenience of a
major construction project for several months and
getting nothing for the trouble in the end may seem
like too much for some, but there are larger things at
stake. This year’s student body may not see the profit
fium the ETC, but future generations of students will,
those at NCSSM as well as at other schools in the
state. The ETC is a good idea, and we should all be
patient enough to see it to fruition.
The Stentorian
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Don't judge me; get to know me!
1 never have understood homophobia or
heterosexism. When 1 look into the mirror I see an
intelligent, honest, jocular, caring, helpful, enthu
siastic lesbian with smelly feet (and a cool new hair
do). 1 look at myself and say, “Wow Chloe, you
sure are a neat person.” I imagine when others look
at me they see a lot of the same qualities.
However, something makes people hate and
fear me. (I don’t think it’s the smelly feet.) Very
few people bring their reservations about my sexu
ality to my face; occasionally I’ll get the ever-so-
mild question, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but
do you think you were born that way, or is it how
you were raised?”
Well, three weeks ago someone brought their
not-so-nice reservations to my back as I walked away
from Hunt Doim after going to the clinic. The shouts
came from a window, shattering my little glass bubble
that made me believe this campus was safe, that I
wouldn’t have to deal with these issues now.
I was always supposed to deal with
homophobia later. Yeah, later like when I got to
college. Or, no not then, maybe later when I started
working. No, I could just leave the job. So, I guess
later like never. When I first started coming out,
someone told me that “this is a ‘choice’ that will
affect the rest of your life.”
I had always thought: I won’t have to deal
with homophobia. I’ll make people know me. I’ll make them
unafraid of me. I thought it was the people in the closet that
really had to worry—once a person conquered their internal
homophobia she or he was home free.
I was wrong. It doesn’t matter how nice I am, how will
ing I am to help anyone, how open and how non-judgmental
I am— people will hate me. Someone someday might even
kill me or rape me (to show me that men really are what I
need for a “good time”) or certainly someday someone will
harass me. I live the life of a homosexual.
I know some of the fears people have about me—I’ll
make you or your future kids homosexual. I’m unclean, and
I hate men. From first-hand experience, I know these fears
are wrong; while I may skip a shower or two and re-wear my
jeans, it’s been statistically shown and reported by research
ers at the National Institutes of Health that it is virtually im
possible to make a straight person become homosexual. And
those who have seen me around campus know “some of my
best friends are guys.”
I don’t understand where these fears come fitjm, and I
don’t understand why they are placed on an entire “type” of
people. The queer community is diverse. A million different
people and a million different lives. Sexuality is a broad issue
that can’t really be fit under the three little labels of gay, straight
and bisexual. Still, we all fall victim to the same fears and the
same hate. I didn’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it. Those of you
hating me and fearing me, stop it Come talk to me.
How to use your H-82 (in two semesters or less)
There is a grave mistake being made at
NCSSM: it seems that over one hundred students
believe they are taking a standard precalculus
course. The course is named Contempory Precal
culus Through Applications (CPTA), but this is
slightly inaccurate. Through various attempts at
helping unsuspecting mathematical victims, it has
appeared that the course is an attempt at unlocking
the mystery of the inner workings of the TI-82.
I believe that calculators should be a supple
ment to mathematics, not a substitute for it. There
is not a student here who has not held a TI-82 in his
hand, mainly because this school has made it a req
uisite for attendance. It does tend to be useful in
both physics and chemistry, largely because it is rela
tively simple to print out a TI-82 graph.
Although I do not believe that the purchasing
of a TI-82 should be required, I willingly admit it
proves advantageous to buy one. I feel, however,
that precalculus students are taught to lean too
heavily on this computerized deity. I do not be
lieve the programmers at Texas Instruments ex
pected their TI-82 guidebook to become a bible for
precalculus students, but it appears to me that this
travesty has occurred.
Wherever an unfortunate CPTA student may
venture, his TI-82, TI link, and extra AAA batteries
(if he is a former Boy Scout) are probably not far
behind. Were I an especially sadistic math teacher,
1 would add a little twist to the final precalculus
exam: I would take away the students' TI-82s and
watch them struggle. Whenever I don't know how a precal
culus student should solve a homeworic problem (for example,
I may only know a calculus method), it is usually safe to
assume that the method involves the use of a TI-82.
For example, when asked to find the x coordinate of the
vertex of a parabola whose equation is of the form y = ax^ +
bx + c, a CPTA student will pull out his fnendly neighbor
hood TI-82, graph it, and find the max or min. Someone
who has not taken CPTA, however, will use the formula x =
-b/2a, and come up with the answer much more quickly in
his head. This is a shocking harbinger of our society's future,
if the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics is
teaching such methods.
I must be one of those ancient oddities who remembers
"back in the day" when they still taught math in math class.
Calculators are tools, and itis fine to use them to arrive at the
solution promptly; however, I feel the student should first
understand what the calculator is doing. TI-82s are not
"magic" boxes—there is mathematics behind the answers
which "pop" out.
If you looked at a CPTA textbook, you would probably
be shocked to learn that there is no chapter entitled "You and
your TI-82." However, this oversight does not fool anyone
who is familiar with the curriculum. Despite having great
respect for the mathematics department and its valiant push
for technology, I feel that the idea of mathematics is being
lost somewhere along the way.
But it must soon cease, because now the disease is
spreading—nearby schools are adopting the CPTA curricu
lum. Soon it will be an epidemic, and precalculus students
will be plugging directly into their TI-82s....