The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
Another class says good-bye
VoL XX , No. 1
Bad teachers?
K.\tie Poulos
It has been almost
an entire year of pranks,
good times, bad times, too
much work , too little
sleep, and amazing memo
ries. Now
its time for
the school
to end for
the summer.
This break
has grown
to gain a
new mean
ing over
the course
of the year.
All of the
seniors are
leaving for
good. This
is the end of
their two
years, and
we juniors
will be left
all alone
next year.
; they are leaving. They
have been celebrating
their senior year with vari
ous all-senior activities.
Now that the year is com
ing to an end, the senior
rituals are in full swing. In
senior pictures.
There will be no more se
niors to look up to, or get
help from. The senior
class is doing this year as
each class has before them
fact, these rituals began
with the mock graduation
in December, which gave
the seniors their “right to
be slack”. The next step
in being a senior is the Se
nior dinner which took
place on Monday May 3'*'.
The seniors were bussed
over to Duke Gardens and
served gourmet PFM.
The next and final
ritual will be
graduation.
However
there are
other signs
of the end
drawing
near for se
niors.
At the
final coffee
house we
were graced
with the per-
formances
of many se-
niors. The most
notable act of
^ the evening, re-
■| ceiving what is
jj said to be the
only standing
ovation ever at
coffee house, was Keren
Jones’ poem entitled “Ode
to ‘99” or “Apathy and
Empathy”. This along
with other songs and po
ems left the coffee house
crowd in tears. Jeff Bray
also left a large part of the
crowd crying after he sang
“Carolina on My Mind”.
iel Chapman and Paul Jang
stand on Watts steps before
senior pctures.
Superlatives are an
other way of closing out
the two years for seniors.
Recently superlative
“elections” were held dur
ing common lunch out
side of the cafeteria.
There were categories
See Good-bye
page 4^
Seniors—Saints or Devils?
Jennifer blEWPoar
Seniors at Science
and Math play a large
role in the development
of the juniors. They are
the ones to whom the
juniors
look for
help, an-
stvers, and
accep
tance.
How se
niors ac
cept this
role varies
from per
son to
person.
Se
niors are
respon
sible for
filling
many lead
ership po-
sitions.
These in
clude RLAs, MFCs,
FCCs, and various oth
ers. These seniors must
come back to NCSSM as
much as a week before
everyone else in order to
receive training and pre
pare for the incoming jun
iors. They are taught how
to handle problems, do
their jobs well, and be
overall good examples.
These are the seniors who
are immediately recog-
benior !>teve Carpenter hetps a junior Jind entertainment
on a NCSSM weekend.
nized as role models; how
ever, every senior is even
tually looked up to by at
least one junior.
Some seniors try to
be good role models for
the juniors. “As a senior.
I feel like I should be a
good role model for the
juniors—sort of like a big
sister. Ifthey have ques
tions or problems, they
should be able to come
to me for advice, help, or
just some
one to lis
ten,” said
Caroline
Chang.
Jesse
Davidson
used his
RLA posi
tion to be a
good role
model for
the juniors.
“I think that
a seniors
should be
role models.
^ A role
^ model is
someone
thatencom-
passes
good human aspects. At
this school, to be a good
role model, you need to
See Seniors
page 3
r Shannon Meyer ,
Many new
teachers were hired this
year, and though the de
cision about renewing
their contracts has al
ready been made, it
brings up the issue of the
competence of the teach
ers of NCSSM. The ad
ministration needs to be
more active in obtaining
student
opinion, not
only when
contracts
come up for
renewal, but
regularly to
ensure the
best teach
ing quality
possible.
“Students
are wasting entire
semesters in
classes where
they do not learn
enough.’*
—Meyer
Keeping
teacher quality high is
important because many
intelligent, motivated
students are wasting en
tire semesters in classes
where they do not learn
enough. In some cases,
teaching style is to blame
for students not receiv
ing the best education.
In others, the teacher is
assigned a class that he
or she does not have the
right background in and
cannot provide the stu
dents with thorough un
derstanding that a
teacher should have.
Whatever the problem,
the students faced with
such teachers deserve a
better teacher who knows
the material and can ef
fectively teach it.
The
school does
have some
procedures
already in
place for the
evaluation of
teachers.
One is hav
ing other
faculty mem
bers sit in on
a class. This
method is highly ineffec
tive because, in most
cases, the teacher is fully
aware that someone is
coming and plans accord
ingly, making the class
much more involved or
See Teachers
page 2
Blast from the past; class of 1986
Becky Ballard"
Gina Norman,
a member of
NCSSM’s Class of
1986, vividly re
members her days
at NCSSM. Gina is
“surprized that
[she] remembers
more about specific
days, dances and
classes of [her] two
years at NCSSM
than of her four
years at Duke, or
any other time in
[her] life”. She
thinks “these
memories are a re-
so different from anything
NCSSM. She developed
friendships
that did not
leave her'
life once her
NCSSM
days came
to a close.
Gina “began
[her]
NCSSM
days living
in the triple
on Second
Beall where
[she] be
came ex
tremely
close to one
ofherroom-
One of her most “rebellious” memories is “get
ting caught by SLI'Marlene Blakney walking from
Second Beall to Reynolds 2C with [her] shoes ofP’.
suit of doing more things
in less time than at any
time in [her] life prior to or
after [her] NCSSM years.
[Her] experience here was
[she] experienced before
or after [her] years here”.
Gina remembers the
major as well as trivial
events of her life at
mates, Mary Jean, who
[she] saw the Bare Naked
See 1986
page 3