Newspapers / North Carolina School of … / Dec. 1, 2009, edition 1 / Page 8
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8 december 2009 opinion the stentorian I ncssm The H1N1 Drill That Never “Flu” By Emma Hawkins There are many rumors floating around about the HlNl virus, also known as swine flu. I heard that if you catch it, you turn it into a pig. I also heard that a symptom of swine flu is that your breath smells like bacon. But perhaps the scariest rumor is that if you say “swine flu” three times, a pig will attack you. After being informed by my mother that none of these were true (and beaten by my editor into submission), I managed to find enough courage to write this artiele on the HlNl virus and the drill the school meant to have. The HlNl drill was a plan to prepare for the HlNl virus’s effeets by seleeting some students to skip classes on predetermined dates. Those students would be given notes and assignments via the internet, and the school was to measure how effectively the students were able to catch up. The idea was to prepare teachers for the possibility that students in their classes would be absent for long periods of time, and make sure that teachers were ready to cateh students up with notes and homework. All UNC system sehools are doing a drill similar to this. And it only seems even more important now, with the H1N1 virus reaching pandemic proportions. On my hall alone, there have been six girls either sent or choosing to go home for flu-like symptoms. In one week, there were twenty- seven students sent home by the clinic. The drill was never put into effect here, because we were thrown into a very real situation. Students were being sent home by tbe score for flu like symptoms. These include fever, body aches, nausea, chills, and congestion. Many of these symptoms can be explained by things having nothing to do with the HlNl virus. For instanee, a calculus class is not complete unless I go through at least four of these symptoms. However, the elinic thought, as a preeaution, that sending students home would be for the best, which is why the drill never went off as intended; just as holding a fire drill is useless in the middle of a fire, preparing teachers for sick students while many of our classmates were already at home sick would have been pointless. Nevertheless, Dr. Warshaw said that the faculty has responded adequately to the situation despite the lack of a formal drill. Sick students have for the most part caught up in their elasses. Warshaw admitted it could have gone better, though. Senior Raven Foust, for example was sent home for three days. Though she managed to catch up on course material, her teachers did not provide the necessary resources while she was off eampus and she had to make up two missed tests and labs. Of course, missing those tests and labs was unavoidable, but until Foust turned them in, they went into the computer as zeroes, thereby skewing grades. Hearts Continued from Page 5 These sessions took place in room 336 of the biology department on Tuesdays from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Thurs days from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and Fridays from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. In referring to the results of their project, Pathak is pos itive but a little uncertain. “The students’ scores show that the mini-seminar was an effective way to teach stu dents about certain aspects of the electrocardiogram. The students were actively en gaged and were not afraid to ask questions or argue with us. [However,] no real de finitive comparison can be made between the cardiolo gists’ scores and those of the students because of the lack of scores from the cardiolo gists.” Stentorian Staff Editors-in-Chief: Alex Lew Kirby Vamadoe-Russ Jennifer Zhu News Editor; Avani Uppalapati • Feamres Editor: Peter McNeary Opinions Editor: Emma Hawkins Sports Editor: Vlad Krokhmal Lifestyles Editor: Lanair Lett Photography Editor; Dustin Burleson Advisor: John Kirk Thoughts? Com ments? Want to write for us? Send an email to stcntorian(ai ncssm.edu! IK' SLI Gahe Barrientez uses an ear thermometer, which is deemed to he more accurate, to take the temperature of student Clare Howerton. "Photo by Dustin Burleson Say Adios To Online Spanish By Ben Gellman “Bienvenidos a Espafiol. Keep working hard. You are the best.” These are the words that greet me every time I go to Spanish class. These words aren’t on a chalk board or hung over a door. They’re on my web browser, on a state-run web site. This is my life as an Intermediate Spanish student. Instead of having a person in front of me teaching, I have words on a page and the occa sional audio clip explaining the week’s lessons. I miss the old format of class, because I don’t think the online format is well-suited for a foreign language. The elass is titled Intermediate Spanish, yet we hardly ever speak Spanish. We meet in a classroom once a week, but even during this time we barely speak the language. I don’t think I’m making a radical claim when I say On line Spanish is an easy class, one 1 could have taken back at Hickory High. But I didn’t come to Seience and Math to take easy classes. I came here to be challenged. I signed up to take Spanish to learn Span ish, not to learn just enough to pass a multiple choice test that has unlimited submissions or to use the Internet to find the right words to use in a written assignment. While online instruetion may work for something like a history class, foreign languag es suffer when taught online. We hardly ever speak the lan guage, so it’s easy to put off all of your work until two hours before it’s due. Even if you don’t turn in an assignment, you’re still given a sixty. While I understand that the school is in the middle of a budget cruneh and that hiring instructors is expensive, Span ish is not a subject that should be taught online, and I think that students suffer as a result of not having a class that is taught entirely in person. I be lieve that we should go back to the old way of teaching Span ish, with a teacher, a lesson plan, and three or more in- person classes a week. / I ■ iJ. t., i \ A' - A S’e.J A lElEiP / / .0l \ \ \ X iL. j j t / oF NC. Cow ng Reynolds IE2E2D attempts to set a World Record by hosting a food drive sponsored by the Foodbank of NC in the spring. It will take several trucks full offood to come close to breaking the record.
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Student Newspaper
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Dec. 1, 2009, edition 1
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