A word from our advisor

Written by: Erik Smith '98

          It is the beginning of a new school year and the staff of The Bark is off and running. Members of The Bark staff have been working on articles since mid-August. For those of you with poor memories, that means they have been working on the first edition of The Bark since before school started. This may be the hardest working and most focused group The Bark has ever seen.

          We would like to thank everyone who purchased a root beer float during our first Thursday sale. Remember that we will be selling root beer floats every other Thursday throughout the school year.

          Lets have a great year together Greyhounds!

Nusquam Abscondere

Written by: Isaiah Bellville '12

        Welcome back Greyhounds! Let’s all get excited for another great school year here at Eaton Rapids High School! Or, if you’re too tired to get excited, at least do try not to be grumpy!

        The 2011-2012 school year is bringing in a healthy dose of change; enough to make a certain democrat proud. This year, school starts a whopping six minutes earlier than previous years, with the final bell ringing six minutes sooner as well. I’m not sure why, but waking up six minutes earlier seems a much bigger difference than getting out six minutes sooner to me.

        This year, students were required to come to class orientations, Freshmen and Sophomores on the 31st of August, Juniors and Seniors on the 1st of September. This was supposed to help us get our school year started with a little more gusto than normal. My only complaint is that these dates were before Labor Day, and according to the bill passed in 2005, Michigan schools are banned from starting their school year before Labor Day. You can argue that this technically wasn’t a school day, but if it’s mandatory, what’s the difference?

        Another change students will see this year affects the senior class more than any other. This school year, graduation will occur June 1st in the evening. I’m not too sure what the reason is, but this is the best change I’ve heard of so far. I’d much rather be wearing a robe during the evening than the hot afternoon!

        Finally, the change that will most likely impact the lives of more students and families than any other change I’ve learned of thus far this year. I’m a senior!

        I’m kidding, but only slightly. This year marks the fourth year that the class of 2012 has walked through these maroon and white hallways, and for most of us, this will be our last. If it’s our last, it better be our best!

I figured I’d write this month’s column on things I thought freshmen should and should not do here at the high school, but that ended up being a whole article on its own. Then I thought maybe I could write about my summer. Boring. Then, the day before this article was due, (technically, it’s now three days late as I write this) I decided that writing about the rocky start of my school year would be a pleasant start to the school year.

        I started the year off with a sort of rough schedule. Pre-calc first thing in the morning, followed by AP English and AP Chem, with Creative Writing and Newspaper to finish off my day. So my afternoons seem pretty sweet.

        My first day of Pre-Calc was spent with my hand in the air in utter confusion. "Isn’t the first day of school supposed to be easy?!" Since then, I’ve been almost completely lost in the class, until a day or so after I’ve taken the quiz on the unit. Figures.

        AP English is awesome. A class where I get to read good books and discuss them? Sounds quite a bit like heaven to a literature nut like me. The only problem I’ve had in that class so far was my ill-timed nap. I don’t condone sleeping in any classes, but sometimes it just happens. Maybe you were up all night doing homework, or your dog had to go outside like 100 million times. No matter what the case, try and stay awake. Having said that, I feel I can now tell you about my AP English nap. We were given 40 minutes to write as much as possible on a certain topic, and after the 40 minutes we were to hand in the essay. Well, ten minutes in, I had written a small portion on the topic, and laid my head down to get more comfortable. I woke up in a puddle of drool to Mrs. Penski announcing a five minute warning.

         AP Chemistry was way out of my reach. I’ve never taken a class so difficult. The kids in that class are going to be Nobel Prize winners. I switched into a different AP class, AP English Composition; an online class.

        Creative writing should’ve been my favorite class. 73 minutes of pure, unadulterated creativity. Apparently I can’t be creative when I have to be.

        And finally, I wrap my days up with Newspaper. Here at Newspaper, we’re one big family. We work responsibly and diligently every single day to ensure that you get the best school publication we can possibly give you. I love every minute of this, and I’m glad that I’ve had the opportunity to participate in this lovely production for almost two years now.

       Good luck Greyhounds!

Head2Head - Teachers should NOT be Facebook friends with students

Written by: Kaylee Heinz '12

Millions of Americans log in to Facebook.com everyday. Many of these people are students and teachers who want to connect to friends and other people they may know. The question is though, should teachers and students be friends on Facebook?

There are students who would like to friend their teacher and don’t really think anything of it. However, we have all seen the news stories where inappropriate relationships between teachers and students can ignite because of Facebook. In my opinion I do not think it is suitable to be Facebook friends. I think there is a fine line between your professional and personal life and that should never be crossed.

With teachers and students being friends on Facebook it may become very easy to cross this line. On facebook, you get to see everything, and I mean everything! When you click on someone’s wall you can find out almost anything you want to know about someone. This isn’t healthy for teacher/student relationships because a student usually identifies a teacher in terms of their teaching abilities, teaching skills, tolerance, patience and numbers of other positive characteristics. But on Facebook, the student could see photos of a teacher partying and having a good time. After seeing something like that, the student could have a very different opinion of teacher and may not take them as seriously.

I do not believe that teachers should be friends with their students on Facebook on a personal note. Instead, I would recommend an account or group especially created for a certain class or subject. This account should be limited and only serve certain purposes that involve understanding class material. I think that teachers should allow students to post questions about material, post pictures of class trips or pictures, homework requirements for the week, deadlines and etc.

There has to be a line drawn between teachers and students being friends on Facebook. I don't think teachers should be friends with their current students until they graduate high school, unless they are friends on a classroom Facebook page, and not a personal page. Before requesting a past student on Facebook, give would give it some time after graduating. This will give the student time to get some plans in line for their future and to hopefully start college.

When it comes to teachers being friends with students of Facebook, I believe it is unacceptable.

Head2Head - Teachers SHOULD be able to be Facebook friends with students

Written by: Janna Wing '12

           Do I personally think teachers and students should be Facebook friends? No, but I’m not going to advocate for a law. I would simply advise that blurred boundaries are very risky, and that precautions are needed at any end of a student-teacher relationship online.

          The number one technology that students use outside of school is social networking sites. This is the technology they’re going to as their one-stop shop for communication. It’s their email, their bulletin board, their online photo album; it’s where they do their writing.

          An outburst of student-teacher relationships have produced crackdowns on social-networking sites. In many situations teachers have been acknowledged to have inappropriate relationships with students. With online trackers teachers have been disciplined, arrested and convicted of such behaviors with students. With all this in hand the government has stepped in to make a `Facebook Law’ to limit student-teacher interactions online. There are age restrictions on the online Facebook site, yet teenagers fail to abide by them. Parents that have intentions to try and protect their children from risky relationships with teachers online are all for this law. Parents also don’t realize it’s as easy to provide parental monitoring to control such activities.

          It’s possible to have a very valuable Facebook page for students and teachers to have the capability to post homework and activities for viewing and discussing online. The students can easily access this from home, and it’s easily accessible for parents to also access the pages online as well.

          Parents who strongly agree with this law don’t realize a simple fact , you take these teachers who prey on the students and block Facebook from them, it simply won’t make them stop, they are going to find a way to do it, whether its over Facebook or not. I view this as parents are giving up on parenting and would rather have the government do it for them, rather than parents stepping into their teenage lives and making sure there are no such activities going on.

         So, Students and teachers can be Facebook friends it’s what they use the internet site for as their own responsibility and not the governments

This side of the net

Written by: Carly Darrow '12

               Our last first day of high school, our last time building a float, our last Homecoming football game and dance, our last first trimester, our last Eaton Rapids student ID’s, our last time getting in trouble by Mr. Maurer, our last fall sports season, our last time that we see each other 5 days a week for 9 months.

                Last, last, last. Class of 2012, we have got a lot of lasts coming our way as we enter our final year of high school. But not to worry, because although there will be many things that are ending, we will also be experiencing many firsts this year.

                Things like senior pictures, senior nights for sports, off campus privileges during the first trimester, senior breakfast, class night, getting out of school earlier than everyone else, graduation, and open houses. These things will be what makes this year different from all the rest, and in a way very special.

                                When I walked into Eaton Rapids High School my freshmen year I had no clue how quickly these four years would fly by and blend together. I was scared obviously, like many of us were as it is overwhelming. You can’t help but feel so miniscule compared to everyone else who knew what they were doing. But also like most, it didn’t faze me. I took my freshmen year as just another year of school. I felt like I was a million years away from graduating, and that graduating was something that the big kids do.

                Now we are those big kids. We’re taking big kid classes, driving big kid cars, and doing big kid things.  And next year, when we go off to college, we’ll be even bigger kids.

                And who knows how things will turn out after high school. Maybe you’ll go to college with your best friend, or take a year or two off. Maybe some of us will go to college close to home, or go to college in a completely different state. Most likely though we’ll drift apart, and those who were our best friends become strangers. All a part of growing up. On the bright side we will be meeting new and different people and going to new and different places.

Wherever we go we are the class of 2012, and while we may have our cliques and our drama, we are still able to come together for the important things. And that is something that we’ll remember during our 10 year class reunion.

We have so much to look forward to in our last year.  I hope that each and every one of us makes it the best. Save the drama, try hard in classes while we have these amazing teachers that are willing to do anything, and try something this year that we wouldn’t normally do.

They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone; we seniors will soon be realizing this. To anyone who is reading this that’s not a senior, you now know.