A BIG Thanks to... by Brandon Breton Phaneuf

I think that teachers dedicate their lives for students, because they spend larger amounts of time preparing activities and lessons that help us become adults. They are trying to do fun stuff and also work as hard as they can to make us learn. I think that we, as students should take 2 minuets to go thank a teacher that has made a difference in our lives. We should thank them for what we are today because without them we would be innocent kids, with no education, and only our own experiences to rely on!.

Have you ever ask yourself what a teacher does for you and how much time they put into your learning? Hard work teachers do things that they give up because they are teachers.

• They work all year to help us learn.
• They teach us skill that we don't have and get us to have better knowledge of our surroundings.
• They make us grow in maturity and turn us into teens and after into adults .

Only with these 3 points we could go forward to thanking a teacher for everything they have changed in our lives, and also taking a few minuets  for them every once a while.

Think for a minuet of the teachers that have made a change in your lives. Think of what they  have done in your lives and the sacrifices that they made for us, even if  we were in trouble. Teachers have given years for us, the least we can do is take a minute to go and thank them;  they will certainly appreciate the jester that you have made. So take a minuet and say thanks!

Should we be afraid of math? By Lydia Racine.

Should we be afraid of math? I think not. Why? i'll explain my point of view.

Mathematics is an important subject that you need to succeed for many jobs like doctors, veterinarians, engineers, achitects, and i'm passing some! Yes, Math is an important subject to have a good job in your future. But if you work hard and put your mind to it, you'll see, math is an easy subject.

Mathematical problems is an issue for many students in High School. Many students doesn't want to perform or are just discrouaged on all they do. This discouragement decreases all their performances in school especially in math. Discouragement could be found in; To much homework, family problems or just saying: I don't want to or i'm not able too, even if they aren't trying.

First, it's okay to recognize the "fear" of math. A recent study actually found that students did better when they wrote about their fears before taking a challenging math test. What could help you before doing a test would be to write about all your worries. It would boost your performance in the classroom says Rebeka Zook, a professional math tutor.

Finally, you should make math a part of your everyday life and make it simple. We all know it's a boring subject but if you want to perform, you should always do your homework. If you have math on a Monday and the homework is due for Wednesday, you could do part of it monday night and the rest tuesday night. Or, Just take more math activities in class and do some problems out the school to understand and practice your chapter everyday. This will make it an everyday life!

In conclusion, If you are still afraid of math, well try to listen carefully and put you more into it. It is still important even if you say that you won't need it in your futur. Yes you need it to have your High School Diploma. No matter what you do, or what you think math will always be in your futur life/career.

Illegible cursive writing turned in? Just drop it! By, Laurie Rheaume

    Many students today look at their messy and illegible cursive writing and sigh, feeling discouraged and like giving up, students like me. Why waste time teaching boring and hard cursive to children? They could learn other things instead that is more up to date in this twenty-first century world. A number of schools scratch out cursive from their material every year. Unfortunantley, it is still taught in many schools. Teachers should simply stop boring students by teaching cursive that they will likely never use. They could have more fun learning other things than attached letters.

    Cursive writing is already a challenge that many average seven to nine year olds have to go through, but it is even a bigger challenge for messy writers, that includes myself. I personally remember in elementary school when I had to do extra cursive practice other than free time, the many times the teacher took me to another table and held my small hand and did cursive letters with me. Or of course when I could not do a certain letter and was so upset that I could not do nice letters like the teacher did, I cried. One teacher even said " I can't believe a sweet little girl could write like that" while squinting at my letters. Cursive may seem easy to some, but for many it is a hard challenge to meet.

    The school year is packed with material to learn and understand. Cursive will take lots of time to teach, not to mention comprehend and be comfortable writing it. Cursive writing should be put aside and leave room to perfect other skills students need to improve. For example, math, many students struggle with this subject. Scratching out cursive writing could leave time to help students understand other things in school that students might need to spend extra time on.

     We are now at the twenty-first century, technology is rapidly getting better, faster and more used. Typing is something that is used by pretty much everyone today. Students should learn how to type properly, instead of learning boring attached letters that they will likely never use. Researchers stated, in the article Cursive vs. Writing in Elementary Schools, "Cursive is not required for academic success, children can get by in the real world without cursive." This proves that kids don't have to learn cursive nowadays to get by. Anne Trubeck, an author once said, "Touch typing is an example if cognitive automaticity, the ability to do things without conscious, attention or awareness. Automaticity takes a burden off our working memory, allowing us more space for high-order thinking." Anne Trubeck, obviously promotes the keyboard use and states why it is better. Students should stop learning things that are slowly going into extinction and start to learn things more adapted to this rapid technological advancing world.

    To conclude, cursive writing should be pushed aside and let room for better things. Cursive writing is simply an unecessary challenge that many students suffer through everyday. Students could be better in certain topics that they struggle in, if cursive disappeared from the school material. Typing will take over cursive in not long, why not put it aside right away and adapt ourselves to this changing world we live in.

Is Homework Worth It? By Thomas Canning

 In most, if not all schools, students are assigned homework. And you probably already know that the students don't like homework. Question is, is it actually worth it? In my opinion, I think that homework can be useless. Especially after a 6 hour school day. Teachers. Imagine this: you get home from school, the most horrid school day in a while. You're tired. You're exhausted. And you just want to go to bed. But you can't. You have hours of work to do. That's how students feel.

According to UVAToday, studies show that homework has little or no effect, but can also help to standardize grades. In my opinion, homework is a pain in the butt. But I also think that it can help us to memorize important elements that could show up in an exam or test. More statistics show that only 50% of parents think that homework is worthwhile. It might seem like a lot, but that means that the other half disagree with homework being worthwhile.

How ever, I do think that bringing technology to homework can make it more interesting for the student to work on. Take our school for an example. In the past three years that I've been here, we've been using more and more technology in our classes. Our school has done a very good job to introduce technology to students with online programs to remind them about upcoming events or homework to hand in.  

In conclusion, I think homework isn't really useful unless studying for an upcoming test or exam. Although I think that homework can sometimes be useless, I think there's a way for teachers to make it interesting. They just need to figure it out.