“We had to give it our all, in order for us to come up on top.” said Junior Sam Ortman. “I think we had to figure out what to do for our offense, for the second half of the game.”

The next Buffalo Bison game is against Champlin Park, in an away game on January 12th, at 1:30 p.m.

 “My favorite memory from my childhood was going hunting with my brother, and my moms boyfriend,” said Junior Callie Anderson. One time my brother and I crashed our four wheeler, and we fell out.”

 “I think my favorite childhood memory would be from third grade, when I went to Disney World,” said Sophomore Matt Laidlaw. “My favorite ride at Disney World would be the Test Track.”

 Everyone has their own unique childhood memories, but most people forget large parts of their childhood, and think that whatever they forgot must not have been important.

 Smells can trigger the limbic center of your brain, this part is so closely related to memory that it is sometimes called the emotional brain. What causes you to create a memory and associate it with a smell, are called conditioned responses. Since we encounter most smells within our youth, smells can often bring about memories from your childhood.

 Memories take a second to come back if it’s brought back by one of your senses.

For months, some people have said that the world is going to end on December 21, 2012. Now we’re only a week away and no one is talking about it. Should we prepare for this or not?

“I think no, because I think it’s a sin to predict when the world is going to end,” said Junior Katie Manz. “Of course the world is going to end someday, because nothing can live forever.”

“No, I don’t think the world will end,” said Junior Michelle Lee. “Mainly because of all of the times that people have said it was supposedly going to end, but has never happened.”

Homework is a daily fact of life for students at BHS, but research has cast doubts on its benefits.

Many American elementary schools have banned homework, and some high schools in France and Germany have placed moratoriums on homework.  In an interview with the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper in October, Head teacher at Elsa-Brandstrom in Germany, Brigitte Fontein explained that generally “no child would be having their free time dominated by doing school work.”

Alfie Kohn is an author and educational researcher. He concludes that homework is detrimental for students in Elementary and Middle school.

He writes, “I discovered that decades of investigation have failed to turn up any evidence that homework is beneficial for students in elementary school.  Even if you regard standardized test results as a useful measure, homework (some versus none, or more versus less) isn’t even correlated with higher scores at these ages.  The only effect that does show up is more negative attitudes on the part of students who get more assignments.”

Kohn concludes that, even at the high school level, “no study has ever substantiated the belief that homework builds character or teaches good study habits.” He recommends that all schools reduce the amount and increase the quality of homework assignments. Each assignment, he says, should reflect the teacher’s theory of learning and work to improve a student’s decision making.

“I struggle with the concept of homework,” said English Teacher Ryan McCallum. “I’ve found that the best homework I give usually involves homework for myself – with giving significant feedback or using it to shape the direction of a class. If I’m giving it a plus, check, or minus and moving on, then the homework assignment was probably not a worthwhile experience for my students. I’m trying to get better with it.”

Some high school students choose classes that they know will involve a large amount of homework because they can see the benefit in the work in preparing them for colleges.

“I know that the papers that we are assigned in CIS Writing are going to help me in college,” said Senior Olivia Wyatt. “Because [English Teacher Vicki] Cary takes the time to walk through the aspects of each paper and show us what makes a strong paper and a weak paper.  I don’t understand how Cary can read so many papers over and over. She is just a warrior both with feedback and grading.”

Whether homework is helpful or harmful, the fact remains that homework-related stress is an ongoing issue at BHS for both students and teachers.

Thanksgiving isn’t only a day to prepare and eat food, the real meaning of Thanksgiving is to spend time with family and share your thanks and thoughts from the past year with each other. Some families share their highs and lows of the year. An interesting part of this fun filled holiday is how everyone spends it differently.

“I think it’s natural for people to get together and spend time with their families,” said Junior Tim Johnson. “We all have our own traditions and celebrate them in different ways.”

With so many different traditions, Thanksgiving is a one of a kind day to everyone. Keisha Jenkins’ family goes from house to house for each part of their meal. They start at the first house with the turkey, corn, potatoes and more. Then they all continue the journey to the next family members house that serves vegetables and fruits. The pie and deserts are at the last house. Everyone stays and eats pie together for rest of the day while just enjoying each other.

“Sometimes we also go to the community center to eat Thanksgiving dinner. A back up plan for when there’s a lot of us,” said Freshman Keisha Jenkins.

Spending the day with family is surely something to be thankful for. Many people are also blessed to eat delicious food and enjoy fun activities. Thanksgiving is unique because every tradition is a little different. However, most Thanksgiving days are spent with people we love.

Photo by martha_chapa95 on Flickr