April Fools, 2013 • Estd. 1892 • Vol. 121 • No.7• Published Monthly • www.ihstattler.com • Ithaca High School, 1401 N. Cayuga St., Ithaca, NY, 14850 • FREE
PHOTO/\MAYA PATT
Powers Attempts To Establish New Associate Associate Principal Position: Motives Remain Suspect, Unclear
Mr. Noyes takes anti-aging potion, beard suffers from side effects
By PAND RAUL
At the March 26 Board of Education (BoE) meeting, IHS Principal Jarett Powers introduced his plans to create a new Associate Associate Principal (AAP) position. “A lot of students have come up to me and pointed out that we really just aren’t getting much done,” said Powers as he addressed the BoE. “With Associate Associate Principals, that’s all going to change, though I can’t go into specifics right now.” The Associate Principal (AP) staff has greatly expanded in recent years, from only two or three members to nearly a dozen. While it’s unclear to most students what they do, it’s obviously something - after all, they have offices and get paid. Powers seems to hope that AAPs will produce the same kind of aura of confusion among the student body as APs do, while also getting something done - though that part isn’t set in stone. Student speculation has been rampant, and a number of illegal betting pools have sprung up. The tamest theories are that AAPs will be to APs as APs are to Powers, while some are suggesting that AAPs will take on an expanded role, helping teach classes and enforce discipline. At the time of writing, betting odds indicate that speculators believe that AAPs are part of a secret administration effort to advance Powers’s own mysterious agenda, largely based on unconfirmed reports from inside the administration. “Powers is mad, power-hungry mad,” one administrator allegedly said, speaking continued on p. 2
April Fools, 2013
POWERS ATTEMPTS TO ESTABLISH NEW POSITION
continued from p. 1
on condition of anonymity. “He’ll do anything to gain more power.” Others, however, are not convinced that AAPs are, as of yet, a foregone conclusion. Leading Tattler Constitutional interpreter and beloved, unbearable grammar nitpick Aryeh Zax ’14 expressed skepticism that the BoE would let the creation of AAPs pass unchallenged. “If the Board just lets this go through, there’s no telling what the implications of that precedent will be,” he said. “Since its founding, ICSD has worked on the principle of separation of powers, to ensure that nothing ever gets done. But Powers is attempting to consolidate his powers, and that’s a radical change. Going from the accepted interpretation of the Constitution, the law here is very clear. Powers with which Powers is not explicitly empowered are powers Powers should not have.” According to Zax, the most likely form the opposition will take is the oft-used but little-known BoE filibuster. Adding to the confusion of these dreaded filibusters, which work much the same as they do in the US Congress, is that the random, incoherent babblings of Board members on the floor are often indistinguishable from the regular discussions that occur at their meetings, and that filibusters can themselves be filibustered, a level of recursive insanity even our own national government has never embraced. “I’ve seen it all,” said one Board member speaking to me in a dark alley through a Darth Vader voice mask to protect his identity. “Filibusters, filibustering filibusters before they get off the ground, filibusters within filibusters...we once had a chain of filibusters seven deep, but we only remembered to officially end six of them. For a whole year, all our discussions were unofficial because they took place inside of a filibuster … by the time we noticed, no one could even remember what our last official act had actually been or what was being protested. We got even less work done than usual that year.” Zax expects that Powers will give a formal presentation to the BoE on April 9, the day of their next meeting, but will be continuously rebuffed until he either gives up or somehow convinces a two-thirds majority of the board members to vote down the filibuster. “They could do anything, really, if they’re committed to stopping Powers,” said Zax. “But I think they’ll get creative. Powers is a well known New York Mets fan...all anyone The Tattler is the student-run has to do is turn on the Mets game that night newspaper of Ithaca High School. The Tattler was founded in 1892, and provide a running commentary. Eventuand is published monthly. ally it’ll get too painful for him and he’ll let it go.” As an open forum, The Powers held a brief press conference on Tattler invites submissions of March 27, revealing his proposal to the genopinion pieces and letters to eral public without going into any specifics. the editor from all members The press was open to ask questions afterof the community. Drop off ward, perhaps the most important of which submissions in H134, e-mail them to editor@ihstattler.com. was this: would Powers ever consider creating Associate Associate Associate Principals? Letters can be mailed to “No, of course not. That’d be crazy,” he reThe IHS Tattler plied curtly.
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April Fools, 2013
Supersizing Classes: Such a Bad Thing? By CLEVER NAME
Recession. Budget cuts. Fewer staff members. Higher course loads. All of these are contributing to larger class sizes, to the chagrin of many. In recent years, 30 students in a classroom has gone from unthinkable to unchallenged reality. But I ask you: are larger classes really a bad thing? Let’s look at the facts. In statistics, there’s a phenomenon called the miracle of aggregation: if you ask a large number of people what they think about something, the average answer is startlingly accurate, regardless of how erroneous the individual responses are. Ask 100 people on the street how many jelly beans are in a jar, and you can get within about five beans of the correct answer. If there are 4,000 beans, some people will guess 400 and others will guess 40,000 - but in the end it all works out. Similarly, in an election, even if only 10 percent of voters know what each candidate stands for, on average the uninformed 90 percent will split evenly and the 10 percent will tip the election in the better candidate’s favor. (Incidentally, this might be what’s actually been going on in recent years in America.) This is how I get answers to hard questions on math tests: I wander around the room and see what everyone else put for that question, then average everything together and write it down. I’m always spot-on, and my teacher doesn’t suspect a thing. Ask yourself: do you want me to fail math? One common objection to large class sizes is that they mean students can’t interact well with their teachers. But you know what? I don’t really like talking to my teachers anyway. The more people in the room, the less of my precious time I have to waste learning about direct objects and subordinate clauses, or spend discussing my “unacceptable behavior” and “poor attitude” with Mrs. Funkiller. Plus, with the teacher’s attention elsewhere I can use English class for what it was really made for - good ol’ fashioned spitballs. All students who want to remain sane use school as a way to socialize with their friends and catch up on hot new celebrity gossip. If classes are small, there’s a lower chance I’ll have friends to talk to and a higher chance I’ll get caught when I’m doing it. I hope no one seriously expects me to waste an entire Physics class learning about conservation of energy when I could be getting the latest update on Brangelina or the scandalous news about what Brittany said Stacey wore to the party at Mike’s house last weekend. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t much.) Don’t become just one more in the ever growing mob of sheeple when it comes to the class size issue. Thirty students in a room? Why not 40? Why not 100? If my math class can still fit inside the gym, there aren’t enough students. If that doesn’t work, move it to Kulp. If it’s not so packed that people are suffocating, there’s room for more, and fire codes be damned.
Distorting our Geometry and Our Lives: Failures of Aesthetic Geometry BY Peter “the” Friend “of the people”
Our school has made great strides towards becoming a campus that is both welcoming and relevant to modern life. However, in contrast to this forward-thinking approach are the increasingly out-oftouch buildings. Well-known school lore attributes the design of the campus buildings to architects from California, but leaves out that architecture firm Perkins+Will earned a reputation back in 1940, when guns were made above Fall Creek and the Axis was bombing Europe. Seventy-two years later, we cannot afford the limitations imposed by the spaces in which we work. Our campus is full of promises implied and broken, undermining the confidence in structures critical to our school. The “Quad” not only fails to be a rectangle, the shape implied by a cursory examination of the space, but it fails to be any kind of four-sided shape at all. Instead, a pustule, a pair of science classrooms, protrudes in from one corner. The classroom of the legendary Cass Petrillose spoils the geometric purity and forces a less-than-ideal distribution of tables around the so-called quad. The table displaced by the protrusion from its natural position, as far away from the other tables as possible, illustrates the broader displacement of healthy corners and geometric purities that takes place within the campus. The architectural culture, helpless before structures of rigid, concrete tradition, does little to protect students. We are accustomed to thinking of our campus as composed of “buildings,” but a careful examination will reveal that different lobes of the single rambling structure are actually connected by arteries of ramps and stairways. Their obvious function is providing nourishing foot traffic to the tumorous outcroppings of “buildings.” However, these connections also serve to gird the campus with restrictive ramparts, a far cry from the liberal design ideologies espoused by “award-winning” architects who specialize in “sustainable” design. Even extending the benefit of the doubt to what a more suspicious mind would label as architecturally determinist attempts to separate students from the world outside, it is difficult to understand why the administration allows this state of affairs to continue. Students cannot be expected to focus on their studies while isolated inside a bubble of unreality where shapes as simple as a rectangle are corrupted with impunity. In fact, the buildings of campus are strangely exempt from the oversight normally provided by school employees and policy. Although recent construction has offered slight reprieve, it has now created a broader asymmetry in the campus, in that only the new Kulp music building is an aesthetically acceptable environment. This progress needs to be replicated across the rest of the campus before we can have an environment that is wholesome, symmetric, and healthy.
April Fools, 2013
IHS to Burn Down Hallway Between Cafeteria and G-Building
By TAIO CRUZ
“I couldn’t get to class on time - there was too much traffic.” “Why are there so many people in this tiny hallway?” “We should find the architect and compliment his ingenuity and creativity,” said everyone when questioned about the narrow tunnel between the library, cafeteria, and G-building. In a surprisingly sudden move, the Board of Education (BoE) has responded to the complaints and announced the destruction of this hallway. Why, you might ask? To fully understand this solution, we need to look back to IHS’s early history. IHS was founded in 1875, succeeding the Ithaca Academy. In 1885, a new building was constructed to update the Ithaca Academy, but fortunately it burned down on February 14, 1912. (Unfortunately, the 100th year commemoration ceremony for this event was postponed due to budget cuts.) In 1914, Ithaca High School reopened in a new building, now known as the Dewitt Mall, downtown. Our present school was opened in fall of 1960. There were many concerns with the new building, but they were all successfully resolved. The “floodplain”-like land upon which IHS was built was dealt with by elevating buildings above high water levels. Unfortunately, the
school asked high school mathematics students to find the possible water levels (comma intentional). Long story short, they entered the numbers into the calculator incorrectly, thus letting E building double as a river in times of need. Some thought the building was too enclosed. The initial floor plan was a collection of squares with rectangles between them, cleverly drawn by a second-grader. Critics loved the game plan, giving it 28% on Rotten Tomatoes, but believed that the squares were too simple. In fact, Peter Bradshaw called it three things: “A barf-inducer. A hurl-promoter. A projectile-vomitstimulator.” The architect counteracted this by hollowing out the inside of G-building and filling this area with trees, park benches, and the sky. Today, the area has multiple uses: fake fire exit, storing a roofed volleyball, helicopter entrance, and absolutely nothing. “What is it good for?“ “Absolutely nothing!” Upstairs K was another concern. The architect, in the late 1950s, anticipated much racism and discrimination against other languages due to World War II. Americans hated the Germans for their attempt to rule the world. Society was not content with the French because many believed that the French
gg-ed too early. Americans hated Spanish because the Mexicans spoke Spanish. They disliked the Mexicans because, well... did I say they spoke Spanish? As a result, upstairs K was created to store materials for foreign language classes. When the xenophobic feelings subsided, resources were brought back to the ground floor and the use of upstairs K was discontinued. You can still visit upstairs K today by climbing the stairs near York Lecture Hall. Finally, everything was decided except for hallway width. The designers had procrastinated dealing with this concern until the very end; basically, they didn’t care anymore. “All we wanna do is... make a funnel, know what I mean? Like, let’s make a large protrusion in the three-way intersection! Just... just cause! I saw it once on the internets,” the architect intelligently remarked. The principal at the time, Parett Jowers, supported this statement. “In the worst case scenario, having too many people per hallway, IHS will kick out students as necessary,” he said. Incidentally, this coincided with the founding of LACS and New Roots. The BoE has had no problems with floodplain land, random open spaces, and upstairs K in the past half-century. But, recent student unrest expressed in school newspapers raised enough attention for acting on the issue of narrow hallways. The school hopes that, by destroying the hallway, students will relate to and approve of the BoE’s past and future decisions. It has been made clear that there will be no talk of replacing the destroyed sections. As of now, plans are to just leave empty space there, as it has worked well in G-building. There is a chance that Associate Associate Principals (AAPs) will replace it with underground tunnels, but it is not certain yet. (See other articles for more information.) The dynamite explosions will occur on Twensday, April 31st, 2013. Please bring your own hard hats and pitchforks.
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April Fools, 2013
IHS Snack Overhaul: Eliminating Sugar, Chocolate By MIKE N. IKE
Over the past year, ICSD school lunches have seen a makeover - portion sizes have changed, new recipes have been introduced in partnership with Cayuga Pure Organics and the Moosewood Restaurant, and fruits and vegetables have now become mandatory. But more changes are in store: to comply with the newly introduced federal Junk-Food Free School Act, Ithaca City schools will join the 80% of school districts that have either restricted or banned sugary drinks, and the more than 75% that have some kind of limit or ban on snack foods. The act has seen fierce criticism from the soft drink industry, which claims that its products “can be a part of a healthy diet. Highquality sugar and corn syrup, of the kind found in Coca-Cola and Sprite, have been linked to higher energy levels -certainly something our schoolchildren need,” according to an industry spokesperson. What does this mean for IHS students? The first visible shifts will be in vending machine options - cookies, sodas, candy, and the like will be phased out and replaced with new products. Snacks under consideration include Cauliflower Nibblets, Veggiez-brand Vacuum Fried Okra, Crunch-Dried Corn, and chia seed pudding cups. Fundraisers, traditionally of the Gertrude Hawk variety, will now have to meet the new guidelines as well. Options include selling tofurky jerky, coconut kale chips, and raw gluten-free sugar-free “chocolate” bars. The benefits of the change will be farreaching, according to Principal Powers: “IHS is taking a leading role in halting the obesity epidemic sweeping the nation, one vegan soy-nut crisp at a time.”
Robert Tuori To Retire In June After A Long Haul of “Surely’s” and “Shouldn’t You ’s” better choice for me,” said Tuori. By SHOOD N. CHU
After 15 years of teaching at IHS, beloved chemistry teacher Robert Tuori declared his impending retirement last week. He hails from Syracuse, New York, and since his first day, IHS students have been enjoying learning chemistry from a teacher who many refer to as “The Great One”. When he announced his retirement, the question on everyone’s mind was, “Why?” Tuori replied by saying that a few years back, he began work on his own virtual learning program, TuoriChem. The software he developed is similar to Rosetta Stone, but instead of teaching language, it’s meant to teach chemistry to students of all ages and levels. TuoriChem not only teaches the user chemistry by presenting slides of information, but also makes the student answer questions as he or she is taking notes. The software is even able to give feedback on the response using as few words as possible, allowing for the student to maintain an efficient pace throughout the course. This software is Tuori’s ticket to easy living, as within his first year, he raked in over half a million dollars in sales to school districts around the country interested in cutting teacher salaries and replacing classes with online learning. A special contract with ICSD has prevented the district from replacing Tuori with his own software. “Teaching is great, but the guys at the country club said retiring was surely the
Ever since his arrival, he has been influential in the lives of many students by starting trends left and right. Most recently, IHS students have begun initiating over 40% of their statements with “surely” and ending them, 67% of the time, with “Can’t you see.” Even some teachers have grown accustomed to Tuoriitish, Tuori’s second language. In one famous incident from a few years back, a student in an English class foolishly answered a question with a question. The teacher responded, “Nooo! You can’t just answer a question with a question! Answer with an answer, with conviction!” “As influential as I am, I think I should probably retire,” said Tuori. When asked about his plans for retirement, he revealed that he wants to open up a liquid nitrogen ice cream shop on the Commons. He’ll hire staff to operate the counter while he makes the ice cream in the back. “It’s always been my dream to sell frozen goods to strangers,” he noted. He has yet to come up with a name for his new venue, but came up with several slogans. “Oh yeah, slogans,” he said. “So far I am leaning towards ‘About 20 mL of Chemistry in Every Scoop!’ but ‘Ice Cream. Isn’t that nice?’ is a close second.” “I know I’m retiring and all, but just rinse out the glassware after I’m gone, would you,” he added as a last request. Of course, it’s sad to see a great teacher go, but so are many things in the great Erlenmeyer flask of life.
April Fools, 2013
PHOTO/\PROVIDED
Construction of Underground Tunnels at IHS Is Underway
By KAT A. COMB
IHS will be installing tunnels underneath the halls of the school in order to create more space in the halls between classes. After multiple nervous breakdowns by students having to squeeze their way to class everyday, it was clear to the administration that something needed to be done to fix this major problem. At the recent Board of Education (BoE) meeting, the Board decided that the only feasible option at this point was to create another walkway. This was a major concern for many teachers, as they believed it would cause a disturbance to classes but the administration stated that they would attempt to complete construction over the summer and if that plan falls through, they will meet again to decide how to further proceed. The complaint started when many students became inconsiderate about conversing in the halls. Not only did students stop, but they did so in the intersections. This got out of hand as students would say things such as, “L-o-l, why are we even standing here?” and, “Why is everyone so pushy?” Fellow students were unable to handle this, filing more complaints than The Tattler publishes about the uselessness of SMARTBoards. Finally, the administration was unable to ignore the problem for any longer. Parents have already begun to worry about the safety hazard of having a tunnel under the school building. There will be mandatory assemblies teaching students how to evacuate in case of an emergency and waivers signed by students and parents as to keep the schools from getting sued for the harm that may come as a result. The administration has no comment at this time, as they are too busy dealing with the protests from the community.
Teachers Given Guns to Improve School Safety By P.F. CHANG
Sanity has been restored at IHS, as teachers will soon be issued firearms in an effort to improve the safety of our school community. In a recent Board of Education decision, the school district decided to follow the lead of Wisconsin State Rep. Frank Lasee, who recently introduced legislation to allow teachers to carry concealed weapons. “I want to end the turkey shoots that go on in our schools,” said Lasee. “These high school students are bigger than they’ve ever been.” The board will base its guidelines on the Student to Teacher Ununiformed Protection and Instigated Defense model, or STUPID, published by the NRA. Gun types will range from handguns, to semi-automatic assault rifles, so watch out pass-less hall wanderers! Bunkers are likely to be installed in lieu of desks, and the golf carts that we have seen roaming campus will now be military-issued tanks. Weekly staff meetings have now been replaced with mandatory trips to the firing range, where many teachers will attempt to raise their level of gun handling proficiency to passable before the next day’s classes. Wearing bright colors to school is now strongly discouraged, as some of our jumpier teachers may be startled and fire on an unarmed student. Such precautions aside, many school officials have expressed a feeling of increased safety while walking through the halls. Said one, “Yeah, I think we’re safer. I mean belly-down, army-crawling through the halls I feel 80-85% sure that I won’t be hit by an accidentally fired round, and I’m 100% sure that I won’t be hit by a round fired by someone not employed by the district. That’s what I call progress.” Many other officials have expressed similar sentiments. This policy should put into effect in the coming weeks, and students should be on the lookout for newly armed educators.
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April Fools, 2013
By TYE NIDAN CZAR
At the latest Site-Based Council meeting held on March 7 in the Library, IHS’s administrative team stunned the entire room with an announcement: grinding will be permitted at all future school dances, including both Junior and Senior prom. “We’re willing to compromise,” said Associate Principal (AP) Samantha Little at the meeting. “Students have started listening to us ... Attendance rates have gone up by 15%, and at recent dances, the dress code has been of little to no concern.” The school administration then went on to quickly add that they will revoke this right if things “get out of control again” -- i.e., if attendance rates start to drop, the dress code becomes an issue at dances, or fights break out among students in school.
In addition, Principal Jarett Powers mentioned at the meeting that if anything beyond grinding is seen on the dance floor, students will be asked to call their caregivers and leave. “We’ll let you boogie woogie, jam with your friends, and have a good time,” said Powers. “But I don’t need to see you exchanging saliva with your significant other.” At a recent PTA meeting, a parent addressed this issue with grave concern, holding that grinding is “an inappropriate, overtly sexual dance” that can only negatively impact students. The parent, who prefers to remain anonymous, alleged that IHS health teachers strive to educate their students on sex, and allowing such inappropriate conduct can only hinder their understanding of the topic. Another parent, however, challenged this remark with the “free country, free people”
PHOTO/\TESSA PARRISH
YOU CAN GRIND, WE WON’T MIND Administration Permits Grinding For All Future IHS Dances
argument, arousing a crowd of parents and a few teachers who chimed in with agreement. However, The Board of Education (BoE) stands without comment on the issue, as they believe it is solely under IHS’s policy wing. “We don’t like it,” said one Board member. “But what can we do about it? It’s the school’s responsibility to know what is best for their students, and if they think this is right, then so be it.” At the Site-Based Council meeting, details on Senior and Junior prom were also revealed. Senior prom will take place on Saturday, May 11 at the Farmer’s Market from 8 - 11 PM with the Gunpoets, a local band, performing. Junior Prom will be taking place on April 27 at IHS with a DJ and a starry night theme.
Section Feature: Feature Section After the widely successful Teacher Features, we decided to feature sections as well. Every month, we’ll give you a snapshot of the paper’s finest section.
Section Feature: Feature Section After the widely successful Teacher Features, we decided to feature sections as well. Every month, we’ll give you a snapshot of the paper’s finest section.
Section Feature: Feature Section After the widely successful Teacher Features, we decided to feature sections as well. Every month, we’ll give you a snapshot of the paper’s finest section.
Section Feature: Feature Section After the widely successful Teacher Features, we decided to feature sections as well. Every month, we’ll give you a snapshot of the paper’s finest section.
April Fools, 2013
Ithaca High School Opens Qatar Campus PHOTO/\ISTVAN BURBANK
By J-roh
Pressured by fiscal problems, IHS has finally joined the race by many academic institutions for oil money in the Middle East, becoming the first American high school to open a branch there. The news was announced at the end of the March 12 Board of Education (BoE) meeting, after most of the attendees, including this intrepid reporter, had already left. The Board turned down a request for comment at this time, but one month before the official opening, Dr. Luvelle Brown agreed to discuss plans for the new campus. Intrepid Reporter: What course offerings will be offered at the Qatar Campus? Luvelle Brown: Every single course currently at Ithaca High School will be offered at the Qatar campus. As part of a secret clause on an employment contract that was never agreed to, teachers will be required to teach their classes in both Ithaca and Qatar. Intrepid Reporter: How can teachers teach in two places at once? LB: That’s certainly impossible! But remember that Qatari time is around eight or nine hours offset from Ithaca time. That means that teachers will have a whole hour between the end of the school day in Qatar and the start of the school day in Ithaca. Intrepid Reporter: Does the district plan to build a CaliforniaStyle campus in Qatar? LB: Of course, it seems to be working so well in Ithaca, and the weather is not so different. Intrepid Reporter: Have you noticed that Qatar is twice as hot and has no water?
LB: On the Kelvin scale, Qatar is actually only ten percent warmer than Ithaca. However, the lack of water is something of a concern. That reminds me; the only planned difference between the curriculums of both campuses is that no swimming will be offered in Qatar. Intrepid Reporter: And what is planned instead of swimming? LB: Sandboarding and camel racing will be the new required activities to pass physical education. Intrepid Reporter: Have you considered that many students will want to transfer to the Qatar campus to avoid the swimming requirement? LB: This problem dominated the discussion at the board. However, I am confident that once the camels start biting, students at the Qatar campus will be the ones asking for a transfer.
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IHS To Field USA Olympic Tchoukball Team By NOTTA SPORT
In recent decades, professional sports have become increasingly boring to watch. Any red-blooded American will tell you that soccer is a wimp’s sport, with players faking injuries just to be awarded penalties – the only legitimate injury ever suffered by a soccer player is broken pride. And even the great American sports of football and baseball are not without their faults, with actual playtime taking up less than 10 percent of a broadcast. What sport will replace these old-fashioned, out-of-touch failures? Tchoukball. Tchouckball (pronounced “JUKEball,” or “choke-ball” if you’re making fun of it) was developed by a Swiss biologist named Hermann Brandt during the 1970s – you know it’s a good game because biologists tend to know a lot about competitive sports. Brandt was concerned that sports were too focused on creating one champion, although they should attempt to foster communal harmony. Tchoukball is then the ideal game; competitors often report profound spiritual awakenings after games, akin to those experienced by born-again Christians. All this new-agey hippyism perfectly set the stage for tchoukball’s introduction in Ithaca. After Ithaca’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics fell flat, with the Olympic committee expressing concern that it would snow during the Games, our beloved town set out to be the little town that could – and recruit the best tchoukball team the world’s ever seen. Farming only local talent, Ithaca hopes to take the gold. Our team won’t have much competition, as no other countries are expected to have even heard of tchoukball by the next Olympics. “Tchoukball is the kind of hippy socialist innovation that couldn’t have been played in America without our losing face during the Cold War,” said Jane Bryant, IHS gym teacher and key tchoukball proponent. “But now we can really let our standards go. We’re also anticipating fielding a winning
Olympic Paint Drying team for 2020.” The rules of tchoukball are logical and simple and can be picked up easily by tchoukball novices (affectionately called “little tchouks”). There are two trampolinelike goals at each end of the court, which is typically about a third the size of a football field in both length and width. Each goal has a small, half-circle “forbidden area” with a radius of about 10 feet around it. Teams may score at either goal by hitting the goal’s netting with a ball and having it rebound on the ground outside the forbidden zone (without the defensive team catching it in the air). In addition, a team can lose possession when any of twelve fouls occurs: • The ball hits the ground during a pass. • The defensive team intercepts a pass, intentionally or not. Yep, the teams are actually not allowed to interact at all with each other, except for catching rebound goal attempts. Pretty awesome, huh? • Any player takes more than three steps while in possession of the ball. • The ball touches any player below the knees. • The ball is held for more than three seconds. • The offensive team makes more than three passes between shots. • Anyone goes out of bounds while holding the ball. • The ball hits the metal edge of the frame when shot. • Anyone in possession of the ball steps inside a forbidden zone. • There are four successive shots taken at one frame. Simple, right? Tchoukball has already been phased into the gym curriculum, replacing three weeks that could be spent doing something students could enjoy more. Promising players will be shipped off to work camps in the countryside for the next four years, where they will hone their tchoukball skills and repress any emotions that could get in the way at a critical moment in the Olympics.
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April Fools, 2013
Poor Building Layout May Give Students New Way to Receive Gym Credit By LAY Z. BUMM
Over the past few years at IHS, gym requirements for athletes have been hotly debated because of the inherent unfairness of having them do an extra hour of gym in addition to their daily hours of practices and games, meets, and matches. State policies have so far prevented any change in the Physical Education (PE) system, but a far greater gym class injustice has recently come to light, one that affects several hundred members of the student body. It is well known that students walking between classes in E-building and Kbuilding must move very quickly to avoid being tardy. According to a recent study conducted by scientists at the University of Limmeridge, students under 5’10” walking between the two buildings get nearly as much exercise as they would during an entire gym period, just from trying to be on time. Taking this startling evidence into account has led the PE department
to consider an obvious resolution: starting next year, gym classes will be optional for students who are 5’10” or shorter and are forced to make the grueling trek at any time during the day. But don’t get too excited yet, fellow couch potatoes. In order to receive this credit, students would have to either skip the entire way to class or stop every ten steps to do five jumping jacks. The PE department is still working out the kinks of this plan; for example, the entrance to Fhallway would not be an ideal place to start doing jumping jacks between classes. The possibility of receiving gym credit for this rather pedestrian activity has led to a surge of suggestions for other alternatives to traditional PE credit. One idea that gained support was to install monkey bars in the ceilings throughout the school, but it was immediately rejected by the Board of Education (BoE) because of structural complications. The BoE also turned down a proposal to replace traditional desks
with treadmills that students could use while receiving instruction, citing high equipment costs. “We need to spend our money on really important things, like putting SmartBoards in English classrooms,” said one BoE member. As for how successful this new plan will be, there’s only one way of finding out: testing and tracking results. “It’s bound to be a scientific process,” said Deborah Lynn, a Physics teacher whose location in E-building means students often enter her class late or severely out of breath. “It’ll take a lot of work, but I think with a little data-based tweaking, we could really make this happen. Where we are now, students are being tasked with an unreasonable responsibility and receiving absolutely no recognition for it. And the worst part is, they don’t get a chance to learn about fascinating results like Gauss’s Law because they’re too busy passing out from exhaustion.”
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