LIFE
PAGE 5 Lef t: Emily McPha rlin tore bot h ACLs. To f ind out more, go to page 5.
NORTH
EMILY MCPHARLIN
EMILY MCPHARLIN
GROSSE POINTE NORTH HIGH SCHOOL
POINTE WEDNESDAY, MAY 11, 2016
SINCE 1968
Selling notes breaches academic integrity By Anu Subramaniam
SENIOR ASSISTANT EDITOR
down if you have it and not actually learning the material, so I feel like it’s more dangerous to the student themselves than others,” Lauren said. “I would never send a binder full of tests. It justs puts students at an unfair disadvantage.” To prevent such transactions from impacting the academic integrity in a classroom, Murray has encouraged teachers to take precautions. However, acknowledging that all teachers don’t change tests from year-to-year, Murray believes the integrity of the classroom depends on the integrity of the students in it. “We constantly ask teachers to get thoughtful and reflective about their instructional practice and make revisions yearly to support the learning of the specific students in front of them,” Murray said. Science teacher Jaime Hainer collects her tests after debriefing with students to ensure that other students can’t gain an unfair advantage. In her physics classes, students are allowed to reassess, but their tests cannot leave the classroom.
On test day, after finishing an exam you worked hard for, you debrief with other students only to find that one of them had an old copy of the test that came with a binder they got from a friend. The five hours of studying that went into preparing for the test, down the drain. Quizlet, study guides, textbooks and highlighters were all involved, but paled in comparison to a copy of the actual test. Giving another student access to an old binder that contains homework and tests violates the school’s honor code. The first line of the honor code— that each student must sign during registration—says students signed a pledge of academic integrity confirming that the assignments they submit are their own creation. Senior Lauren Lesha and her sister junior Lindsay Lesha share each other’s notes to supplement their own work. Lauren thinks having another set of notes enhances her individual studying. “A lot of the notes are very similar, like when she’s in class and stuff,” Lauren said. “But some of the times we have had different teachers, and you know there is a certain way one teacher explains something, and I’ll have that in my notes, and it will click with her, so I think it’s just a different perspective.” Principal Kate Murray says that using someone else’s notes as your own work violates the academic integrity pledge. However, she does think that there is a difference between copying and supplementing. “I think that using someone else’s work and then claiming it as your own would be a breach of the pledge of academic integrity,” Murray said. “I think there is a difference between using someone else’s notes and collaborating with someone.” Lauren feels that giving her notes to Lindsay eases the process for Lindsay to understand. Lindsay doesn’t think it’s the notes themselves that help her but the extra help and the working with other students. “(It’s) not necessarily getting other students’ notes (that help),” Lindsay said. “But when I don’t understand the material in school, I find it very helpful to ask other students to tutor me in that subject.” Lauren believes that using notes or old binders in any other way gives students an unfair advantage over others who don’t have the same resources. She also sees using old notes and homework instead of one’s own as harmful to one’s study habits. “I think that a lot of times reliance builds up on just copying homework
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ANU SUBRAMANIAM PIXABAY.COM
Restricted sites pose learning challenges By Rey Kam, Darcy Graham & Olivia Robinson SENIOR ASSISTANT EDITORS & STAFF REPORTER
For students who rely on the school’s Wi-Fi server for projects, research papers and information, new roadblocks may slow their learning. Recently, because of periodic changes to statewide regulations, more websites have been blocked, regardless of their educational purpose. Blocks are implemented to keep students from visiting inappropriate or harmful sites during school hours. However, in the past such obstacles have caused problems for students who need these blocked sites for educational purposes. When senior Malik Lowman had a research project due, he depended on the Wi-Fi servers at school to maximize his productivity. But when he encountered blocked sites that his teacher told him to use, he had to turn his project in late because of the added time it took to reach the Websites the teacher instructed him to use. “I had to go through back ways to get the research for it because the websites I needed for research were blocked so (the project) ended up being late,” Lowman said. Senior Annie Thoits suffered from similar problems when websites she needed were blocked. “Our teacher assigns a thing to go to, and then you can’t get on it because it’s blocked by the school, but it’s an educational site,” Thoits said. “The teachers
have to take time out of class to find a way to get around it.” North’s network administrator Mark Trupkovich, both validates and sees room for improvement regarding the censorship restrictions. “The blocking is helpful because we’re required by state law to have a content filter. It can’t just be wide open Internet, so we have to abide by the law or the state will come down on the school system,” Trupkovich said. “It’s the categories that sometimes get changed, where if we’re made aware of a particular website that you can’t get to, we’ll look into it. I really want to stress that, that we need to be notified (of blocked sites that shouldn’t be blocked) otherwise, we don’t know.” The blocked websites are placed into categories that are deemed inappropriate for students in a school setting. If a Website contains images or words that fall under a specific category, it will be blocked. “Categories would be advertisement, adult content, obviously violence, guns, bomb making, things like that, classified ads, lingerie. If you wanted to go to Vic-
IDEAS - PAGE 7
toria’s Secret, that would fall in the category of lingerie,” Trupkovich said. “If that particular category is blocked by our content filter, that website’s not gonna get through. If we have classified ads as a category that’s blocked, if you try to go on Craigslist or Autotrader those are going to be blocked because that content is in the content filter.” However, some sites are blocked accidently by the server. But when a student does encounter a website that is inadvertently blocked, there are steps available so that student may still reach the website. Social studies teacher Andrew Taylor frequently uses websites in class to aid class discussion. He has encountered blocked sites that get in the way of learning and has had to find how to access them. “Teachers can request for them to get unblocked,” Taylor said. “So if there is a website that really is the best one for that source, then the student should let the teacher know, and the teacher can get it unblocked. When the teachers log into a blocked site, there’s a link that we can re-
quest for it to get unblocked, and they’re usually fairly quick about unblocking them the same day.” Website blocking is meant to be helpful. However, the harm can come when the server automatically blocks websites mandatory for student education. To fix this, students can also tell administrators when a website shouldn’t be blocked for educational purposes. The school will be able to unblock mandatory websites manually, although it doesn’t have control of the websites that get blocked accidentally in the first place. While, Taylor is in favor of blocking sites, he would like to see the list kept to a minimum. He also feels it’s up to the teacher to make those accommodations available, concerning blocked sites that a student may need, “Maybe the real problem is that the students don’t know if it really is an essential site that the teacher needs to know should be unblocked,” Taylor said. “Teachers need to tell their students that if it’s something you need to use at school and it’s not working, we can unblock it.”
CAITLIN BUSH
SPORTS PAGE 10
“A cursory examination of big-ticket films repeatedly leaves people of color standing a conspicuous shoulder behind the whiter protagonists.”
Junior Chris Cameron is early to play hockey. See page 10 to find out more.
IDEAS - PAGE 9
“I’m preaching about self-love while practicing self-hate.”
CHRIS CAMERON
@thenorthpointe www.northpointenow.org
VOLUME 48 | ISSUE 14
News | 2 Calendar | 3
On Campus | 4 Life | 5
In-Depth| 6 On Pointe| 7
Reviews | 8 Editorial| 9
Sports | 10-11 PTB | 12