Mariana's Articles

Fighting Facebook By; Mariana Alfaro

Facebook is the only place were it is okay to talk to a wall. A network that is literally taking over the lives of people all over the world, Facebook is now playing a role in our community, a role it didn’t have less than six years ago. Few people knew about Facebook until recently. When members of the class of 2014 started using Facebook, just about 5-7% of the total class population owned a profile. Today, at least 98% of the freshmen have a facebook account. Although this access facilitates traits in our lives, Facebook is poisoning aspects that shouldn’t be affected. Academic achievements, society in general, respect and honesty bonds are being broken apart thanks to this and other social networks. We have recently talked with High School Administrators to get their opinion about Facebook, and how they feel about its new role on our daily lives. High School teachers were recently made a recommendation of not accepting any student as a Facebook Friend. Why? “We did not want to complicate things by teachers saying, you know, information that’s more personal… For example parties or whatever it is, which is purely personal and should not related one to the other,” said Mr. Sinclair. An issue last year brought the concern of everybody on the administration when a teacher was cyber-bullied by their students. The recent recommendation was stated because the school leaders want to avoid the repetition of such incidents. High School Dean of Students, Mrs. Blanca Monge, stated in a recent interview that Facebook is a “nice way to connect with friends and family but it’s dangerous if you are not aware of its dangers and what you are letting in.” Mrs. Monge is right in every sense, for Facebook helps you embrace relationships that would be lost without the network, but is a very dangerous tool in terms of privacy. There have been cases in which Facebook has led to kidnapping, rape,

even death, just because of the user’s lack of security. A very infamous example of this happened in Massachusetts early this January. A 15-years-old, known as Phoebe Prince, was found dead in her home. Classmates stated that Prince had been cyber bullied, harassed, and bothered non-stop since she had moved to town earlier that summer. Even after her death, students continued posting snide remarks, taunting comments, and rude words on a memorial page dedicated to her on this network. If you are really worried by now that Facebook and other sites are hazardous, maybe even lethal, stop. Facebook can only be a menace when used in a wrong way, just like basically everything else in the world. In Mr. Ken Templeton’s words “Cars are legal but the misuse of cars may constitute a crime… Or even this stapler! Now, if I staple your finger, that would have bad consequences.” So if you want keep your life out of jeopardy, be Facebook-safe. Follow the ten steps at the end of this article to be sure you are doing okay on this and other sites. As Mr. Erazo acknowledged, “Privacy is the main issue here”. Students have to know that every time they post something stupid or unwise on Facebook, they are not only making themselves fools, but they are also giving of a bad image of Escuela Americana, and that is truly unfair, because some people really work hard to make this school keep the wonderful reputation it has. Mr. Erazo said that “students should know that we have to protect each other ... There are limits between students and adults. We have to keep respect.” It might be hard to stop yourself from posting something perhaps really funny on Facebook, but every time you find yourself in such situations, think about the consequences it might bring not only to you, but to the other 1,500 children in Escuela Americana.

Top Ten Ways to be Facebook Safe 10. Monitor suspicious activities and links – If sneaky you catches some of your Facebook “friends” doing treacherous activities that may be dangerous not only to them but to other people, don’t hesitate and tell a trustable adult. 9. Remove inappropriate friends – i.e.: People you don’t even know or random businesses that added you because they didn’t know how to create a fan page 8. Keep your wall clean – Remove inappropriate wall posts or spam links 7. Turn off Facebook Chat or block contacts you are not “comfortable” talking to – Avoid CyberBullying 6. Change your password often – It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say every week 5. Don’t share your password – Oh please don’t even tell your boyfriend

4. Hide everything - your birthday, education, employer, hometown, phone number, email, family members, pets, your zodiac sign, even your shoe size. 3. Keep your private info private – Not everybody has to know where you and your friends are hanging out on Friday or what the cute guy said to you three months ago 2. Don’t go around wasting your time on fictional farms, stores, restaurants, pets, mafias, etc, because A.) Nobody really cares, you are wasting your time B.) Duh you are not making real money and C.) You are risking a lot - Facebook applications get access to your information 1. Protect your mobile device – in this BlackBerry/iPhone era, protect your device following all the guidelines above and often check the settings on your phone to check that everything is going all right and you are not being hacked.

It’s The BlackBerry Domination

Editorial by Mariana Alfaro

Upper School (EA) - It’s two fifty-nine. You pack your bags and listen to the afternoon announcements. You flash a smile to your friends as the teacher wishes you a happy weekend. The bell rings, you stand up, walk down the hallway, and give casual looks and smiles at other peers when you suddenly realize– Why does everyone have the exact same phone?

It’s the BlackBerry Domination. Since older generations, Escuela Americana has been full of trends. Whether it was a huge afro back in the eighties or Silly Bandz, once someone has started it, everybody follows it. That is just school stuff, right? Wrong. The huge trend today is having a BlackBerry phone. True; a BlackBerry keeps you connected with everything and everyone everywhere. It has hundreds of (perhaps) useful applications and some even say it makes your life easier but, is it worth the fuss? Let’s check the statistics. An estimated 75% of Freshmen have a BlackBerry phone. Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors make a much bigger number. Blackberrys are useful Smartphones that may help you get organized and connected… When you know how to use them correctly. There should be no surprise when it is stated that teens loose incredible amounts of time on Facebook, MSN, Twitter, BBM, or whatever social network you use on your phone. This time could be used on studying for exams or doing homework. It’s interesting the way it can take teenagers hours to start doing their homework, but just a few minutes after the end-of-the-day-bell to take out their phones and iPods or other and start socializing. Don’t you think it is ironic that BlackBerrys are meant to bring people together but actually make them drift apart? This is due to the fact that Blackberries, Facebook, Twitter, etc, make it easier to talk through a machine than face-to-face. If we set our minds past EA trends, we will find a very long list of useless, worthless objects that at that time were very important and necessary. For example, in Lower School, everyone had LIVESTRONG bands. Maybe you remember the Twilight-Mania two years ago, when almost every girl read the series. There was a time when everybody had a Jansport bag, and that is still in today. The Barca-Real competition was also a huge hit back in the Lower School. The short-skirt issue can also be called a tendency. Trends are meant to be followed, true, but people should be original in some other ways. It is cool to have a BlackBerry, there is nothing wrong with it, but if you just want a BlackBerry just because everybody else has one…Then it kind of takes the fun out of it.

The popular use of SmartPhones has reached the classrooms, converting it into a huge trend, almost an epidemic.

The next time you want to tell your closest friend something really important, think if it would be different to tell them face-to-face rather than through BlackBerry Messenger, or through whatever social network you use.

Tips for Teachers Hi there, teachers! This column features advice and tips we know students are dying to tell you, but are embarrassed to ask you. The top advice for this edition are:

1. Please, if a student behaved terribly, terribly bad in a class, don’t blame it on all of us, and our break. We only get fifteen minutes to chill, eat something, talk for a while, and stretch before another three hours of class, and really sitting there for five, ten extra minutes makes us grumpy. If you are going to blame someone, blame the student responsible, not all of us.

2. Sometimes we really don’t get some things you say because we may be tired or drowsy, we are really sorry about this but most of the time we don’t mean trouble when we ask you to repeat some stuff.

3. High School is pretty tiresome and we come hoping everyday for at least one little highlight, something really interesting to do in a lesson, instead of sitting down and copying notes.

4. We don’t really get why we shouldn’t eat in the hallways. Sorry, we’re teens.

5. We like you, don’t worry about that. And someway or the other, someday we are going to thank you about all the very important things you teach us, even if they don’t have anything to do with English, Science, Social Studies, PE, Math, or Spanish.

A Friendly Hand Towards A Better Education

By; Mariana Alfaro It’s a Saturday morning in a crowded classroom full of eight-year-olds. It’s warm inside, but even hotter outside, in the dry playground. A couple of the fans are working, but fail at cooling down the room. The children wait, expectant. Sharpened pencils and small notebooks with covers of Pokemon and The Power Puff Girls sit in their small, aged desks. This group of students is from Escuela Mano Amiga, in El Salvador, and awaits the arrival of their ‘teachers.’ In this case the teachers are students from another school, Escuela Americana, who will come to spend the morning with them. Escuela Mano Amiga is one of the few schools in El Salvador – a small country in Central America – who supports education at all costs, creating a healthy and strong environment for Salvadorian children of low resources to start accomplishing their dreams. In El Salvador, children have to attend school for nine years in order to achieve their basic education, two or three years in order to achieve middle education, and a minimum five years of university, which adds up to an approximate sixteen years of school. However, pre-university education is not free. The government offers public education but a fee is paid only if it can be afforded. Also, families who pay for public education make one payment, meaning that in a group of siblings, only one is paid for. Nevertheless, the economical situation in El Salvador is harsh. Some government schools lack various resources, impeding schools from giving their best. The children attending these schools get less support to go through their years of education than those attending higher level, private schools. Some children in El Salvador don’t even have the opportunity to attend school, not even a rural one. Child labor is a cruel reality in El Salvador. In a recent study by El Salvador’s Ministry of Economy, it was discovered that 40% of children who work don’t attend school. Also, children who work are generally a year behind in school. Adding up to an infant mortality rate of 21.5 (taking ranking number ninety-nine in the list by the United Nations Population Division), these conflicts reflect on El Salvador’s HDI (Human Development Index) of 0.659, which is considered medium by international standards, and a literacy rate of 80.2% (82.8% males and 77.7% females). Despite misconceptions to the contrary, most Salvadorans believe that education is the only path to a better future, a better El Salvador. Trying to fight poverty and ignorance in the tough situation, various foundations in El Salvador – Like Mano Amiga (Spanish for Friendly Hand) – support education by offering a stable and healthy learning environment and asking for a small fee (as small as $1) to struggling parents. Other foundations support rural schools or government schools, or pay for children’s education. In the other hand, families with higher resources enjoy a number of good private schools that offer various resources and high quality education. But children in these schools learn since Students learn to help even in small quantities to others less fortunate than them. In a recent poll, students in private school Escuela Americana of

San Salvador were asked if they enjoyed doing charity in school, without being forced. It was amazing to discover that of the 46 students polled (from eight to twelfth grade), 40 answered “yes” and the other 6 answered “sometimes”. No one answered “no” or “I don’t participate in those events.” One of the polled students stated that “Yes, I do enjoy doing charity. When I do so I learn many things like to be thankful for what I have.” It is in a country like this where privileged kids can realize the luck and goodness they’ve been born into, and to

understand why they must help those who have less than them. “Once I visited a small school near the coast of El Salvador,” a student remembered, “it was simple, with small rooms and cheap details. At first I couldn’t wait to get out of there, for it was really hot and the prospect of standing there in cramped rooms with little kids wasn’t amazing at all. But then the children went in and I started meeting them and talking with them and I thought that even if we were so different from each other, we were even more alike. We are Salvadorians; after all, we eat pupusas and drink atole de elote. Now I try to go help in places like that the most I can. The feeling is just amazing.” Ms. Holly Jones, Service Learning Director in Escuela Americana, believes that “sharing with others is a responsibility that all people have, especially if you are in a position to help with resources that others lack… realizing that making this country a better place to live for everyone is a really worthwhile and rewarding experience.” Aiding others creates a feeling of humanity, respect, loyalty, and other vital virtues that help forge the men and women of the future. It also generates happiness and accomplishment for one’s self. It’s good for the mind and the heart to help others. Sometimes, people learn more from those whom they help. “One time I was visiting the El Zaite School to drop off the school supplies that the EA (Escuela Americana) students had collected for them. The students there helped me unload boxes and boxes of notebooks, binders, paper, etc. They were so happy and excited to see the supplies. Just as I was leaving, a little boy ran up to me and gave me a Winnie the Pooh key chain, said, ‘thank you,’ and then ran away,” Ms. Jones remembers, “I think that's one of my favorite parts of my job...when out of nowhere a little student comes up to you with a small gift, like a drawing, or a key chain, or a flower they picked, and they just ‘thank you’.” They say education is the key to success. In El Salvador, a country where chances of a better education are scarce, people don’t give up. They lend each other a hand and work together to become a better developed country, a country to be even more proud of.

The Help (Kathryn Stockett, 464 pp, $24.95) by: Mariana Alfaro A delightful blend of harsh, bittersweet, staggering and painful situations accurately describe Kathryn Stockett’s debut novel The Help. The author does not only describe the impressing, incredible ways in which women, colored women survived everyday racism, vindictiveness and hatred back in the 1960s. Colored women who worked as maids back then were called “the help”. The author tells of white women ordering colored around, insulting them on their noses, treating them as trash, which, back then, it was believed they were. The book tells of colored women raising the children of white, loving them as if they were their own, just to see them treat them the way their white mothers did after a few years later. The novel illustrates the lives of three women living back in Jackson, Mississippi, from 1962-1964. Two of those women are African-Americans. The other one is a white lady named Eugenia Phelan, or Skeeter. This character develops and changes a lot during the novel, in surprising and extraordinary ways. She describes herself as “Painfully tall. The kind of tall that puts a girl in the back row of class pictures with the boys.” She is five-foot-eleven, with frizzy, dirty blonde hair and pale. Skeeter claims that she wants to be a “journalist. Or a writer. Or maybe both”. At the start of the novel, Skeeter is a 22-year-old girl who’s back from college to find out that the help, or the woman who raised her, is gone. Skeeter also comes to find that her two best friends, Elizabeth Leefolt and Hilly Holbrook, have created their families and established their homes. Skeeter knows she is in no place to judge, but she discovers Elizabeth is terribly cruel and despicable towards her baby daughter, Mae Mobley. She also notices the mean, harsh ways in which Hilly treats her and her mother’s help. Throughout the story, Skeeter grows more and more distant towards her friends, making them the antagonists of the story. Skeeter’s life changes in this novel when she decides to write a book about the help, about the daily lives of colored women at their job, about good and bad stories, and anecdotes. Skeeter risks a lot in the making of their book, and, at first, she was only getting the support from one maid. This maid, Aibileen, is the help in Skeeter’s friend Elizabeth’s house. She is fond of baby Mae Mobley, who sees in her a mother figure facing the lack on her mother’s attitude. Aibileen’s character is static, though she forms a main part of the plot. She is the one that makes Skeeter’s project possible, for she gathers more women to form part of it, and she keeps it secret. Aibileen suffered the loss of her only child a few years back, and despises the style of life colored women lead in Jackson, Mississippi. Aibileen believes Skeeter’s book should come up to light, no matter what dangers it can bring. The third main character in this story is Minny. Minny is another help. She is known around town for her strong tongue. She used to work for Ms. Hilly’s mother, but after Hilly falsely accused her of stealing, she hadn’t been able to find a job. Until she meets Ms. Celia Foote, who is recently married and new in town. Minny goes through her ups and downs with Ms. Celia, who treats her as an absolute equal. Minny is at first enraged at the idea of Skeeter and Aibileen writing their book, but then, after the problems she had with Ms. Hilly, decides to join. Through out the story, the characters struggle to finish the book and to keep it a secret. Skeeter experiences love for the first time, but is let down by the man she thought was meant for her. Aibileen continues to mourn the iniquitous death of her son in the hands of white people. Minny struggles with her drunk husband, her five kids and the lack of respect and trust ability from every white woman in town, except her boss. Stockett creates a perfect, intriguing, twisted plot which keeps the reader interested for hours. The characters blend perfectly. The antagonist, Hilly Holbrook, is a brutal, wicked witch who does the impossible to make the protagonist’s lives a living hell, but always keeping a clean and good-humored nature and appearance to everyone else. I definitely hate Hilly Holbrook and even dare to imagine how bad it must’ve been to live under the rule of a woman like her, which I’m sure happened in real life. The author leaves the reader with a wonderful after-taste in this novel. It makes the reader wonder how we take things for granted nowadays, with all the peace treaties and “equality” and respect that is announced everywhere. But this book didn’t take place one-hundred years back. It took place less than fifty years ago. It gets the reader thinking that all around the world situations like this and even worst are still seen, maybe even closer than we think. Some may say it’s hard to hear the truth, but yet, this book portrays it in such a simple, straightforward way. Reading this book is hard, maybe a little bit painful, but everyone must see the ray of honesty in the words of this author, in the words of its characters.