Column: These high school grads are hard to picture

I’ve been an editor in chief for a little over a year now, and because of my lofty title you might assume I spend most of my time engaged almost exclusively in glamorous journalistic activities, such as tripping copy boys and berating that Parker kid for not getting me better pictures of that blasted Spider-Man. And you would be right.

But I also have to handle the workaday responsibilities that come up when you least expect them and that cannot be handled by other people, because those people have gone into public relations. For instance, the other day I spent several hours helping a colleague match the names to the yearbook photos of 236 local high school graduates, 235 of whom were named Brittney.

I kid, of course – it just seemed like they were all named Brittney. (Some of them were named Brittnee.) But what really struck me during that exercise was how yearbook photos have changed since I went to high school in the 1980s. For instance, back then about two-thirds of the photos featured a mullet haircut, which seemed completely normal at the time, in comparison to Jon Bon Jovi.

But what the current photos lack in mullets they more than make up for in variety. Back when I was in school they issued us plastic combs and stuck us all in the same pose in front of a standard sky-blue background. As a result all the yearbook photos were basically identical, except that some of us were dressed like Madonna and/or Robert Smith of The Cure. We know who we are.

But these days, it seems, anything goes: Backdrops are black, blue, yellow, red and everything in between; some are outside, some are inside; pictures are taken from above, below and either side; outfits range from ties to T-shirts, with at least three of the students I saw having apparently just stepped off a motorcycle, all of them girls.

As random as the photos appeared, though, I’ve managed to narrow them down into three discernable categories. You may want to keep these handy next time you find yourself looking through your child’s yearbook attempting to decipher the texting shorthand in all the bios (GR8 <3 U HU9 Fibberty-Gibberty!, etc.):

1) Grads In Trees. I’d estimate that a good one in five graduates has opted to pose with a tree for her senior photo. (I say “her” because it’s mostly girls – boys would probably prefer to pose with a manlier piece of nature, such as a big rock, or a badger.) Most of the subjects have one hand pressed against the tree as if to hold it up, and I saw at least one overachieving graduate who seems to be sandwiched between TWO trees, like a schizophrenic squirrel.

2) Grads On The Beach. Again mostly girls, these shots feature a smiling teenager carefully posed so as to feature both sand and surf in the background. It’s worth noting the beach has apparently been cleared of detritus (seaweed, needles, toddlers) and the seniors are, thankfully, fully dressed. At least from the waist up.

3) Grads With Sore Necks. I find it disturbing how many high-schoolers seem to be suffering from acute upper body stress, at least judging from the number of them posing for their senior portraits with one hand awkwardly massaging the back of their own neck. Others have their hands joined together with their chin or face resting on top of them, as if to keep them from strangling people of their own accord like in the movie “The Crawling Hand” (1958). I’m just saying.

It’s all a little disconcerting, especially when taken together with the blurbs describing their high school memories. (So Johnny, what is this “Sticky Taffy Saturday Night,” and does your mother know about it?) But I think in the end I have to come down in favor of the variety: I can’t help but think that when today’s students look back in 20 or 30 years, this mash-mash of styles will represent their graduating classes much better than the uniform images of years past.

But they’ll probably have no idea what <3 U HU9 meant.

COLUMN: Schools vs. the mosquitoes

The following is (not really) a message from your superintendent of schools:

Hello parents! We hope you and your children are adapting well to another new school year. As you know, as a district we are dedicated to your children’s education, health and welfare, not necessarily in that order.

With that in mind, we have elected to cancel outdoor activities until further notice in the wake of the discovery of West Nile virus in a mosquito within town limits. According to the Department of Public Health, it was just a single mosquito, and since it was found in a car with New Jersey license plates it was likely driven here from out of state, possibly last year.

Still, we prefer not to take any chances and will be doing our best to keep your children from exposure to air, particularly outdoor air. To that end, we have canceled or postponed the following activities:

• After-school sports practices and games;
• Outdoor recess;
• Standing or milling about open windows or doorways;
• Busing.
  

Rather than have children wait at or walk home from a bus stop, and ride in a bus in which mosquitoes can travel into the vehicle with the exhaust fumes, we ask that you plan to drop students off and pick them up inside the school. They can accompany you to and from the parking lot via the large airtight sterile tubes set up by our custodial staff, very similar to the ones used by the government agents in the film “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Public Health has notified us that, in an effort to ensure public health following the discovery of the mosquito, it will be spraying the entire town with deadly chemicals this Tuesday. Officials have asked that while they spray, from approximately 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., residents remain sealed tightly in their homes, running their oven fans at “maximum.”

Until spraying commences, please make sure your children do not leave the house unless they are wearing long sleeves, long pants, long socks, ski hats and, ideally, plastic baggies around their hands secured by elastic bands. It is not recommended that you put baggies over your children’s heads unless you poke holes in them first, which kind of defeats the purpose. A better idea is probably to spray your child in the face with DEET.

Also, please remember to dispose of any sources of standing water around your home where mosquitoes might breed, like those old trash can covers and hubcaps that have been on your driveway since the late ’90s. You know who you are.

I acknowledge that we’ve heard complaints from several parents who have pointed out that they spent practically their entire childhoods outdoors, never used bug spray, and, despite coming home every night covered with literally dozens of mosquito bites, they never got ill. However, I would point out that times have changed, in that mosquito-borne illnesses are much more common, as are liability attorneys.

We hope that these minor inconveniences are short-lived and that the Department of Public Health will soon sound the “all clear,” allowing us to resume outdoor activities as usual. On the other hand, if they find any mosquitoes with Eastern equine encephalitis within a 50-mile radius, I should warn you we’ll be sending you copies of your children’s textbooks so you can home-school them in your boarded-up basement while we wait for the first heavy frost. See you next year!

Sincerely,
Your Superintendent

Peter Chianca is editor in chief for GateHouse Media New England’s north-of-Boston newspapers and websites. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.

COLUMN: To bee or not to (spelling) bee

I have now been through three elementary school spelling bees, two with my daughter and one with my son, and each time I’ve wondered how this age-old tradition has managed to survive the movement to eradicate all vestiges of competition from American childhood. Clearly somebody’s been paid off.

Think about it: We don’t let kids count goals or runs scored, and routinely award them with trophies simply for showing up (or, if they don’t show up, we bring the trophies to their house later to show them there are no hard feelings). And yet the spelling bee continues, wherein we march 9-year-olds in front of an auditorium full of people and attempt to make them look stupid. It’s refreshing.

Actually, I’m kind of torn over the whole spelling bee concept. I’ve never been one of these parents who think that “everybody’s a winner,” which is a concept I think can be detrimental once a child grows up and discovers that life is all about being stomped on by the actual winners, who got that way because they inherited money, or are from China. On the other hand, spelling bees seem particularly cruel, especially on the parents, who spend the entire event sweating profusely and silently reliving their own childhood humiliations. (Er, not me. Other people.)

It turns out that for most parents, there is nothing good about a spelling bee. Besides being a nervous wreck, there’s all that time spent praying that someone else’s poor schmoe of a kid will be the first one to get eliminated, so you can put off the dashing of your own son or daughter’s childhood innocence for at least one more day. Eventually this leads to an unseemly feeling of glee when one of your child’s competitors gets stuck with encyclopedia or cupboard or delicatessen.

In fact, I’m not proud of it, but I think most parents would agree that it’s hard to get through a spelling bee without thinking of that famous quote by Gandhi: “The greatest happiness is to vanquish your enemies, to chase them before you, to rob them of their wealth, to see those dear to them bathed in tears.” Wait, that was actually Genghis Khan. But you get the idea.

As for the kids themselves, they run the gamut when it comes to reactions. You have the ones who have smiles on their faces the whole time, who are clearly delusional, and the ones who look like they’ve just gone through a question-and-answer session with Dick Cheney, who understand the gravity of their predicament. Then there are those who flub a word they were sure they knew, and their faces drop when they hear the bell, like poor Travis when he finds out Old Yeller has rabies.

On the plus side, pretty much all the participants who get through one of these things alive seem to feel pretty good about themselves afterwards, even if they get a word wrong eventually. True, both of my kids have been blessed with some mercifully easy words — my son got “kid” the other night, and had to ask the moderator if that’s what she actually said, in case she was trying to slip in some obscure homophone that sounds like “kid” but is actually spelled with an arcane series of unexpected h’s.

They’ve also gotten some tough ones, but my son said even though he had the jitters at the start, “It got easier every time I got up there.” By the end — he finished seventh — he was a model of poise, looking completely at home in front of a cafetorium full of people, and that alone was worth the effort no matter how far he got.

As for the parents … We’ll be home recovering if you want to stop by to deliver our trophies.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

AT LARGE Fake News Tuesday: Spelling Bees To Start Allowing Misspelled Words

WASHINGTON (CAP) - The Scripps Howard Spelling Bee, in response to complaints about pressure on young participants, has announced it will start allowing students to misspell words in the competition beginning next year.

"We've had many complaints from parents and psychologists who say being ejected from a spelling bee can be a traumatic experience for a child," said Bee Chairwoman Sally Fredericks, noting that the organization received a petition with more than 50,000 signatures from the American Parents United Against Competition (APUAC).

"It does horrible things to children's self-esteem when they spell a word wrong," noted APUAC spokesperson Mitzy Bennington. "If they're allowed to spell words incorrectly without getting ejected from the competition, they get the experience of participating without all those bad feelings that come along with not winning.

"It's important that we leave these children with the impression that they're smart and important and special, even if they're not," noted Bennington.

Under the new rules, participants will each be given a word to spell. The moderator will not indicate whether they spelled it correctly or incorrectly, saying instead, for example, "Great job, Johnny! You're the best!" Then the participant will return to his or her seat.

After five rounds of play using those guidelines, the event will be declared completed and each participant will be awarded a trophy exactly the same size and weight of all the other participants' trophies.

"This way every student goes home feeling like they participated in something special, even if they're not sure exactly what," said Bennington.

[Read the rest at CAP News.]

COLUMN: Welcome to middle school -- now sign here and behave!

Dear Students and Their Parents:

Welcome to middle school! We hope you have a successful and productive academic career here, by which we mean one in which we don’t have to deal with you very often.

Several parents have asked us about the unfortunate incident last year involving Mr. Crenshaw and the unauthorized use of Bunsen burners by some now-former students. We’re happy to report that Mr. Crenshaw has completely healed, and we’re told he’s started a very satisfying new career in air traffic control.

However, we would like to make it known that we will not tolerate similar behavior this year. Ideally, we would enforce this through additional staff, including a contingent of seven to 12 trained psychologists, some of them armed. However, as budget considerations prohibit such expenditures, we instead are asking all students and their parents to sign the following academic and behavioral contract, as if that will work.

1) Behavior. I, the undersigned, promise to engage only in behavior conducive to a productive learning environment. Although I may be tempted, if I am a girl, to mercilessly target the self-esteem of other, less confident girls I deem to be a threat to my own personal social status, or if I am a boy, to loudly flaunt my bodily noises, I promise not to indulge in these activities until after school, while I’m texting incessantly at Dunkin’ Donuts and not ordering anything.

2) Dress. I, the undersigned, promise to dress in such a way as to not distract from the academic atmosphere. This means no shirts depicting inappropriate language, politically incorrect language, political messages, apolitical messages, flags of any nation, corporate logos, weapons, food, 1970s cartoon characters or Justin Bieber. Also, if I am a girl, I will wear nothing that reveals skin below the neck or above the wrists or a bodily shape that doesn’t resemble a sack of loose sand. And if I am a boy, I promise not to loudly flaunt my bodily noises. (Not dress-related, but worth repeating.)

3) Science safety. I, the undersigned, acknowledge that for some reason, school administration has deemed it appropriate for me to handle open flames, potentially dangerous chemicals, razor-sharp knives and animal carcasses, even though I have yet to master the ability to scrape the food off my breakfast plate before putting it into the sink. With that in mind, I promise not to engage in horseplay during science classes, except maybe with the animal carcasses, which, if I am a boy, will be too hard to resist. And if I am a girl, I promise not to target the animal carcasses’ self-esteem.

4. Athletics. I, the undersigned, promise always to engage in good sportsmanship on the field of play and to embrace the competitive spirit in a productive way that encourages personal growth over simply winning for winning’s sake. Unless we’re playing those stuck-up jerks from the next town over, in which case we need to win at any cost or you’re off the team, got it? We never had this conversation.

5. Parents. I, the parent of the undersigned, promise to ensure that my child gets to school on time, does his or her assignments and comes home to a secure and supportive environment. I will make this a priority even though it may interfere with my work and/or social engagements, along with … Wait a minute, I just need to check my Blackberry. (Sorry, I’ve got to take this. Just go play Xbox for a while.)

In conclusion, students, we’re confident that adherence to these agreed-upon measures will ensure a productive, high-self-esteem, bodily-noise-free academic year for you and your peers. Meanwhile, if you or your parents have any questions or concerns, please feel free to leave a message with your principal. He will get back to you as soon as he returns from air traffic control school.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”

COLUMN: Back-to-school questions? Ask Mr. Education!

Each year around this time, we like to turn over this space to Mr. Education to answer your back-to-school questions.

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Dear Mr. Education:

I’ve always driven my son to school, but he wants to ride the bus this year. Should I let him?

Hesitant in Harwich

Dear Hesitant:

Absolutely. He has to learn about human reproduction somewhere, and studies have shown that it’s cheaper to have him hear it on the bus than from HBO.

Dear Mr. Education:

I’m concerned because my kids love to play sports and their schools are increasing their “user fees.” What can I do?

Broke in Bennington

Dear Broke:

Never fear: Most school districts take multi-child families into account, and set rates accordingly. (For instance, one child, $200, two children, $400, three children, $600, and so on.) They also set “family caps,” in which you don’t pay more than a certain amount no matter how many kids you have, as long as you have at least 10.

Of course, some schools charge according to how much equipment is needed, which is why you should encourage soccer, swimming and/or naked rugby.

Dear Mr. Education:

I hear because of staffing cuts class sizes will be larger than ever this year. Will this affect my child’s education?

Concerned in Canton

Dear Concerned:

You may have heard the phrase “the more the merrier.” Well, that’s never truer than in a classroom when a teacher is trying to teach 27 kids of varying temperaments and abilities how to do long division. The “more” in this case refers to the amount of Xanax she is taking, but the principle is the same.

The only problem with larger classes is that overweight children sometimes can’t fit between the desks, but fortunately studies show that of all students, this only affects 70-80 percent. (Or 90, if you also include the ones who are just “big-boned.”)

Dear Mr. Education:

If childhood obesity is such an epidemic, why don’t they make school lunches healthier?

Skeptical in Saugus

Dear Skeptical:

Well, there are several reasons. One, the healthier the lunch is, the more likely it will be thrown at classmates, typically after being ground, with extreme prejudice, into a viscous paste.

Two, government subsidies are reliant upon the school cafeterias sticking to certain approved menus, meaning if they wanted healthier food they’d have to go up against the powerful breaded cheesy fish lobby, which is rumored to have killed Jimmy Hoffa, and then breaded him.

Dear Mr. Education:

I heard because of space limitations, some of my daughter’s classes will be held in school closets! How can she possibly learn in that environment?

Outraged in Ogunquit

Dear Outraged:

It’s disconcerting, but the good news is, most of the hazardous cleaning chemicals usually stored in these closets have been eliminated due to budget cuts. Many schools don’t even use cleaning products anymore — whenever something is deemed “dirty,” whatever janitor that hasn’t been laid off is instructed to simply pour sawdust on it, and wait for June to come.

Dear Mr. Education:

I’ve heard horrible stories about bullies in my child’s middle school. What can I do?

Nervous in Needham

Dear Nervous:

First of all, don’t worry. Most bullies rarely get beyond noogies and wedgies, although some guidance counselors do report seeing a resurgence of the purple nurple.

But you can still look for the signs. For instance, if your child comes home with his hair looking like the kid from Big Boy, you’ll know that, one, bullies have given him a “swirlie” by sticking his head in the toilet and flushing.

And two, they must have installed toilets on the buses.

Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England; this column appeared originally in North Shore Sunday. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”