By: Liv Kleiber & Salome Meyer
All posts by HPSH Plaid Line
Movie review of ‘The Truman Show’
By: Norah Hoglund
*Warning: This review contains spoilers.
Brief Summary
Essentially, the plot of ‘The Truman Show’ is that a TV company adopted Truman as a baby and are filming his entire life through hidden cameras all over this island that he lives on. The whole thing is a set. He does not know this. He thinks he is just a regular guy. The producers staged Truman’s dad dying, which made him afraid to ever touch the water or even go over a bridge.
The reason he first became suspicious was that he saw his father dressed as a homeless man, many years after he died, which was, of course, the same actor that had snuck back onto the set. Truman begins to pay more attention to everything and realizes everyone is paying attention to him and doing everything for him. He has to find a way to trick the cameras and escape the island.
Review
‘The Truman Show’ is not a typical movie. The plot is very creative and the movie is a little bit unsettling and weird, but I like that about it. I also liked how captivating it was. I found myself on the edge of my seat a lot because Truman was so close to finding out the truth. I felt a lot of empathy for him because everyone was trying to make him think he was going crazy and he had just lived a whole life of mental manipulation.
I wish that they would have included more about what happened to Truman after he escaped the show, because I wanted to see him reunite with the girl he fell in love with but the movie did not go that far.
Something that didn’t make sense to me was how the producer of the show wanted Truman to come back to the show after he knew the truth. What would be the point of the show then? The viewers only liked it because Truman was not acting and he was real and authentic. I don’t understand why he was talking to Truman and trying to convince him to return to the island.
Overall, this was a very good and intriguing movie. I rate it an 8.5/10.
You can watch ‘The Truman Show’ on Amazon Prime.
Minnesota phone ban
By: Alayanna Bouwens
I’m sure we are all aware of the Minnesota state wide, and school wide ban on phones; but what is that ban really about and how does it affect our learning? The ban states that in elementary and middle schools phones will be completely banned from the time school starts to the time school ends, while in high schools the ban aims to limit students time on their phone during class by banning the phones in classrooms but allowing students to use their phones during passing times and lunches. The ban, and specific rules, vary school to school. Here at the Highland High School, phones are banned only in class while for the Highland Park Middle schoolers, phones are banned from 8:30-3.
One of the big things today’s teens battle is phone addiction. Whether it’s pulling out your phone during an awkward situation or reaching for it when you’re bored, nearly every student today struggles with some sort of screen addiction. The phone ban is designed to help students learn how to be without their phones, or other screens, during the school day. This also encourages more genuine face-to-face interactions and helps cut out unnecessary distractions from learning, schoolwork, etc.
The Minnesota phone bans purpose is to help students stay focused by limiting screen time during school hours. Screen addiction is a very common struggle among kids today and the phone ban was created to help break those addictions down. The rules change school to school but the goal is always similar; to reduce phone use so students can be more present in class while promoting face-to-face interactions. The ban encourages better habits, fewer distractions, and more real-life social interaction throughout the day.
For more information, please visit:
Montessori to high school
By: Charlotte Aver
Last year I was in a Montessori public middle school, making it my 9th year in a Montessori school. I had 4 teachers and their names were Christine, Kyle, Brooke, and Amy; they had told us to call them by their first names. This year I have had teachers tell me that under no circumstances am I or any other student to call them by their first name. This amongst many other things is something that has been a culture shock to me coming from a Montessori school.
One of the most different things is how our day is structured. At my Montessori school we would have meetings in the morning and midday, in between we would have lessons and a work time to finish all of our work. In the afternoon we would have occupations which are essentially the same as electives. Something that made this conventionally odd schedule possible was that my graduating class of 8th graders was only 16 people and we had all known each other since 3rd grade. Here in high school there are bells separating the day, and A days and B days. We also have upwards of 200 people in one grade.
The classroom at my Montessori school was much smaller than anything at this school. We had three connected rooms, and a modular, and that was our whole middle school. We only had enough chairs and tables for half the middle school class to sit at once which meant that we would sit on the floor for the majority of the time. This obviously is not true for high school, and I am incredibly thankful for being able to sit at tables and chairs.
In our classroom we also only had four iPads and a Mac book, this made it excessively hard for us to do some of the work that was assigned to us. In high school, every student has their own iPad.
We also ran a farm stand and had our own farm at my old school. We would work throughout the year to make our own money as a class. At the end of the year we would use the money we made to go on a trip at the end of the year.
The transition was quite jarring but I feel as though I have adjusted quickly. Almost everything is different from Montessori to public High school except for the essential idea that you are learning. There are pros and cons to each way of learning: not enough students, too many students, no technology, too much technology. Which ever way you were taught it all evens out in the end.
UDA Hip-Hops
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The role of back propagation in a machine learning algorithm
By: Ivy Dahl
An algorithm is a series of steps to complete a task.
A machine learning algorithm is a computer program composed of many individual, yet interconnected parts that perform a series of steps involving numbers and the guided transformations of them to achieve a specific goal, without being given an explicit direction. Back propagation is one of those parts. It’s a journey from one number to another, calculating the error of a specific guess.
Imagine a bunch of data points on a graph, given to the back propagation algorithm by some previous part of the general machine learning algorithm, all spaced apart so that a line would have to be placed along them to connect them. Approximating a line that would fit all those points evenly, finding the medium, is a difficult task. An objective numerical way is the squared distance between a given curve and the data points. This is called a loss. The fitted curve with a high loss suggests the data points are far from the currently generated curve indicating a bad approximation. Low losses indicate a better fit as the currently generated curve closely aligns with the data points, making it a more accurate approximation.
A function could represent a line.
But a constant function wouldn’t fit this line by itself. Neither would an exponential function. But what if you put them together? And added another? You can think of this collection of functions like a toolbox that is already equipped with these functions, but still in need of a perfect coefficient to bend it to fit the line as close as possible. The goal is to find the combination of coefficients that outputs the best fitting line. The best fitting line is defined as the line with the combination of k’s that yield the lowest loss. Each k represents a random number.
Y(x) =k(0) + k1x + k2x + k3x + k4x
X constructs a curve, Y calculates the loss function of it and outputs one number, the loss, then plugs these numbers back into the general equation for the curve. Now it can start going through the numbers in order to find the minimum loss. This will lead to finding the distance between data points and the current generated curve repeatedly.
But can we make this prediction without going through countless trial and errors? Differentiability is good for fast finding of optimal number combinations. We do this by focusing on one random k coefficient on a coordinate graph. We are trying to find which value of k results in the lowest loss individually.
Knowing the local behavior of a function only, we are blind to all other points. Adjust x. This new adjusted input of x will result in a new value for y which will retain the same amount of change as x was changed. There will be a line connecting x and y and when you take smaller steps it will continue to more accurately align with the optimal line configuration, creating a tangent line between the x point and y point.The steepness of this tangent line is its rate of change, indicating a change in the curve that it’s aligning with.
Now let’s say you do this for every one of the coefficients individually. This gives multiple sets of these slopes that can be compared to the larger set of complex slopes coming together to form a line. These two sets of slopes will coincide. You might not be able to recreate a complex line like this, but if you break it into smaller slopes, it’s easier to approximate the individual slopes to the original, and put them all together once done to recreate the line with the lowest loss.
This is a brief description of how back propagation is an integral part of a machine learning algorithm by taking a specific set of inputs from somewhere else in the algorithm and creating the best fitting curve for it, so that curve can be passed forward to another part of the machine learning algorithm.
Fall is here
By: Seng Nhkum
‘The Hate U Give’ movie review
By: KiMiya Eason & Ci’Niyah Taylor
AP and IB: A comparison of two accelerated programs
By Hannan Mohammed
Most high school students in America have heard of either the Advanced Placement program or the International Baccalaureate program, and many students take classes in these programs as a way to either earn college credit or to be better prepared for college with rigorous courses. However, many students also wonder what makes these programs different from, or similar to, one another.
There are two main differences between these two programs, which are their goals and what they emphasize: Advanced Placement emphasizes college-level courses to prepare students for success in higher education, while International Baccalaureate emphasizes global citizenship and a well-rounded education to prepare students for life beyond college.
But how do these two main differences show up? The differing emphases these two programs have reflects in how/where they were created, and the classes/curriculum.
Origins
While both the AP and IB programs originated in the same time period of the 1950s-60s, they were created in different countries and for different reasons as well.
In the 1950s, after the end of World War II, there was a gap between high school graduation and college graduation in the U.S.; the Ford Foundation created the Fund for the Advancement of Education, conducting two studies that found that high schools and colleges should work together to let high-achieving students work at a higher level. A pilot program was launched in 1952, and the College Board started administrating the Advanced Placement program in 1955.
From the 1970s through the 1990s, the College Board continued to expand its reach across America, including making efforts to include low-income students and using Pre-AP initiatives to prepare middle school students to take AP courses and exams in high school.
These efforts to reach more students and give them more access to higher-level classes that can prepare them for success in college and higher education reflects the AP program’s goal of closing the gap between high school graduation and college graduation by preparing students with college-level work.
The IB program, on the other hand, originated in Geneva, Switzerland in 1962, with English and French as the official languages. Originally, the first IB exams were taken in 1970; students from 12 schools in 10 countries took exams in the IB Diploma Programme, the first curriculum of the program.
Over the course of the 70s, new requirements were added, such as the Extended Essay in 1974, and IB conferences were held in The Hague, Geneva, and London, where 32 countries were represented. As the IB program continued to expand across the world, more curriculums were added: the Middle Years Programme in 1994 for students ages 11-16, the Primary Years Programme in 1997 for students ages 3-12, and the Career-related Programme in 2012 for students ages 16-19.
Each of these programmes are meant to give students a well-rounded education from a young age, prioritizing a global perspective with world languages and drawing attention to how students interact with the world in different ways, which reflects the IB’s goal of global citizenship.
Curriculum
The second way that the major difference between the AP and IB programs is shown is the structure of the curriculum and requirements to pass.
To start, the AP program offers about 40 different courses in basic subjects such as the arts, math and computer science, English, history and social sciences. However, these classes are more in-depth with specific focuses. For example, taking an AP History and Social Sciences course could mean taking a class that focuses on African-American studies, psychology, human geography, or even macroeconomics, depending on what a high school might offer. This is one way the AP program’s goal of college-level education is reflected; through highly-focused classes that are similar to courses you might take in college.
In the May of each year, AP exams are administered to students to show their mastery of what they learned. For most classes, this includes multiple choice questions and free-response questions. Most exams take around 3 hours. Then, students are given a score of 1-5.
The scores on the exams are important, since this can determine whether a student can earn college credit for the class; most colleges require a minimum score of 3-4 before awarding credit.
The IB program has a different structure; for students going into IB high schools in America, 9th and 10th graders are required to participate in the Middle Years Programme, which is meant to prepare them for either the Diploma Programme or the Career-related Programme. Most 10th graders are required to complete the Personal Project, which gives them a chance to explore their own interests and develop research skills.
After 10th grade, students can either go into the Diploma Programme (taking and testing in 6 IB classes), the Career-related Programme (the same requirements as the DP with the CP core and career-related studies), or to take regular high school classes and test in a few IB classes.
The IB DP courses can either be standard level (SL) or higher level (HL), and while they’re more broad compared to AP courses, they reflect the program’s emphasis on global citizenship by offering a more well-rounded education. In addition, DP students also have to complete a Theory of Knowledge (TOK) class, an Extended Essay, and Creativity, Activity, Service (CAS). These extra requirements are meant to give students a chance to take their learning beyond the classroom and apply it to themselves or others, which reflects the program’s goal of helping students to succeed beyond higher education.
The IB exams are often taken in the spring of each year, which consists of internal assessments (fieldwork, laboratory work, investigations), which come from the classroom, and external assessments (essays, structured questions) which come from the IB program itself. These exams can take most of the day, and are scored from 1-7. These scores, along with completing TOK, the Extended Essay, and CAS, count towards completing the DP or the CP. Some colleges accept IB exam scores, but they are not as widely accepted as AP scores.
This curriculum structure reflects the IB’s goal of being well-rounded by giving students a broad range of subjects and it reflects the goal of success beyond higher education by giving them a chance to apply their education to themselves and the world.
Conclusion
The Advanced Placement and the International Baccalaureate programs share some similarities as programs that help high school students be more prepared and successful in higher education. However, their different goals of college preparation vs. preparation for global citizenship are reflected in their origins (AP starting in the US and IB originating internationally) and their curriculums of focused, in-depth classes (AP) and broad classes that can be applied beyond school (IB).
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For more information about either of these programs, please feel free to visit their websites here:
Sports schedule for: Sept 29-Oct 4
| ATHLETIC EVENTS SCHEDULE SEPTEMBER 29 – OCTOBER 4 | |||
| MONDAY | SEPTEMBER 29 | ||
| TIME | BUS TIMES | EVENT | LOCATION |
| 5:00pm | Football vs. Como Park | HOME – HP Stadium | |
| JV & B: 5:30pm V: 7:00pm | 4:30pm | 8:00pm | Volleyball vs. Humboldt | Humboldt High School |
| TUESDAY | SEPTEMBER 30 | ||
| TIME | BUS TIMES | EVENT | LOCATION |
| 4:00pm | Girls Tennis Sections | TBD | |
| B: 4:15pm JV: 5:15pm V: 7:15pm | 4:15pm | 8:45pm | Boys Soccer vs. Como Park | B: HOME JV/V: Como Park High School |
| 5:00pm | Adapted Soccer vs. Park Center | Humboldt High School | |
| TBD | TBD | B-Squad Football vs. SMB | Minnehaha Academy Lower School |
| JV: 5:00pm V: 7:00pm | Girls Soccer vs. Como Park | HOME | |
| WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 1 | ||
| TIME | BUS TIMES | EVENT | LOCATION |
| 4:00pm | Girls Tennis Sections | TBD | |
| JV & B: 5:30pm V: 7:00pm | Girls Volleyball vs. Como Park | HOME | |
| THURSDAY | OCTOBER 2 | ||
| TIME | BUS TIMES | EVENT | LOCATION |
| B: 3:45pm JV: 5:15pm V: 7:00pm | JV/B: 3:15pm | 6:45pm V: 6:00pm | 8:30pm | Boys Soccer vs. South St. Paul | B/JV: Roosevelt Field V: Ettinger Field |
| 4:00pm | Girls Tennis Sections | TBD | |
| JV: 5:00pm V: 7:00pm | Girls Soccer vs. Simley | HOME | |
| JV & B: 5:30pm V: 7:00pm | Girls Volleyball vs. Johnson | HOME | |
| FRIDAY | OCTOBER 3 | ||
| TIME | BUS TIMES | EVENT | LOCATION |
| SATURDAY | OCTOBER 4 | ||
| TIME | BUS TIMES | EVENT | LOCATION |
| MS Boys: 10:10am MS Girls: 10:30am 9th-Boys: 10:50am 9th-Girls: 11:10am JV Boys: 11:30am JV Girls: 12:10am Varsity Boys: 12:45pm Varsity Girls: 1:20pm | 7:00am | 2:00pm | Cross Country Lions Invitational “Meet of Champions” | Arrowhead Resort |
| 1:00pm | Varsity Football vs. Washburn | HOME | |
| JV: 5:00pm V: 5:00pm | Girls Soccer vs. St. Agnes | HOME | |
Plaid Line + PRIZM + Scottie News 