Category Archives: Editorials/Student Voice

Editor’s Note: The Plaid Line publishes editorials that contain opinions that are those of the student authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the the Plaid Line, HPSH, or its staff.

Editorials/Student Voice, Soccer

The problems permeating Qatar’s World Cup

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By: Jocelyn Knorr

**For sake of consistency and international standardization, the word “football” here refers to the sport that the United States calls “soccer.”**

The FIFA World Cup is a quadrennial football competition, in which countries fight tooth and nail to even qualify. It’s an incredible honor to win, and even more of an honor to host—not to mention it’s incredibly profitable. So, it came as a shocking surprise when Qatar, a Middle Eastern country smaller than the state of Connecticut, was awarded the 2022 competition.

Before 1971, Qatar was a nation largely built off of pearl diving and trade. Then, oil and natural gas was found in the little peninsula, rocketing it to international wealth, a coup in 1972 cementing the monarchy. It’s 2008 bid for hosting was described by the country as an attempt to humanize it—get away from oil, sharia law, and its relationship with neighboring Iran. Because of this, Qatar has been accused of sportswashing.

The bid was off to a rocky start—in 2009, a delegate from FIFA, Harold Mayne-Nicholls, visited the country to inspect its infrastructure. His report was a resounding no—Qatar was too small, and was a sweltering 120ºF during the traditional World Cup window of June-July (an issue that has been “solved” by pushing it to the middle of the traditional football season, a massive upset to the schedule that has caused injury, disruption, and lost wages for those whose salaries depend upon the game). Not only did it lack a football stadium, but hotels, highways, and an airport too. Qatar countered with plans for stadiums and hotels, and a proposition to push the tournament back six months. The council was convinced, and in 2010 Qatar was confirmed as host for the 2022 World Cup. Al-Jazeera, a Qatari media company owned by the king, had started broadcasting news of the victory six hours earlier.

All was not well within FIFA, however; before the year was out, every single official who voted on the Qatar decision would be investigated for, or convicted of, corruption. 2 members had already been banned from voting because of an attempt to sell their votes; the US Justice department accused 3 South American officials of accepting 7-figure bribes from the Qatari government. Sepp Blattman, president of FIFA at the time, has been banned from ever holding an administration position within football for the rest of his life. 

Nevertheless, the decision held, and Qatar embarked on a massive nation-building project, the likes of which the country had never before seen. To achieve all this, Qatar began recruiting foreign workers; workers from places like Uruguay and Pakistan poured in by the thousands. Qatar has a population of over 2 million, but only 15% of those people are citizens. Instead, the country depends upon foreign labor to keep the economy moving.

Conditions are awful; workers sleep in cramped conditions, passports are held by employers, and they are forbidden to leave or change jobs without the consent of their employers. Many of these migrant workers are in construction, working for over 18 hours a day to build Qatar’s stadiums and hotels; they are making barely 13 USD an hour.

More than 6,500 of these workers have died in the sweltering heat, among them a man named Mosharraf Hossen. He moved from Bangladesh to Qatar in 2014, getting a job working on a stadium to support his family. He died in 2018, collapsing when temperatures reached upwards of 115º; the Qatari government has denied this, and has put ‘cardiac arrest’ on his death certificate. The family has now been left without a way to earn money.

Qatari officials have stated that, more often than not, compensation is received in labor disputes, and the country will not take “destructive criticism” from outside observers. “The World Cup is a stage that will end in [December], but our laws are ongoing and being developed and we don’t implement them [only] for the World Cup.” said Qatar’s Assistant Undersecretary of Labor, Mohamed al-Obaidly. 

There are other human rights issues to take into account, as well; namely the treatment of women and gay men. Female citizens of Qatar need to get permission from a male guardian for just about everything, even after a divorce. Pregnant attendees have been advised to be prepared to show a marriage certificate if medical care is necessary, and there have been repeated cases of sexual assaults on women going not only unpunished, but the women being penalized for “fornication outside of marriage.”

As for homosexuality, it’s punishable by jail time—and even the death penalty for Muslims. The Qatari officials have made attempts at sweeping these laws under the rug; despite this, Khalid Salmen, a Qatari football player turned FIFA ambassador, has been quoted as saying that “homosexuality is damage in the mind.” He has been defended fiercely, with Qatar stating that these laws are part of the country’s “conservative values.”

In light of these policies, female fans are being advised by human rights groups to proceed with extreme caution, and LGBTQ fans have been advised to cancel their tickets altogether.

The Qatari government has also been rumored to be using fake fans as a surveillance tactic; allegedly, these are paid plants meant to create atmosphere and hype up the crowd artificially. If this is true, they also serve the secondary function of sniffing out and reporting anti-Qatar sentiment on social media. Qatar has responded to these rumors with a statement from the Qatar World Cup 2022 Supreme Committee; “Fans from all over the world — many of whom have made Qatar their home — have contributed to the local atmosphere recently, organizing fan walks and parades throughout the country, and welcoming the various national teams at their hotels. Numerous journalists and commentators on social media have questioned whether these are ‘real’ fans. We thoroughly reject these assertions, which are both disappointing and unsurprising.”

Taken altogether, these issues with the World Cup have left many fans upset and disquieted. Miles Robinson, a freshman at Highland, and Mary Steffy, a teacher here, have been kind enough to speak to me about their feelings on the matter. 

Miles Robinson is a freshman here—the MVP and captain of the Highland freshman football team, this sport is a large part of his life. He’s supporting the Dutch team this year, with USA and France as a close second (allez les Bleus!) Outside of World Cup season, he follows almost every league imaginable—including USA’s MLS, the English Premier League, and Germany’s Bundesliga. 

“It shouldn’t be there. Honestly, FIFA was 100% bribed for it to be there. If you look at the infrastructure that was there before 2010, it was minimal at best; they had one major stadium, and had to build nine more. Close to 7,000 workers died building those stadiums. They had so few people in the country, they had to get thousands of migrant workers to build (them). They spent over 200 billion US dollars on infrastructure— they had to build cities, build railroads. They spent way, way too much money and time preparing.

“Not to mention the fact that this World Cup had to be moved to November as opposed to the summer. If a World Cup has to be moved, should it be held in that country? The FIFA World Cup is a staple of the summers. Most professional leagues’ seasons go from August to May—holding this in the summer means that most of the teams’ best players are either going to be tired or injured. France are one of the favorites to win this year, and they have five starting players out with major injuries, because this is the middle of their season. This gives less talented teams an advantage.”

The news coming out of Qatar of human rights and climate problems has even driven some people to a boycott—people like Madame Mary Steffy, another person kind enough to speak to me about their views. She’s a French and AVID teacher here at Highland Park Senior High; not a football fan, as a rule, the one exception being the World Cup. This year, she would be supporting the French national team, famously nicknamed “les Bleus”—she’s Luxembourgish, but the country is too small to support a national team, or indeed a league at all. She found out about the human rights abuses largely via Francophone news sources. 

“Monsieur Curry and I follow a lot of online sites, and there was a lot shared—most of Paris and a lot of larger cities in France, for example, are not, on public television, showing any of the games. So we started reading all about it; I had heard some things, even, in the last couple of years about the construction going on in Qatar, and how so many young men had been dying and getting their bodies sent home with [death certificates] saying they had died of natural causes when that was not, in fact, true. The conditions were appalling—it was hot, there was no food or water, [employers] would take their passports, there were injuries; there were just a lot of human rights issues that I became aware of.

“I also became aware, in the past few months, of all the climate issues. When you host a large event like this—even the Olympics—it’s terrible for the planet in general, but Qatar had promised that this was going to be the ‘greenest’ World Cup ever. They really greenwashed it, and that has not happened.”

This is largely a France-based movement, but for Mme Steffy, it’s not a large group effort; it’s just about showing Qatar that they don’t want a World Cup that has been built by the blood of the workers. 

“I don’t want to give any of my time, money, energy or attention to a country that has such appalling abuses of people coming in—actually about 90% of their society—and their stance on the LGBTQ community, whom any association with is punishable by death, even for visitors there. I personally, refuse to give them my time, money, or attention; which is what they get when I watch.”

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Editorials/Student Voice

Dog whistles of Anti-Semites

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By: Irene Cohen

Dog whistles in politics is usually a type of phrase that is suggestive or a coded message used to gain support from the group they’re appealing to without setting off any alarms to their opposing group. The name comes from an actual dog whistle that emits frequencies that dogs can hear, but humans can’t.

Some of these dog whistles or phrases connect to the same antisemitic trope, so I will address several dogwhistles that mean approximately the same thing. I will cover four tropes, including the following: Jewish people being money hungry, Jewish people controlling the word in general, Jewish people being at fault for many world tragedies or violence, and the caricatures of Jewish people emphasizing all these aspects.

First I’ll start out with one of the most common/normalized tropes: Jewish people being money hungry or greedy. The insinuation of Jewish people always wanting more money is incredibly common. Specifically, Jewish people wanting gold and treasure. Many anti-semites often refer to Judas as a representation of Jewish people, selling out Jesus for 30 silver pieces. The phrase “Jew down” is also incredibly offensive. It refers to someone bargaining for the lowest price, sometimes unfairly low, because they are such penny pinchers. “Jewish” or “Kosher tax” is another one, referring to the idea that food companies are conning non-Jews to support the Jewish “agenda” by having a kosher certification that taxes them. “Jewish lightning”, which coincides with the trope of Jews being greedy, is when a home or some sort of insured building is burned down. The burning of the building gives those who insured it money, saying Jewish people are so greedy that they burn down their own buildings for money.

Another idea is that Jewish people form a secret society that controls everything in the world, from politics to media like some sort of hegemony. It also implies that all Jewish people are connected in some way and are like a political group instead of a religious one. Does this sound familiar? It’s how many describe the idea of an Illuminati or a New World Order. Not everyone who believes in that conspiracy is necessarily anti-semitic, but it is too easy to arrive at that once you get lost in it. “Cabal” and “clannish” are more words that more or less mean the same thing, but with more religious undertones. “Cosmopolitan elite” is less outright, and is less organized. Cosmopolitan means: “of or meshing many cultures”, and elite being those who are in the upper echelon of society. All of these imply that Jewish people are conniving and disloyal.

Jewish people are also used as scapegoats following many world tragedies. “Blood libel”, for one, is the accusation towards Jewish people of using Christian childrens’ blood in some sort of Jewish ritual. Even if false, children being killed is an easy way to get a lot of people against anyone. In modern times, it might not be so outright. An example of this in a story most of you should know, is Rapunzel. Mother Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel, a young girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, to use her hair in a sort of ritual to stay young. “Poisoning the well” is also a phrase used to insinuate that Jewish people have caused tragedy for non-Jews. It originates from the Black Death, where Jews were accused and persecuted of poisoning the wells of the towns to infect them, and because they were in on it they weren’t affected as much. Jewish people probably did have a lower death rate from the plague, but this was likely because they practiced ritual hygiene unlike most Europeans at the time.

Jewish caricatures and depictions have been a way to dehumanize Jewish people for a long time. Sometimes Jewish people are portrayed as rats or other vermin, snakes, and spiders. All of these animals have a negative connotation, most being pests that people are either disgusted by or scared of. Portraying them as such makes them less connected from humanity through the eyes of others, making them easier to hate, a tactic used by many oppressive groups time and time again.

Another way of painting Jewish caricatures is making them seem as “other” as possible, exaggerating the features that are more distinct than other populations, many times seen as a larger or hooked nose, curly dark hair, or drooping eyes. Exaggerating these features, again, helps people separate Jewish people from themselves, making it easier to persecute them unfairly. We see this again in “Rapunzel”/’Tangled’. Like the blood libel example, we see Mother Gothel again being portrayed as a Jewish stereotype/caricature, with her thick, black curly hair, drooping/hooded eyes, and a nose bigger than most Disney women. She is also the villain of the story. Many Jewish people, such as myself, have remarked how much she looks like a relative of theirs, or themself. This is not the type of representation a child should have to see.

Sometimes, the caricatures are drawn with not only exaggerated features, but exaggerated actions. A prime example of this is the “smirking merchant”, an anti-semitic comic of a man with a “kippah”, which is traditional male Jewish headwear, a hooked nose and an evil smile with his hands rubbing together in a way that signifies greed.

 All of these dog whistles and tropes I brought up are painted in extremely broad strokes; most of them running much deeper than I could portray in a single article. Most of these connect to the idea that Jewish people are morally reprehensible, and that they don’t care about non-Jews and act in their own self-interest, or the interest of the Jewish conglomerate. The idea that Jewish people are socially above non-Jews serves to oppress the Jewish people further. Anti-semitism can sometimes be a harder form of bigotry to understand because it is so distinct, but I hope this article helps you to understand the harm it can cause.

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Editorials/Student Voice

Should we have class time to do homework?

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By: Gabe Kleiber

I’m sure many students have wished for this on a particularly difficult day at school, but would that actually be a good thing for students learning? I asked one HPSH student what they thought, and they had this to say.

“We already have time in advisory. We have a lot of time there. I get a lot of work time there. But you have to realize that most people just go on their phones or talk during that time. If we did have time in class most people wouldn’t even use it. A lot of people do it at home because they are more focused and their friends aren’t around.”

I think this is a great point. Even if you provide people the opportunity to get their work done early, many people wouldn’t use it and would just goof off. This means that if you give them extra work time, in reality you just shorten their school day which obviously isn’t ideal.

But then again if people don’t want to do their work it is their own fault, and not a lot would change. That’s because many of the kids that wouldn’t do their work in that extra time don’t pay attention in class anyway.

In my opinion, we should have more class time for homework, but not so much that it severely impacts our in class instruction. Especially because a lot of kids have sports after school or some kind of other activity, and having too much homework on top of all of this wouldn’t be helping them at all.

For kids that don’t pay attention in class nothing would really change, but for everyone else the extra class time would be greatly appreciated, especially those of us with busy schedules after school. Even just 10 extra minutes per class would be extremely helpful.

Obviously this wouldn’t work for all classes every day, but any and all time would go a long way. I have some classes that do this already, and I feel a lot less stressed about the work in those classes.

In class homework time wouldn’t fix kids not doing work, but it would be extremely helpful for students that care about turning things in on time. So, while classes shouldn’t turn into study hall, there’s nothing wrong with a bit of extra homework time here and there.

Editorials/Student Voice, School Life

The one retake policy is pretty dumb, and here’s why

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By: Abisola Dosunmu

First of all, where’s the motivation for this? Who thought this rule up? Because that puts way too much pressure on high school students, especially in accelerated classes. I get trying to prepare students for college, but I think the one retake thing per quarter is a little harsh. 

Second of all, what do educators hope to accomplish with this rule? I think I can understand the reason behind it. Maybe they think that if students are more stressed to perform well on the test, they’ll perform better. I think that more stress, even though some students perform better under pressure, isn’t necessarily what works well for all students. Is more stress really what students need? Most students don’t really need that extra pressure. 

You have to account for all students when it comes to making these rules. I wrote in the last paragraph that some students cope well under pressure and absorb the material better and therefore, won’t have as much trouble test taking. But other students suffer from test anxiety, and with the one retake policy, feel more pressure to score high, which is pretty disastrous for them. 

I think one of the biggest reasons for this rule is that in college, you’re not really allowed to retake tests like you would in high school. But in real life, you’re allowed to retake important tests. Imagine how many people wouldn’t have their driver’s license if they were only allowed to retake it once. 

Retaking tests benefits educators too! Retaking shows the spots they need to reteach a little more, and work on with students.

I think there should be a compromise. Instead of one retake in every class per quarter, two makes more sense. Also, If students retake the test more, they will absorb the information better and won’t immediately forget about it after the test is over.

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Editorials/Student Voice

How is it fair that teachers had to be in school during the digital learning day on Election day?

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By: Grace Blumer-Lamotte

On Tuesday, November 8th, 2022, there was an election for the new governor of Minnesota. The results came in the same night, Governor Tim Walz was elected again for the governor of Minnesota. 

On that Tuesday, all Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS) had a digital learning day. According to the SPPS website, “A Digital Learning/E-learning Day is where students will be able to access work in Schoology during asynchronous time. During synchronous time, staff are available to assist and support students learning via Google Meet.” 

The schedule for the day was a B day. Period 1 was from 8:30am-9am, period 2 was 9:05am-9:35am, period 3 was 9:40am-10:10am, period 4 was 10:15-10:45am. Teacher’s office hours were from 11am-12pm. During that time period, 8:30am-12pm, teachers and students were to be on the Google Meets. 

Students were able to sit in the comfort of their own home, while teachers needed to be in the school that they work at. 

From a student’s perspective, I think this is unfair for the teachers. They deserve a day off; they work very hard educating their students. I also think that they would feel more relaxed in the comfort of their own home. 

I interviewed a teacher from a SPPS school, another student from SPPS, and a parent of a student at SPPS. I asked them these questions:

How did you think the digital learning day went?

Do you think it’s unfair that teachers had to go to school for the digital learning day? Explain?

I asked only the SPPS teacher this question:

Would you have felt more comfortable in your home compared to the school on the digital learning day?

I asked just the SPPS student and parent this question:

Do you feel that teachers would’ve felt more comfortable in their own home on digital learning day? Explain?

The SPPS teacher responded to the first question saying, “I think the digital learning day went pretty well. It was a bit hectic trying to get to all of my classes with only a 5 minute break, but I managed.”

They replied to the second question saying, “I don’t think it’s necessarily unfair that us, teachers, had to go to school for the day. I would’ve enjoyed showing my pets and kids to my students during the Google meet, which is a little upsetting I wasn’t able too, but it’s okay.”

They answered the third question saying, “I personally would’ve felt more comfortable and relaxed at my own house on that day. But again, it was not my choice to make. One thing I would like to mention is that it was difficult to get to my voting place, the one closest to my house, because I live fairly far away from the school.”

A student from SPPS responded to the first question saying, “I didn’t like the digital learning day personally just because I get work done better inside the school environment.”

They replied to the second question saying, “I would only think it’s unfair for the teachers to go to school that day if they didn’t vote already, or they didn’t have the chance because of the location.”

They answered the third question saying, “To a certain extent I do feel that the teachers would’ve felt more comfortable in their home on that day, but I think most of their materials are at school.”

A parent of students from SPPS responded to the first question saying, “For my 2 kids, I feel like the digital learning day went fine. I think my kids are more engaged with in-person learning. Ultimately I support the day of digital learning if it allows more adults to participate in the election.”

They replied to the second question saying, “Yes I think it’s unfair that the teachers had to go to the school, for two reasons. Number one, if students can learn remotely then educators have the ability to teach remotely. Number two, I think our country should make election day a national holiday to free up all workers to more easily vote.”

They answered the third question saying, “Yes, I feel that teachers would’ve felt more comfortable teaching from their own home because, teachers are professionals we should trust them to know what they need to do to educate our children.”

Editorials/Student Voice

How Kanye West’s recent comments have cost him      

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By Brogan Frey

In recent weeks, rapper Kanye West, who now goes by Ye, has said and done a few controversial things that are now earning him lost partnerships and bannings on several social media platforms. 

The most significant lost partnership is the partnership between Ye and sports brand Adidas. The German sportswear giant announced the termination of the partnership on Tuesday, October 25th. This was a very significant partnership, and its termination will lead to Adidas losing almost $250 million this year alone, and is said to earn Ye around $100 million annually, which would amount to about $20.83 million for the remainder of the year. 

This is also significant because Adidas is probably the most important partner in Ye’s fashion empire. 

In addition to his lost partnerships, Ye has also been banned from several social media platforms for his increasingly anti-semetic comments. 

On Monday, October 24th, 2022, he was restricted on Instagram, 4 days after he had returned to the platform. Ye has made several disparaging comments about Jewish people, this one being about “Jewish business people.”

Photo taken from Kanye West’s Instagram account, linked here

This photo was taken not long after Adidas cut ties with the rapper. 

As of Monday, November 14th, the most recent post on Ye’s Instagram account is from October 30th. 

The rapper’s account was restricted and content posted by him deleted, because Ye violated some of the social media service’s policies, according to a Meta spokesperson. Meta did not specify what post triggered its decision, or why it took action on West’s account, but says it places restrictions, like preventing a user from sending messages, commenting, or posting, on accounts that repeatedly break its rules. 

Ye’s Twitter account was restricted for the same reason that he was restricted on Instagram. He posted several anti-semitic statements in the space of a few hours. On a now-deleted post on Twitter, West wrote, “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death [sic] con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE. The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also. You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.” 

In the same week that this tweet was posted, West was criticized for wearing a shirt that said ‘white lives matter’ on the back during Paris fashion week. The ‘white lives matter’ tag was used by many opposed to the Black Lives Matter movement that came to national attention after the death of George Floyd by a white police officer. 

Also, in relation to this tweet is Ye’s known connection to the Republican Party, who he seems to align with on many issues. 

Overall, besides his comments being deeply offensive and targeting a community that has faced much hurt in the past, Kanye West’s recent comments have cost him millions in brand deals, and a banning on several large social media platforms, including Instagram and Twitter. 

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Editorials/Student Voice

How many conspiracy theories are rooted in anti-semitism

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By: Irene Cohen

Anti-semitic hate crimes have almost tripled since 2015 after being on the decline for 15 years up until 2016. Even though these anti-semitic conspiracies have been around for hundreds of years, the hate being millenia old, something has popularized them so much, so the Jews in America, and all over the world, are being directly affected by this rhetoric.

The most prevalent trope among these conspiracies are that a tiny portion of the population, Jews, run the world. Antisemites believe that Jews are controlling the media, economy, government, and politics overall. In broad strokes, they believe Jewish people have gained money by being greedy and only interacting/doing business with other Jews. A large example of this is the Rothschild conspiracy. This conspiracy says that the wealthy Rothschild family, and Ashkenazi banking family, runs the global economy and manipulates politics into whatever they want it to be.

These conspiracies have not only originated in modern day times. In the 14th century, the conspiracy of Jewish people poisoning water wells to cause the Black Death was spread. Jewish people are often blamed for world tragedies as a scapegoat.

A phrase that is often used when describing this so called power that Jews have over the world is “hidden hand”. This is a phrase that more or less states that Jewish people are the puppetmasters of world events. This is one of the main rhetorics that allowed the Nazi party to take control of Germany. Antisemites believe that Jewish people are above them in a social/economic place in the world, yet they also believe them to be subhuman. This attitude allows them to think they are being righteous when punching down on Jewish people.

Be careful when looking into conspiracy theories. It’s easier to fall down that rabbit-hole of anti-semitism than you think.

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Editorials/Student Voice, Travel/Food

The scam of the keto diet

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By: Irene Cohen

The ketogenic diet, or keto for short, is a diet that focuses on extremely low carbohydrates with high fat content and protein in their foods. The idea of using this diet in order to lose weight is that the low carbohydrate intake and high fat intake forces the body to go into ketosis and burn fat instead of carbs. This, theoretically, results in burning body fat for energy and subsequently losing weight.

The ketogenic diet was developed in the 1920s by physicians from the Mayo Clinic. It was developed as a means to help treat epilepsy, as it mimics fasting metabolically. Fasting has been used as a treatment for epilepsy for over one thousand years, and this new diet provided a more accessible and healthy way to mimic fasting while avoiding most of the negative side effects. This diet was a very popular method of treating epilepsy until antiepileptic medication was developed. The mystery of why this diet works for treating epilepsy is still unsolved.

The keto diet requires you to eat 80-90% of your daily caloric intake from fat, with less than 100g of protein and 10-15 grams of carbohydrates. This forces your body to go into “starvation mode”, or ketosis, where instead of using glucose as an energy source, it breaks down fat stores into ketones in the absence of sugars.

What most people experience as fat loss due to the keto diet is usually just a calorie deficit, according to experts. Tracking your macronutrients and calories makes you more conscious of your food intake, which in turn makes someone more likely to lower their intakes as a reaction to this awareness.

This diet is also incredibly hard to follow, and many people end up not even going into ketosis, instead just having a high fat diet while still having enough carbs to break them down as usual.

The ketogenic diet can even have consequences for those who don’t have a professional nutritionist to aid them or those who do not need to follow this diet in order to treat neural diseases, like epilepsy. With such a large chunk of your diet being fat, your heart takes a hit. Such a high fat intake for so long can really affect your arteries in the long run. Not only that, but limiting your carbs to such a degree limits the nutrients you can consume. Eating just one small apple can meet your daily carb limit, and think of all the nutrients you get from fruit with a high, but healthy, sugar content.

The keto diet is another fad diet of medical studies being taken out of context for those who are desperate to lose weight. Most professional nutritionists say that at best, for the average person, keto might be moderately healthy. The possible consequences of damaging your metabolism and heart long term in order to shed a few pounds is not worth it. Eating a balanced diet of fruits, veggies, and whole grains is almost always the answer, most professionals say. Leave the ketogenic diet to those using it as a means of treatment for various diseases.

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Editorials/Student Voice

Why I don’t like the reputation of Ivy institutions

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By: Irene Cohen

Ivy league universities are apart of an athletic conference which consists of eight institutions: Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and Yale University. They are considered the most prestigious colleges that one can attend in the US, with the highest acceptance rate being 8.7% and the lowest 3.9%.

The Ivy league produces some of the most influential people in the world, such as Supreme Court Justices, whose members all attended either Harvard or Yale.

However, for the majority of the people who get into these Ivies, they did not get there solely out of merit. Many of those who get into the undergraduate programs attended preparatory schools, or boarding schools, that cost a small fortune. These schools are a sort of feeder school, helping students specifically to get into these schools and helping them with connections, something the average American high school doesn’t have access to.

With the Ivies and their feeder schools costing so much, you may be wondering how families afford this. The answer is, because they’re rich. The median family income for undergraduate families of Harvard students was 3 times the median US household income. Dartmouth disproportionately accepts wealthy applicants, with one fifth of their student body coming from the top 1% in the country. The top 1% are households that make $630,000 or more a year. They are one of the few schools in the nation that has more undergraduates from the top 1% than the entire bottom 60%.

As if that wasn’t enough, they accept legacies at a much greater rate than non legacy students. Those who are legacies, which is anyone with family members who attended these schools in the past, have up to a 5 times greater chance of getting into the school.

All these components of privilege leave a sour taste in my mouth. I think it’s extremely inequitable to consider these schools the peak of education when most US high schoolers have a very slim chance of getting accepted, regardless of how well they perform in school, their intelligence, or their work-ethic. This country needs to stop putting these schools on such a high pedestal.

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Editorials/Student Voice, Tech/Games

We should be using Chromebooks, not iPads

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By: Ava Bird

For us students, using iPads for school every day is what we’re used to. And many of us are perfectly okay with it. But there are also those who recognize the downsides that come along with using iPads for our learning – and there are a lot of downsides. 

First of all, almost every mobile application is different from its desktop counterpart, and when on a Chromebook, this is usually beneficial to the user.

For example, on the desktop version of Duolingo, you don’t have a limited amount of hearts; in fact, hearts aren’t even a thing, meaning that you can make as many mistakes as you need to without purchasing a “Super” membership (previously known as “Plus”). 

Another example is Schoology. On Chromebooks, students have a better, somewhat more advanced version of Schoology that is more organized and has more functions than the iPad version. One of these functions is how you can edit Google Doc assignments without even leaving the schoology app. There is a “My Document” button, which allows you to view and edit a teacher-created Doc, whether it be open-ended writing or a fill-in-the-blanks study guide, directly from Schoology. If you wanted to open the document from the Google Docs website instead, there’s an “Edit” button which allows you to do so. Any document opened via Schoology automatically saves under your Google account. 

On the iPad version of Schoology, on the other hand, there’s a button which allows you to create a written submission, but you can’t see the directions for the assignment while editing it, and you can’t easily go back and forth between the directions and your writing. And this isn’t the only part of Schoology where iPads don’t compare; there’s so much more, but it’s best to just leave it here.

Another thing that makes Chromebook usage much simpler than iPad usage is how, in most cases, everything you need to do can be done from your browser. This means that everything is right in front of you, and nothing will get lost behind layers and layers of forgotten apps and websites. If you’ve never used a Chromebook, it may seem like having too many tabs open at once would result in confusion and lack of organization, but there’s actually a very simple way to group tabs into different subjects or categories. 

Grouping tabs compresses the selected tabs into a folder of sorts, which you can then name and color code to your liking. For example, you can have a yellow tab group labeled “History,” in which you can store all of your tabs from that class; a blue tab group labeled “English;” and a green tab group labeled “Science.” The tab groups don’t even have to contain class materials – you could also have, say, a purple tab group labeled “other,” which might contain random things such as a Google search, a Netflix show, and the daily sudoku. For many people, however, grouping tabs isn’t even necessary, since there is a large enough view to contain a good amount of tabs.

If you’re worried about not being able to draw or take handwritten notes on apps such as Notability, or if you simply like having a touchscreen, that’s no reason to keep using an iPad; there are Chromebooks with touchscreens. And, unlike iPads, use of the touchscreen isn’t even necessary to perform the functions that your flimsy iPad keyboard/case can’t. Plus, it’s really nice to have a built-in keyboard mouse. 

There are some iPad apps that don’t have web versions, like Notability, but you’ll soon find that apps like that are easily replaceable. Notes can be printed and handed out to students, taken on paper or in a notebook, or shared via Schoology or through a Google Document. The same can be done for worksheets, and many people appreciate the occasional hard copy, as it helps maintain the handwriting skills that are vital to everyday life. There are also apps that are similar to Notability, such as Google Keep, which allows you to take notes in a way that is similar to Notability. But even so, once Notability and similar apps are taken out of the equation, many will find that they are easily replaceable or not even a necessity in the first place.

There are so many more reasons why we should be using Chromebooks instead of iPads, and I could go on and on about this, but here’s the bottom line: It’s time to stop pretending that iPads are the best option for our education. They’re not.