quite the spirit week

this week was a microcosm of everything great and terrible about teaching high school. it started horribly on monday morning with announcement for the staff to gather in the media center at 7:oo. this is never a good announcement. it usually means they have to pass along some tragic news so we're prepared to deal with students affected by it. this, unfortunately, was not an exception. our principal passed along that a body had been found in a pond over the weekend and that it was going to be identified as one of our students, anthony. i had anthony in my class a couple years ago - and i use the term "in class" lightly. anthony was far more interested in other past times than doing well in my english class. but he was fun to have around when he was there. great kid, horrible student. unfortunately, anthony preferred to escape from reality and ultimately it caused him to leave it. the odd thing is, in a school the size of mason (3,000 students), it made only a small ripple. his close friends were devastated, but the devastation didn't reach much to the others.

i went with bea to the funeral on wednesday night. so hard to watch students weep. this circle of friends had already lost one earlier this year. rick huff, our truant officer and ordained minister, led the service, and did a marvelous job of emphasizing the hope that can be found in tragedies like this. but his mom and stepdad took the opportunity to condemn his friends. i know it came out of a desire to spare their parents the pain they were feeling. but there has to be a better time to do that, a better way, than at the funeral.

anthony's death made the week a bit odd, the strange juxtaposition of death with the celebration of school spirit. i had a great time dressing up for the various days and seeing my students do the same. nice seeing some things don't change, no matter how the decades pass. it makes the classroom much more interesting and i think helps students to get more out of the reading we do. we had a good time acting out scenes from beowulf, though they're still a bit timid. at least most of them are. we'll see if they were actually able to learn anything next week when i give the test.

then there was the major drama of the week: seems a parent called the school and registered a complaint about the song "crank dat" by soulja boy, claiming it was too offensive for high school students to listen to at a school sponsored activity (here's the lyrics, if you want to see. good luck understanding them). so the administration, wanting to avoid a scene, decided not to play the song. and then all of the underworld broke loose. rumours flew, stating there was a long list of songs that were not going to be played, that the dj would only be playing wordless, techno versions of songs, that students could not get their money back. so the students decided to get fired up and went to the school board meeting to raise their complaints. while i'm all for student activism, they needed to think about how they were going about it. the school board has no say in this kind of thing and all it did was make the public aware of the songs that are being played at the dance, raising the possibility that there will be a list of banned songs next time there's a dance as soon as parents realize there are far worse songs than "crank dat."

dumbest moment: the student chosen to speak for the student body chose to end his rant with the following idea: why should one parent's complaint cause suffering for the rest of us. suffering? really, suffering? you really feel you're suffering because you cannot listen to a 4 minute song that you'll probably hate in six months? if you want to see suffering, maybe you should have gone to anthony's funeral. or turned on the news. or found a way not to look like an over-privileged, whiny teenager.

and of course the local media ate it up. my favorite moment comes from wkrc's coverage. they interviewed a couple of my students for the report. unfortunately, dan was dressed for spirit week and looks like, if you'll pardon the vernacular, a wigger, which only added to the hilarity for me. you also have a character dressed in red scuba gear dancing. we do so much right at mason - why is it always this kind of silliness that gets covered?

then today was the pep rally. i can't say i was looking forward to it - too many students, crazy logistics, abysmal sound. and usually the student body seems less interested in celebrating school spirit than simply getting out of class. but today was the peppiest rally i've been to at mason. andy and i had a good time getting the wave going and the drumline got all the students up and dancing about. we think they should hire the drumline to play for the dance and avoid all the controvery. it was fun seeing all the students having a great time. and they're so freaking polite - the administration got worried that the students might run over the drumline so they walked up to the students and asked them to go back to their seats - and they went! crazy!

was so exhausted by the end of the day i feared i wouldn't make it to the game and almost didn't. but got myself out of my comfy chair and drove back up to school. i met bea and we waded through the masses. as i passed the senior section they began chanting "thurman! thurman!" hilarious and flattering and embarrassing all at the same time. and, surprise surprise, the football team actually won (it's been a rough year for them). the only disappointment was the band. technically, they were excellent - sharp marching, precise playing, excellent formations. but you could barely hear them. and they had no passion. my high school band was half the size and twice as loud. but a great end to a great spirit week.

geesh. i need to post more often so i don't end up with these monstrous posts. not like i've had a ton of time this week, though. and i didn't even get to mention academic team and my first film club meeting of the year. see, i told you it was a packed week.

ok, time to try and sleep. or go and watch the hours of tv i have on my dvr. or both. night.
Æ

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now they tell me

http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/10/05/appendix.purpose.ap/index.html

*WASHINGTON (AP) * -- Some scientists think they have figured out the
real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces
and protects good germs for your gut.

That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University
Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week.

For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors
figured it had no function. Surgeons removed them routinely. People live
fine without them.

And when infected the appendix can turn deadly. It gets inflamed quickly
and some people die if it isn't removed in time. Two years ago, 321,000
Americans were hospitalized with appendicitis
<http://topics.cnn.com/topics/appendicitis>, according to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention
<http://topics.cnn.com/topics/centers_for_disease_control_and_prevention>.

The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of
bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study
in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than
human cells in the typical body. Most are good and help digest food.

But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged.
Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of
useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in
that case.

The appendix "acts as a good safe house for bacteria," said Duke surgery
professor Bill Parker, a study co-author. Its location _ just below the
normal one-way flow of food and germs in the large intestine in a sort
of gut cul-de-sac -- helps support the theory, he said.

Also, the worm-shaped organ outgrowth acts like a bacteria factory,
cultivating the good germs, Parker said.

That use is not needed in a modern industrialized society, Parker said.

If a person's gut flora dies, it can usually be repopulated easily with
germs they pick up from other people, he said. But before dense
populations in modern times and during epidemics of cholera that
affected a whole region, it wasn't as easy to grow back that bacteria
and the appendix came in handy.

In less developed countries, where the appendix may be still useful, the
rate of appendicitis is lower than in the U.S., other studies have
shown, Parker said.

He said the appendix may be another case of an overly hygienic society
triggering an overreaction by the body's immune system.

Even though the appendix seems to have a function, people should still
have them removed when they are inflamed because it could turn deadly,
Parker said. About 300 to 400 Americans die of appendicitis each year,
according to the CDC.

Five scientists not connected with the research said that the Duke
theory makes sense and raises interesting questions.

The idea "seems by far the most likely" explanation for the function of
the appendix, said Brandeis University biochemistry professor Douglas
Theobald. "It makes evolutionary sense."

The theory led Gary Huffnagle, a University of Michigan internal
medicine and microbiology professor, to wonder about the value of
another body part that is often yanked: "I'll bet eventually we'll find
the same sort of thing with the tonsils."

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