Op/Ed

Marcus Diemer

Staff writer

Discussions can be a great tool for students to learn and talk about different ideas in their classes. They give everyone a chance to voice their unique perspective, which is what makes them such an important tool. However you lose some people’s unique point of view if they are too afraid of being ostracized to speak their mind. 

Personally, I have almost always felt comfortable speaking my mind at school. People are generally respectful even when they disagree which is an important part to making people feel safe in what they are saying.  Teachers have always emphasized the importance of attacking the idea, not the person who has that idea. This was especially true in my sophomore English class, where we were doing a mock mock trial and we had to talk through our constitutional reasoning for why we thought each case was right or wrong. My teacher, Mr. Kay emphasized the importance of refuting the argument, not attacking the character of the person. This kept the discussion respectful and civil. 

The conversation was  difficult at times, especially because people were discussing something they are passionate about. However, learning this skill now as a student will be important for the rest of our lives. 

I can definitely understand why someone would feel intimidated or even scared to share an opinion that may be unpopular with the class. Even if people are only attacking your idea if enough people do it it could start to feel overwhelming. 

There is more to being uncomfortable than people just disagreeing though. It is a difficult skill to master, but actually listening to other people’s ideas is just as important as being respectful. You are not actually gaining anything from the discussion if you don’t really care what everyone else has to say, you are just waiting your turn to speak.

 I’ve noticed this can be a problem in many discussions when people will just say stuff seemingly just to have “participated.” This happens most frequently when students have not adequately prepared. I distinctly remember a friend who had not prepared at all for a discussion of Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaids Tale.” His plan was to just sort of go along with what people were saying, but this did now work as well as he hoped. All of his points, though mostly true, did not really add to the discussion since there was nothing that had not already been said. I think the criteria for participation can be a bit narrow when we say you have to talk a certain amount of times, because then people are just trying to get their turn to say something, and do not care as much what they actually say. 

Participating is about much more than just saying your sentence you wrote down in your notebook, it is about seeing other people’s perspective and learning from it. If you don’t feel like anyone cares, you might not even feel inclined to share your thoughts either. 

When I go to college next year, I hope that my professors will place the same emphasis on including different perspectives and being respectful even when there are disagreements. This is an integral part of education and I think SLA got it right. 

Adrie Young

Staff Writer

My grandmother is a gin rummy fanatic. Practically every time we see each other, we play the card game.

In the beginning, she won a lot. She had decades of experience under her belt. I, on the other hand, had to be reminded of rules and introduced to various strategies. My grandmother was my coach and my rival all wrapped up into one.

And she loved to talk while we played.

“Here’s a pretty card for you.”

“Well that’s not very nice!”

“Oh, I might just take that.”

My grandmother lives in St. Louis, so I don’t see her very often. I suppose the only upside to that is that each of our visits feels more special.

Recently, her memory has started to fade. She often tells the same stories over and over, or asks questions that were answered just a few minutes ago. It can be frustrating when she doesn’t remember simple things I tell her or when she repeats information. But despite this annoyance, I know she needs support from relatives now more than ever.

I saw my grandmother most recently over Thanksgiving break, and, like usual, we played gin rummy. The remarks she made while we played were familiar and fun, but there were a few new ones in the mix as well.

“How many cards am I dealing?”

“Do you remember our scores?”

“What was the knock card?”

Now, I am the one reminding my grandmother of rules and coaching her through the game. As age changes her, I have to take more responsibility, both when it comes to card games and other aspects of our relationship. And maybe that’s just how it is – over time, younger generations have to adapt to take care of the people who used to take care of them.

Recently, my family has been working on moving my grandmother into a retirement home. She met the effort with much resistance at first – my grandmother does not want to admit that her memory is not what it used to be. Almost all of my relatives had to work together for the transition to go smoothly: people have gone to St. Louis to visit my grandmother in her retirement home; my mom and some of her siblings have been going through everything that my grandmother has accumulated in her apartment over the years; we have been sending letters to her new address to make it feel more like home.

I think we have all been affected by this shift in dynamics, especially my mom and her siblings. It is strange to acknowledge how much care and support my grandmother needs, because she is the one who used to provide care and support to the rest of our family. 

While it can be scary and uncomfortable to see people around me grow older and need more assistance from others, it is a natural part of life. Just because relationships change doesn’t mean they are any less special. I will always cherish my grandmother, no matter who’s reminding the other of how to play gin rummy.

Anouk Ghosh-Poulshock

Staff Writer

As teenagers, we are constantly sending and receiving texts. But not everyone is always up for texting. Sometimes, texts get so overwhelming that it feels better to simply not respond. But when is it okay to ignore a message, and when is it rude to do so?

Most days, when I get back home from school, I am exhausted from the long day and just want time alone to rest. After hours of being pestered by everyone around me, it feels best to simply be left alone. Then I get a text from my friend, with some minor emergency that is important to them but not too important to me. I choose to respond to the text later. But what message is that sending? From some points of view, it could be saying that I don’t care what my friend has to say, when in actuality, I simply don’t want to respond at the exact moment.

Now, let’s look at that scenario from a different perspective. It’s just after school, and I just had the awkwardest and most embarrassing encounter, and simply want to tell my friend about it. I text them, but don’t get a reply until hours later. By then, the event has already worn off, and there is no importance to the story. It doesn’t feel too rude when it happens once, but how does it feel when it happens all the time? What if my friends aren’t texting me back because they don’t like me? Do they find me annoying?

“I do ignore texts sometimes but I almost always reply at some point,” says sophomore Maya Smelser. Most of the time, when one ignores their texts, they will respond to them eventually, just not at that exact moment.

When it comes to texting, there are many double standards. Personally, I tend to expect people to respond to my text instantly, and if not instantly than within an hour. But sometimes, I won’t text people back for days. Ignoring messages is frowned upon, but sometimes you just need a break from the phone. Most times, when you ignore someone’s text message, you don’t do it to be rude. It doesn’t mean you don’t like the person, but you can’t be expected to always reply to people immediately.

But when you send a text, you are always expecting an instant reply, and it gets aggravating to constantly wait for a response. In addition, simply leaving someone on “read”, or ending the conversation, could be a sign that you never want to talk to someone again. But what is the point of never ending texting, especially when the conversation gets pointless?

“I love ignoring people. It makes me feel powerful. But, I hate being ignored. I feel like people hate me,” says sophomore Josie Barsky. This is a good explanation of how texting feels. When you ignore someone, you are getting the ego boost of having someone waiting on you. As you could expect, being ignored feels the exact opposite, and everyone has experienced both sides many times.

This situation goes past texting as well. With popular apps like Snapchat, you can see when people are on their phone and when they are ignoring you. If someone was to simply go into the app, it would look like they are responding to other people and not you.

In addition, sometimes when we get bored of people, we ghost them. This means stopping talking to them entirely, by not responding to any of their messages until you don’t talk anymore. Is ghosting mean? Ghosting someone, and cutting them out of your life, can feel really good when you are the one initiating it. Getting ghosted, however, is not the best feeling. This connects back to many of the double standards that we face with this topic.

In an essay by Erica Dhawan, she says that we should “let go of the outdated, demanding requirement to participate in ceaseless back-and-forth conversations”.

Frankly, I agree. It seems silly to be expected to instantly reply and never end a conversation.

So how do we fix this little issue? I think that the best way to fix these expectations is to simply change them yourself. Stop expecting people to text back instantly, but also don’t ignore your friends entirely. Once you make this change, I hope that you can get to a point where you are able to have less stress about texts. When you let go of your expectations, you won’t have all of the stress tagging along with texts. For me, I don’t stress about responses back, and I understand when people are unable to talk instantly. While I still carry this double standard, I have a lot less worries about texts.

Dinah Soloway

Staff Writer

I have always been confused on one topic, what kind of social person am I? Sometimes I was a talkative person in my friend group and other times I was the quiet kid in class. There were definitely moments where I had slipped into being one side more. As the environment I’m in changes, I go with it.

First I have to redefine being an introvert or extrovert? When I am being my introvert kind of person. The space tends to be quiet and I tend to think over my thoughts too much. Overthinker is just a good word to describe being an introvert. Anytime you are in your own thoughts and you feel comfortable being alone in a quiet place.

In an article called “You Can Learn to Love Being Alone,” Shannon Doyne from the New York Times describes how identifying and processing situations when we are alone is not an easy thing to do. However, It helps us develop those independent decision-making skills. When people are alone and are processing their thoughts it is a sign that a person knows how to use their day to the fullest, making every second count.

When I’m being an extrovert with my friends, I also feel totally comfortable being myself. I get to be overly goofy, blurting out random and funny words.

But on the other hand, most of my afternoons are filled up with listening to my music at home with no one around. Just me living in my room like a bat with the lights off trying not to procrastinate on my homework yet again. Do I just feel comfortable living like that or is this my way of getting energy?

In my opinion, there can be two ways of thinking about your personality. One, what category do you place yourself into? As you are the one who experiences the most of what you like to do. Another way to think about it is having a friend who hangs around with me who might have a different idea of what kind of person I am.

Based on all of these observations, I believe that I fall into that category of being an ambivert. An ambivert is defined as a person with both introvert qualities and extrovert.

As some people might say, “I can change my personality depending on who is with me.” saying this might just mean you’re a mixture of two things. It comes from the freedom to label yourself with whatever you feel is most right. A few weeks earlier in a Spanish class, Profe Downing brought up the topic of code changing. This means in some words the ability to change your actions or humor depending on the environment around you.

I am a person that does this quite frequently on my own. Early in the morning, I might be very excited about practice or totally exhausted from having no sleep at all. I am a very indecisive person and have had so many different experiences trying to get my social life to a point where I feel the happiest and most comfortable. Let’s just say that this will be something I will have to keep working on in the future. That a new experience comes around every time and a new and different person comes into my life. With just a few years of high school left, I can’t wait for a college social adventure and more to come.