Rate My Teachers…

Here is an interesting link for anybody who is a student.

http://www.ratemyteachers.com/

This site allows anybody to search their school and look up their teachers. You will find detailed information about how hard the teachers are, how much homework they give, etc…

Teachers are also given an overall grade.

This is extraordinarily helpful, because students can rate and comment on their own teachers. I used it for my schedule this year and have had a wonderful first semester academically.

Teen Leadership Opportunities

There are many leadership opportunities for teens in Princeton. Here are just a few…

1) Corner House: Corner House is an excellent program, which provides counseling and treatment to substance abusers. It also has several leadership groups open to teens through application, which includes GAIA (Growing Up as an Accepted Individual in America), TAG (Teen Advisory Group), and Student Board.

TAG is a team of twenty-two juniors from the Princeton area schools- Princeton High School, Princeton Day School, Hun School of Princeton, and Stuart Country Day School. Its members present workshops about drugs and alcohol prevention to elementary and middle school students. Student Board is open to seniors only. It organizes social events for the Princeton community and serves as a student advocate for the Corner House organization.

Applications will probably be out around the beginning of April. Check www.cornerhousennj.org for more information!

2) HiTOPS: HiTOPS is a program consisting of seniors from New Jersey area schools. It presents sex education workshops to younger kids.

Applications for the 2010-1011 HiTOPS Teen Council can be found through this link! 

http://www.hitops.org/peereducation/teencouncilmembers.shtml

3) Also be sure to check your schools for in-school opportunities! I know that Princeton High School has several programs including Community Service Leadership, Teen Pep, and Peer Group.

Does anyone else know of anymore? Comments are always welcome!

PTO Cotillion Dance

Every year several Princeton area schools organize the cotillion dance, which includes Princeton High School, Princeton Day School, Hun, and Stuart.  It is always lots of fun, but the price for admission is always very high. Last year it was a hundred dollars per person.

This is not right, because it excludes lower-income families from being able to pay. All school related functions should be at an affordable price.

Everybody should be able to have the choice to attend.

Grades Vs. Learning

At Princeton High School, there are two levels of classes for students. They are known as regular classes and accelerated classes/AP classes. However, in order to be recommended for them, a student must have a certain grade in their previous class. This grade is usually a B/B+ for science and math courses.

Although grades do give the viewer a general idea of the level of work the student can do, they are very subjective. They often have to do with the teacher and his/her idea of what is good work. Having taken many advanced classes, myself, I can honestly say that a B in one class can be another teacher’s equivalent of a grade even as low as a C.

This in turn, is not fair when deciding a course schedule for next year. Someone who is just as intelligent as a person accepted into the advanced classes, may be told to take regular classes again. In my opinion, all levels of courses should be open to people regardless of their previous grades. If someone wants to learn and challenge themselves with harder material, then they should be able to.

The whole point of education should not always be to earn that perfect A, but it should be to learn.

What’s your opinion on this? Comments would be greatly appreciated. <3

Lack of Enforcement

As a teen living in the dowtown Princeton area, I am often exposed to people acting out, drinking, and/or doing drug dealings in plain sight. What I don’t understand is why there are not more police officers walking around and patrolling the streets. Sure they are busy and on the most part do a wonderful job, but they are meant to help maintain Princeton as a safe community and the fact that there is not more done to prevent this is huge. If our town is going to be a sound place for everyone to live and enjoy, then there must be more done to crack down on this issue. Yes, it is true that it is impossible to completely rid any place of trouble, but until there is more obvious enforcement and police in town, then this will only continue to become a greater and more uncontrollable problem than it already is.

Is Public Education Really Free?

A few weeks ago my math class was approached with the opportunity to attend an educational math field trip at the amusement park, Six Flags. Of course I was excited… my whole class was! That is until we discovered that it would cost forty dollars per person to attend, which excluded both transport and lunch. This is extremely unfair, as there is absolutely no reason why lower-income students, whose parents cannot afford to pay should not be allowed to go. Now you may say that the school should pay for people who cannot pay “a mere forty dollars,” but most people who cannot afford to pay are not going to just admit that. I know that I never would. Public education, which is meant to be free by law should not and cannot ask students to pay.

Teen Pep… From Kid To Kid

Sex and drug education is such a picky topic… there is much debate as to whether lecturing children on it actually helps or if it simply leads to a more negative interest in the matter. One thing for sure is that people should be at least educated and informed of it, but then again what kid doesn’t know the saying, “Don’t do drugs and don’t have sex.” One thing that really outrages me is that at Princeton High School there is a program called Teen Pep. Teen Pep is the main education for the dangers of sex and drugs and how to be responsible. It is a great idea, but it is taught by kids to kids. Although it being partially taught from kid to kid isn’t a bad idea, it is very important to choose the right teens and to make sure that it is taught well. As a freshmen in high school, I remember all my friends always whispering that our current teen pep member did drugs or went further with boys/girls than she or he let on. Of course, I didn’t believe everything I heard, but this year, with the initiation of new teen pep leaders, these rumors may be true if facebook pictures are any proof. Although many of the 2009-2010 teen pep leaders are great people individually, most of them do have serious issues with substance abuse and sex. This does not make them bad people, as they are most definitely not, but it does mean that the current teen pep program is not functioning to the best of its ability. If you are to teach and leacture something to younger children, you can’t have them thinking or knowing that you have the same problems that are being discussed. When the future of younger children lies in one’s hands, one cannot be a hypocrite and there is no way that one should take part in a drug and sex education program.