Retroviseur/Comics

An SAC Exec Tells You What Time It is - and it's not just a guilt trip.

In The Woodlands School there are approximately 1700 students. Among these students we have Indian, Black, White, Asian, Europeans, African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern, a lot of smart kids, a 1ot of not so smart kids, Athletes, Enhanced kids, Drama kids, skinny kids, Phat kids and kid kids. Each one of these students has different needs and wants, dreams and their own list of priorities in life. To cater to this variety of people and their ideas would be an impossible task, wouldn't you think? Well, probably about 99% of Woodlands' student body actually thinks it is really easy to run this school. You're probably thinking "I know I'm not one of those students". Well, sorry to break it to you but you are, I'm sure at one time or another you have said that, "this school sucks! Why doesn't the SAC do something!" So, what should the SAC do about it?

The Student Activity Council is a club in the school in charge of Dances, Lockers, Ram Shop, Student fees and School Spirit. Of these five items the SAC have been hassled and questioned on all of these things.

Until recently the dances in this school have been aimed towards the '108' type kids, meaning nothing but dance, R&B, Hip Hop and House music. The only dance of this year broke the whole idea that there is only dance music at a dance. Believe it or not there was an Alternative set put in. Those of us who were at that dance were shocked. Although some people danced/moshed / whatever to it, they, like MOST others, still think that dances should stick to dance music. BUT WAIT! What's this? The SAC tries to do some thing people have said they have wanted and the school doesn't want it! This is the main problem with this school. NO ONE is ever satisfied with the SAC and their decisions.

Lockers, Ram Shop, and student fees tie in together because they involve the main thing SAC has been hassled about ..... Money. What does SAC do with all that money from lockers, Ram Shop and Student fees? Well, I know the truth, and I'll tell you. Believe it or not, the money goes right back to you. To all of us who take Phys. Ed., the SAC has helped pay for a lot of the equipment we use. To all of you who use the library, the SAC has helped improve the library and its facilities. The SAC has also helped out the Drama club, Stained glass club, Sub Culture, Choir, Chem club, Outers club, Badminton and especially yearbook. Each one of us has at one point or another used these facilities or has been affected by these clubs or know of some who has. The SAC has always provided assistance to any club in the school who formally asks for it. No reasonable request has been denied or ever will be. But NO ONE is ever satisfied with the SAC and their decisions.

School spirit is the biggest thing our school is lacking. There is nothing to say about this topic only that our Spirit weeks don't suck, but our student body does. Let me explain: The SAC is made up of a small group of students who give up their Monday and Thursday nights to think of ways to improve our school and hold events for the students. The SAC does not know everyone in the school, but we would like to and would like to hear your ideas. And the only way for us to listen to you is if you come to the meetings every Thursday and SPEAK YOUR MIND, or catch us in the SAC office. No one will hold anything against you and I'm sure that your questions will be answered. If not, we'll help you find an answer.

The events we hold may seem childish or stupid but you must keep in mind that ALL events must be approved by administration. Many, many, many ideas have been crushed by the administration, because “some students might find [the idea] offensive (idea: matchmaker )", or, "[The events] are unsafe (event: joint dances / Alternative dance / Live band night)" or that "our main objective in school is to learn and [this event] would not be appropriate (event: movie nights / talent shows)." Although many ideas were shot down, the ones that do go through have really bad support. Most of the students that attend SAC events are either friends of SAC members, students that are lost, little grade seven and eights, or the very few who actually care for our school. Once again NO ONE is ever satisfied with the SAC and their decisions.

Blame!! Who can we blame for our "crappy" school? Before I go any further I would like to remind you that this is my opinion. Like all the other articles written in this paper, this is an opinion and view on this matter. Some will agree others will disagree but what ever you decide, do something about it.( legally). N-E-WAYZ, back to Blame.

We could blame the administration for trying to keep us safe and give us an education. Who are they to try and help us out? We could also blame the SAC for holding such crufty events, trying to raise our school spirit, helping out our school and its clubs and trying to make school as fun as possible. I mean, I'm the center of the universe, and the SAC is supposed to magically know what my friends and I want at school dances and events. In my opinion the only group I could blame is YOU, the student body for not supporting your school, for not becoming involved, not voicing your opinions. The Woodlands is your school, built for you and everything done in this school is for the students, to better your lives. So why aren't there a lot more students planning these events? Why do we depend on one student (i.e. Social convenor) to set up dances? Why do some clubs get more support than others ? Why do only 300 people show up at dances? Why have Spirit Weeks been so dry? The reason is cause your stupid ass is so freakin’ lazy that it can't give up 15 to 20 minutes after school on Thursdays to find out what’s going on in YOUR school and how you could help YOUR school out. And trust me, this school needs your help.

There are two types of students in this school, people who are part of the problem, and the people who are doing things to solve that problem. If you've complained about our "dry" school, you' re the part of the problem. Instead of complaining 24-7 to your friends, complain to some one that wants to hear your bitchin'. I suggest you check yourself and help your school by joining a club, supporting school dances, events and athletics or just coming out to the SAC meetings, which are held every Thursday and put your two cents in. We'd like to hear it.

(Back to Contents)

What's Up in Oppression?

The avant-garde social butterfly will tell you that there are three subjects which are best left out of polite conversation: sex, politics and religion. This is for an obvious reason: people tend to have vastly differing opinions on these topics. You might end up starting a bar brawl if your companions don’t like what you say. Or, they might slap you in handcuffs and drag you to the hospital for a beating and amputation, just so you see their side of things. That’s the Afghan equivalent of witty dinner-party repartee. If you think “The Man” is breathing down your neck here in the Great White North, you should get a load of human rights, Afghanistan-style.

Since the Persian Empire, Afghanistan has always been a battleground for the squabbles of foreign powers. Despite this, the spirit of the Afghans has kept them strong and fighting. Even during the Soviet occupation of the past decade, the predominantly Muslim tribesmen of Afghanistan managed to break down the Red Army. Now, their crusading spirit has turned against them in an ironic twist: the former freedom fighters are now fighting to bring in a sadistic, xenophobic, short-sighted Islamic dictatorship. The rulers of the remains of Afghanistan call themselves the Taleban. Taleban is an Afghan word for “religious students”, which is a kind way of describing a bunch of religious nuts. These people do not represent the mainstream Islamic ideals of tolerance, scholarship, dignity, and respect for others. Instead, they epitomize bigotry, oppression, ignorance, and totalitarianism. The world is now coming to see that some person’s idea of the perfect fundamentalist Islamic republic is actually a pretty good vision of hell.

In the cities of the country, most buildings are in ruins due to the decades of almost-incessant fighting. Houses are burned, roads are cracked and pitted, communications links are in disrepair, and fields are peppered with land mines. Most schools are closed, and the ones that are open are for boys only. In fact, the Taleban has declared open season on the women of Afghanistan. Females are not allowed to be seen without their burkhas, a type of dress that hides a woman from her ankles to her head, with a panel of lace over her face, hiding her features from the presumably lecherous stares of men. Women are not allowed to hold jobs or even go outside unless they have a reason acceptable to the Taleban. Their “reasons” are pretty tough, as one woman found out recently. She was shot, in the back, by Taleban militiamen after she had the audacity to take her small boy to the doctor because he was sick. Of course, the Taleban claim it was the woman’s fault. Women who dare to flaunt the Taleban’s edicts are beaten with chains or otherwise tortured. Recently, the Taleban’s demands upon its people have become even more obtuse, as hicks from the sticks pore over battered Korans, looking for God’s will in the insignificant. They have decided that Allah does not will men to trim their beards, ever. They intend to back this up with force, making Afghanistan a treasure trove for Vegas producers in search of ZZ Top impersonators. To top this off, all men must pray at the mosque on Fridays, or they face a whuppin’ from thugs who think they are doing God’s work. Youths who are seen as “Un-Islamic” or “heathens” are dragged into the street and shot like animals. Torture is the investigative technique of choice for almost all thoughtcrimes, and prisoners are sometimes locked in metal containers for months like tuna. Some doctors have decided that their duty to help the suffering isn’t half as much fun as amputating criminal’s body parts for the government, which makes me pray that I never get sick in Afghanistan. Really incorrigible criminals are punished by stoning, which is basically where your neighbours make you pay for your heresy by chucking rocks at your head until you die. Yes, in Afghanistan, God is great.

To justify their bloodshed and tyranny, the Taleban invokes the ancient bugbear of fundamentalists: the outside world. Specifically, the West. In the city of Qandahar, a historic fortress rich in history and architecture, the local do-gooders have erected a giant Guy Fawkes on which to display the trophies of their cultural revolution. Two steel towers above the road into town are festooned with televisions, video-cassettes, and other symbols of Westerner’s technical perversions. The Taleban fears television because it captures the likeness of living things, turning them into graven images, which is bad, apparently. No-one really knows why. As this rebellion against technology takes place, Pakistani telephone companies and banks are moving in to the country, perhaps because they have greased the palm of the God Police.

What does this have to do with us? After all, Afghanistan is on the other side of the world, far, far away from us. They probably don’t even have the Spice Girls there. However, to them, the technological changes sweeping the planet are a source of fear that can be combated only one way. In countries around the world, fundamentalists (of all religions) dream of creating a religious or moral Utopia, where the people can submit themselves totally to their God, where the simple-minded and the pure are unsoiled by the West’s evil ways (democracy, freedom of expression, and freedom of thought). They want the whole world to be like them, with the same morals, ideals, and xenophobia. The people of Afghanistan have built their version of that Utopia. I, for one, wouldn’t want to live there. Let us heathens be thankful for what we have.

(For more information about the armpits of the world, check out www.oneworld.org, or your local library. Don’t take my word for it.)

(Back to Contents)

Recent course cancellations in Visual Art provoke student petitions

In response to the administration’s recent decision to cancel next year’s OAC Visual Art course, several students have organized a petition in order to raise awareness and pressure the administration into re-evaluating the situation.

Basically, it comes down to the fact that the current teacher/section structure can’t support next year’s OAC Visual Arts class. Seeing as the class has only nine students currently enrolled, and that Visual Art is not seen as a high priority course, the administration has decided to erase their troubles by erasing the course. According to one shafted art student, “[the administration] seems to pay more attention to math and science courses that art. Art is not seen as important”.

Acting Principal Lamson has argued that continuing with next year’s art course could result in the termination of a teaching position. This statement, while imposing an unfair sense of guilt on the students (your education or your teacher’s job?), ignores the simple fact that schools exist to educate students, not to employ teachers.

One solution offered by the determined art students is to combine classes of different grades (e.g. merge a grade 12 and OAC art class). This has been done numerous times in previous years with other arts courses such as music, and again this year with drama. This action, according to students, would save what is now the only OAC Visual Art credit available at TWS. While the Visual Art OAC scarcely appears on admission requirements for University courses, it is an important time for students wishing to pursue post-secondary arts to prepare portfolios and receive instruction. And, since the course was also cancelled for this year, a significant crop of students will have missed their chance.

In a recent lunch-time petition-signing session, support was varied. There were many students who signed out of genuine concern over the future of the arts in Woodlands. Predictably, however, there were a number of students who seemed to sign under pressure or out of some abstract desire to ‘stick it to the man’. Regardless, by appealing to both the affected and the indifferent, it looks as if the students’ petitions will collect many signatures. Whether this numerical success will spur any concrete action by the administration, however, seems questionable.

We’ve seen in the past how the cries of student protest can get muffled on their way from the cafe and hallways to the insulated offices of the administration.

(Back to Contents)

a clarification

There are a lot of misconceptions about the SAC. Does anyone honestly believe that the SAC is corrupt and oppressive? People just like to have some kind of grandiose cause to make themselves feel big and righteous. Well let me shatter any delusions you might harbour. The SAC executive aren't motivated by power or money, or some fiendish scheme to oppress you. All they want are a few brownie points and something to write on their university applications.

Many people have the idea that Here Title Place is simply an anti-SAC publication. Anyone who believes this is missing the point. Quite frankly, the SAC are not important enough to warrant a publication dedicated to deriding them. After all , we are talking about a group who's main function is to plan dances and spirit weeks. Many students seem to believe that the SAC is their enemy, and Here Title Place seems to have become a vehicle for these paranoid beliefs. At this point I must say that I agree with most of what has been written in HTP concerning the SAC. Indeed, I have of written a large portion of it. However, to continue to dwell on the SAC's faults is pointless. The complaints could essentially be condensed into this; the SAC is a clique, they force students to buy yearbooks, the election is a popularity contest, and the dances suck. I am sure our readers are all aware of these "facts" , so why should we continue to dwell on them? Nothing is ever going to change, and I don't really care. People who complain about the SAC don't really care either, they just want something to bitch about.

Perhaps you think that the Administration is “the man”. Let me be direct to the point; the Administration do not want to oppress you, they simply want to run this school, which is what they are paid to do. Some people seem to think that any authority who they can't agree with is oppressing them. To these people I say this; No one is oppressing you. You are oppressing yourselves with your ignorance. Go find a real cause. There is no shortage of problems in the world. The few minor problems we have within our school may make convenient fodder for an "underground" publication such as ours, but really who cares? Is your life in anyway affected because the SAC do such a shoddy job of planning spirit weeks, or because Mr. Pirk has some crazy notions about school uniforms? While you were complaining about the Disco dance-off, forty million Chinese people were living in caves.

(Back to Contents)

I’m the lyrical gangsta. Yes, kids, it’s a good ol’ fashion rant about stuff that bugs me, and I don’t care what you say.

It is true, last year there was a major vandalism problem at Woodlands, but this year, it’s been relatively calm in Dodge City. I have yet to see a detailed sketch of a cartoon gangsta with doobie in hand, or of overemphasized genitalia this year, whereas last year, these sights were commonplace. I think that instead of dwelling on past embarrassments, we should look at current ones. I think that it’s quite admirable that our students have respected the new paint job, and if the odd case does occur, then, hey, what’s new? This is high school. Shit happens.

Next issue. Pedophiles. Bad, yes, I know. Here? Not likely. Like most things in life, Woodlands gets passed over in favour of nicer schools. Lorne Park had a dirty old man have his own little party as he watched a junior boys basketball practice last semester. Could this happen at Woodlands? Of course it’s possible, but I feel that Woodlands is too dirty and too hard to find for your average pervert to bother with.

Finally, I’d like to propose that we banish the grade seven and eight students to the portables. They’re slow, they’re obnoxious, and they don’t change out of their uniforms after gym class. After dying a slow, academic death in mathematics, I don’t need their shit. For those of you who have never tried to get past a pack of these pre-pubescent hyenas, I’ll paint you a picture. About forty of them stand in the exact middle of the hallway, and stand there like those flags in slalom skiing. It’s a lot like slalom skiing, actually, except it smells like the Rhino pavilion at the zoo, and when you knock over the flags at Woodlands, they tend to make snotty remarks which I have no time to deal with. Therefore, I say we move’em out to the portables. It’ll toughen them up during the winter, sort of a survival of the fittest attitude, and then they stay out of our hair. Now some of you will say that they are students at Woodlands too, and deserve equal rights(These are the people who are keeping the movement back. Seek them out with vengeance in mind.). I say bunk. They’re not students, they’re pylons, and although I enjoy throwing an elbow every once and awhile, I’d rather banish them.

(Back to Contents)

M-O-N-E-Y spells student protest.

Several student groups from the Universities of Guelph, Toronto, and York, have for the past several weeks been attempting to draw media and public attention to the Tory government’s policy which will allow Universities across Ontario to raise tuition fees by an average of 10%, with some programs’ fees increasing by almost 20%. Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money.

Here’s how the caper came down. On February 10, UofT President Robert Prichard was surprised to learn that about twenty students had made their way into his office and locked themselves in. The next day, York University students pulled a copy-cat in their President Susan Mann’s office. A few days later, at the University of Guelph, 17 students piled into President Mordechai Rozanski’s office, as a show of solidarity with the other two schools. It seemed as if protest-fever was gripping the province.

Within a week or so, however, the administrations of the three schools clenched their iron fists. By systematically cutting off phone and other lines of communication, threatening expulsion and various other questionable tactics, the protesters at all three Universities were eventually coaxed out of the President’s offices.

All three groups claim that accessibility to post-secondary education will be devastated by the tuition increases, pointing to the fact that university applications have reached a 9-year-low (due to previous tuition increases). Press releases were issued stating that those hit hardest by the tuition increase would be “women, people of colour, aboriginal peoples, people with disabilities, gays, and lesbians, since these minorities are over-represented in the ranks of the poor due to systematic discrimination” (see: pinned down by the man).

There is a tendency to sympathise with student protesters. Young and idealistic, they stand in defiance of authority, militantly occupying the moral high-ground. On the other hand, it’s easy to look cynically upon the whole scenario, dismissing the protesters as group of over-zealous neo-socialists, eager to act out the semi-spectacular feats of previous generations in a modern setting where the only thing worth fighting for is money.

Instead of jumping on either of these band- wagons, as tempting as it may be (band-wagons are fun), it is important to understand the conflict: whether or not our society considers education a right for all, or a privilege for those fortunate enough to afford it. And this is an issue which, in the wake of further funding cuts to education (as well as other areas), will be increasingly omnipresent. Even now, an article in the Guelph school newspaper , The Ontarion, describes the student movement as ‘growing’. Whether you agree with student protesters ot not, you’ll probably be seeing them again some time soon.

(Back to Contents)

FEEDBACK

• Read the articles from issue one which sparked Mr. Fyfe's comments (Multimedia Memories & SAC Attack)
• Read the full-length letter from Mr. Fyfe (re: yearbooks, cutbacks, etc).
• Read the HTP Response
• Email us your own comments on this issue

  (Back to Contents)