INSIDE COMMUNITY EVENTS B2 The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, May 29, 1996 - 81 SECTION B CRIS LEYKAUF 638-7283 LESLIE DICKON I gotta wear shades HERE IS ONE contradiction in Socicly that I find very irritating. A teenager is cilher a perpetual slack- er, described by the loathsome term “Generation X,”’ or the wide-eyed child who will save the world, The role changes as it is convenient If you choase to take the posilion that a teenager is a ne’er-do-good punk, many things can be listed off as problems. Teenagers are too rowdy, always having parties and disturbing people on the weekends. Teenagers don’t care about their education, and are always skipping class to have a smoke or hackey sack. Teenagers are irresponsible — they drink and do drugs — two activities which they know are wrong. Teenagers don’t do anything consiruc- tive; they just ‘hang out’, Teenagers live in a constant state of lethargy. They mutler monosyllabic responses to their doting parents. And they cant even keep their rooms clean! People who see teenagers in this way, can’t seem to realistically remember their years as an adolescent. As teenagers, they were always ac- tive, Be it doing homework, helping around the house, or just playing ball with friends in an empty lot. Bul teenagers today are so apathetic, they find ita struggle to even get out of bed in the Mom- ing. However no solutions arc offered for the teenagers, except a kick in the rear, The teenagers simply need to give their heads a shake, nothing more. No attempt is made to find the reason why these tecnagers are so cynical and apathetic, In- stead, problems are swept under the carpet, Teenagers should have the self-contral to ab- stain from alcohol until they see the age 19, End of discussion, Other more optimistic adults take a different spin on the teenager’s role in society. They treat them as the world’s saviour, They see the new generation as emerging with competence and vision to tackle the ever-growing problems of the world. The future ts bleak, and maybe only energetic, crusading people will be able to reverse the fide, They tell these teenagers to ‘be all you can be.’ They tell them they have the potential to maintain world peace, stop world hunger, save the environment, do anything and go anywhere. “The sky’s the limit,” they say, within a society that promotes mediocrity. This sets these teenagers up for a big disappointment. If these teenagers continue to believe what they hear after they become an adult, they will have a rude awakening, They might first realize their limitations when they aren’t accepted into the post-secondary institution of their choice. Or when they get turned down for a job. The fact is that it is crucl for adulis to lie to their children about how great they are and all the change they can make in the world, But by telling their children how they will change the world, maybe they convince them- selves of jt at the same time. This lets adults relax, as they know that their children will fix everything when they are older (or if they don’t, the parents won't be around when things start to crumble). People are now saying that the BC21 signs should really say “Your children’s tax dollars at work,’” because B,C, is borrowing money, ad- ding to the provincial debt, which will have to be paid off during our lifetime. The Canada Pension Plan will be dried up within 15 years, and the environment is alrcady going downhill, as shown by our erratic seasons in the past few years. The Future is bleak, and maybe only energetic, crusading people will be able to reverse the tide. But society should take some of the pressure off of “Generation X’" by treating them nol as directionless hacks, nor as the world’s fix-its, but as a new generation with new ideas that will try to do some good. ‘Leslie Dickson is a student at Caledonia Secondary. She offers our readers a younger perspective on issues es facing society. duct is a blend of those Homework gets high tech YOU'VE JUST been assigned an essay on Hitler for your Social Studies 11 class. Do you go to the library, sign out a pile of heavy books and then write an essay? Not anymore, There’s a new way to do your homework. Just under. 20 secondary stu- dents from throughout Terrace were taken aside last week and shown a whole new way to ap- proach school wark. School district technology coor- dinator Bob Mack was showing them how to use a program called Hypercard. It allows students to presen! teachers with a multi- media project instead of an old fashioned book report or essay. Hypercard is a computer pro- gram which allows students to piece together text, video, audio and even animation in one pro- ject. For example a report on Alzheimers could start with an opening page with hot keys to the history of the disease, symptoms and causes. And within each of these sub-lopics you could com- bine research from the Internet, lake video from a documentary and dub your own voice overtop, or even create your own video, “Tt will definilely help with school projects,’ says Jeff Bolingbroke, a grade nine student at Skeena. ‘You can do pretty much anything,’? he says, ‘‘then edit it down”? Bolingbroke thinks Hypercard will be useful for social studies, science, and even English be- cause you could include clips from the movie version of a book. Iv’ definitely make homework more fun, confirms Bolingbroke. Every school in the district now has at least two new Macintosh computers with hypercard on. them. Even children in elementary schoo] should have no difficulily in using this technal- ogy, says Mack. He was very picased with how the one-day seminar for high school students went. “It went much better than we expected,” he says. For teachers and parents who may be worried that children will spend too much time on the com- puter and Jess time socializing, Mack points to a group of six INSTEAD OF HANDING essays and projects in on paper, these students may be handing them in on computer disks. School district staff spent part of last week teaching these students how ta use hypercard, a program which lets them turning an ordinary project into a multi-media wonder, compiele with video clips, audio and even animation. leens, leaning together over a computer to see what one of them has discovered. “It’s about interaction,’’ he says. “They’re nol interacting with the computer, they're inter- acting with each other. And the computer is the reason.” He thinks using computers to Cal band records cd IT MIGHT NEVER make the top 40, but this new ed will have the distinction of being the first to be released by the Caledonia concert band and jazz band. The bands have lined up a recording session June 3 and 4 and are in the process of selecting music for their debut album. The concert band plans to use its thirce festival pieces, and the jazz band wants to pul together a selection of up tempo swing, rock and pop, says band director Geoff Parr. The bands will be using a local recording company — Polywog Recording Studio -— to make the cd. It'll be a challenge for both the recording studio and the bands, predicts Parr. That's because of the number of instruments in- volved, particularly with the concert band. Usually when a rock band makes a recording, cach in- slrument can be put on its own track. The finished pro- tracks, with no instrument drowning out the rest. But wiih lhe concert band, that could mean. 25-30 tracks, explains Parr, That’s just too much for a studia the size of Polywag, so the band has to record en masse. CAL BAND director Geotf I Parr ponders what the band’s new cd might took like. He hapes to see it released by June 30, And that means they’ll rely help with school projects will teach students thinking and prob- lem solving schools. Students weren’t the only ones Mack was teaching last week, He also took aside teachers to show them how to use the new technol- ogy. But he says teachers and slu- dents will have to conlinue to learn from one another. “The teachers are really open to learning from the kids,’’ says Mack. ‘‘There’s a lot of sharing and learning from each other."" These seminars bring to an end the first year of a project to devel- op a technology plan for School District 88, Around Town heavily on the acoustics of the REM Lee to make siire the sound quality is good, Parr estimates it will cost the school about $5,000 to make 1,000. cd's — the smallest run a company will press. ; “We're: hoping. to- break even on this,’? says Parr. Art: students ~at Cal. are working on the graphics for. the cover and inside, Part predicts the earliest -students will be able to see the ed-is by June 30, He ex- pects lo sell ihem for $10- $12 each, Attention campers THE SALVATION ARMY is now taking applica- tions for iis summer camp in Houston. The camp takes applications from children throughout north- westem BC. Week-long camps for Terrace and Prince Rupert children have been scheduled in July and August. The camp is located on 120 acres and boasts a number of activiites including canoeing, swimming, bible instruction, outdoor fun, crafts, good food and more. The fee for the camp is $100, and includes the cantecn. Space is limited, so please get applications in early. Applications are available at the Salvation Amy thrift store at 4444 Lakelse Ave. For more info call Christine al 635-1829, Better than babysitting AT JUST OVER a $1 an hour for games, instruc- tion and plain fun, the Terrace Little Theatre’s sum- mer drama program has to be the best deal in town. The annual drama program is running this July and August once again, and is aimed at youth aged 6-12, There will be two sessions a day — one running from 9 a.m. to noon for kids aged six to nine, and an afternoon session from 1-4 p.m. for youth aged 12-12, For three weeks kids will take part in theatre games, improv, script writing, directing and acting. It all culminates in a final evening performance for parents. The July session runs July 8-26. A similar session runs August 6-23. The cost for cach session is $55 per child, with additional family members costing $45, The kids receive a total of 45 hours of super- vised instruction, Session size is limiled, and this is a popular progra which fills up fast. Registration forms are available at Uniglobe Courtesy Travel, 4718 Lazelle, For more info call Gordon Oates at 638- 1131 or 638-0996, 9