A7 Inside and Out

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
Well it's finally here - that long awaited break for Christmas. No school until January 5th.

But just in case you get grade withdrawal over the holiday, here's a fun Christmas quiz you can take.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
In honor of the holiday, we watched episodes from the new Christmas with The Simpsons DVD including "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" and "Mr. Plow"

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
Our Christmas with The Simpsons episodes here were "Miracle on Evergreen Terrace" and "Grift of the Magi"

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
On this day in 1823 the Christmas classic, "A Visit From St.
Nicholas" (commonly known as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas")
was published anonymously in the Troy, New York "Sentinel."
Twenty years and much popularity later, Clement C. Moore claimed
and was accorded authorship; recent scholarship by 'forensic'
literary critic Don Foster has cast this very much in doubt.

WRAP IT UP
And what words could be more appropriate today than those Charles Dickens placed in the mouth of his immortal Tiny Tim: "God bless us, everyone" Well said Tim and we'll be back after the holiday.

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
Tomorrow, members of the Latin American Club will travel the hallways of BHS, engaging in their annual holiday songfest. If you're not sure of the exact words to Feliz Navidad or selected other Christmas carols, here is a seasonal song site that can help.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We completed Act II of Ibsen's A Doll's House by taking a comprehension check on that portion of the play.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
The last of our students turned in their Can't You See the Real Me collages which will be evaluated when we return after the holiday break.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
On this day in 1849, twenty-eight year-old Russia novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky was
at the last moment granted pardon from a mock-execution
orchestrated by Czar Nicholas I. For his crime of belonging to an
underground group which championed "communism and new ideas,"
Dostoevsky instead received four years in Siberia and indefinite
military service. This exchange left him "reborn for the better,"
and eventually found him a wife.

WRAP IT UP
If you want to get confused, you can always try the words of absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett, who died on this date in 1989.

The characters in Beckett's last play What Where are Bam, Bem, Bim and Bom;
the last lines spoken are by Bam: "Time passes. / That is all. /
Make sense who may. / I switch off." The following is an earlier
passage:

Bam: He didn't say anything?
Bom: No.
Bam: You gave him the works?
Bom: Yes.
Bam: And he didn't say anything?
Bom: No.
Bam: He wept?
Bom: Yes.
Bam: Screamed?
Bom: Yes.
Bam: Begged for mercy?
Bom: Yes.
Bam: But didn't say anything?
Bom: No.

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
We had a pep rally in the gym for our winter sports teams. Members of the boys and girls basketball teams, the boys and girls winter track squads, the girls basketball cheerleaders and our first ever co-ed wrestling team were highlighted.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
It was a continued reading of Act II of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
The quickly impending beginning of our new dual-credit English program has forced us to forego our annual showing of the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life.
Here is a web tribute dedicated to the film if you would like to better understand some of what we missed by our forced postponement.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
On this day in 1848 Emily Bronte, author of the classic novel Wuthering Heights, died at the age of thirty. Of
all the death and drama in the Bronte household over the
surrounding eight months -- events which now stand as famous and
poignant as any in the Bronte novels -- none seems to impress or
import more than Emily's. Her "powerful and peculiar" character,
said sister Charlotte, inspired "an anguish of wonder and love."

WRAP IT UP
"These are the times that try men's souls."

This is the opening sentence in the first of Thomas Paine's "American
Crisis" pamphlets, published on this day in 1776. Paine's words are credited with helping prompt the American Revolution, but this line sounds like it could be an apt description of a bad day at BHS.

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
While some say this is the season to be jolly, at BHS the days just before the Christmas break can be downright disruptive. Woundup students and stress-driven teachers don't make for a good holiday mix.

Maybe we all need to step back and remember the words of Dr. Seuss, whose How the Grinch Stole Christmas first aired on this date in 1966.

"It came without ribbons! It came without tags!
It came without packages, boxes, or bags!
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!
Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store
Maybe Christmas ... perhaps ... means a little bit more.
And what happened then in ... ?
Well ... in Whoville they say
That's the Grinch's small heart
Grew three sizes that day."

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
It was a quiz on Act I of A Doll's House. Classicnotes has an in-depth look the Ibsen play. Once you get to the website, click on the play title.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
Today, we took a break from our showing of It's a Wonderful Life to fill out admissions applications for Cumberland County College in preparation for the planned Jan. 26th start for our new dual-credit English program.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
One of the most noted American short stories, Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" was published on this > day in 1853 -- and, like most of what Melville wrote, all but ignored.

This is the now-famous ending, in which the narrator,
having heard that Bartleby "had been a subordinate clerk in the
Dead Letter Office in Washington," reflects on his obscure life
and death:

...Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive
a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness,
can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of
continually handling these dead letters and assorting them for
the flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned.
Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a
ring:-the finger it was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the
grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:-he whom it would
relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died
despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for
those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of
life, these letters speed to death.
Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!

WRAP IT UP
As we continue to jostle and push and shout our way through BHS, here are some more Christmas words from American poet John Greeleaf Whittier that we should be heeding: "Somehow not only for Christmas but all the long year through, the joy that you give to others is the joy that comes back to you. And the more you spend in blessing the poor and lonely and sad, the more of your heart's possessing returns to make you glad."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
More tragic news on the Bridgeton violence front. A former BHS student was shot following an argument on N. Laurel Street yesterday.

Police said this was the 12th shooting incident in the city since school started this year.

Hopefully, authorities will work diligently to curb this alarming rise before such tragedies spill into our schools.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We began Act II of A Doll's House, focusing on the breakdown of communications between Nora and Torvald.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
We continued our showing of It's a Wonderful Life. While the Capra film is also held up as the greatest holiday film, the greatest Christmas novel would have to be Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, the immortal tale of Scrooge and Tiny Tim.

That classic Dickens tale was published on this date in 1943.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
On this date in 1969, weird singer Tiny Tim married his sweetheart, "Miss Vickie" (Victoria Budinger), on The Tonight Show.

Born Herbert Khaury in New York in 1925, Tiny Tim became known for his humorous falsetto singing and ukulele strumming, most famously demonstrated in his trademark song, "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." He performed in Greenwich Village in the 1960s, and several of his songs were used in You Are What You Eat, a 1968 documentary about the 1960s. He rose to fame on the comedy show Laugh In. Tiny Tim and Miss Vickie had one daughter, Tulip. His popularity faded in the 1970s but enjoyed a brief revival in the 1990s. Tiny Tim died of congestive heart failure in 1996.

On a local note, Miss Vickie, a New Jersey native, danced at the Landis Tavern in Deerfield Township in the late 1970s.

WRAP IT UP
In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens wrote these immortal lines: " I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." What a worthwhile endeavor, especially in a community plagued with increasing violence.

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
As anyone who knows BHS computer guru John Neron well knows, Mr. Neron is a devout science fiction aficionado. Therfore, when it came time to name BHS computer network, it's not surprising that Neron chose the name HAL, a tribute to the nasty computer featured in Arthur Clarke's tale 2001: A Space Oddysey.

Considering today is Clarke's 86th birthday, it is a good time to visit that classic confrontation from 2001:
"Open the pod bay doors, Hal."
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We completed Act I of Ibsen's A Doll House, trying to contemplate if Nora and Torvald Helmer's marriage could be used as the basis of a play about a modern American couple.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
We began our somewhat lengthy showing of the director Frank Capra's classic holiday video It's a Wonderful Life.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
Speaking of science fiction and film, the short story"Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick, born on this day in 1928, was the source for the film Blade Runner.

Here at the end of the story (which is much different than the filmed version),
the bounty hunter Rick has lost his android-love and his real
sheep, but he still has the wife and the electric toad and the
memories:

The clerk said, "For a toad I'd suggest also a perpetually
renewing puddle, unless it's a horned toad, in which case there's
a kit containing sand, multicolored pebbles, and bits of organic
debris. And if you're going to be putting it through its feed
cycle regularly I suggest you let our service department make a
periodic tongue adjustment. In a toad that's vital.

"Fine," Iran said. "I want it to work perfectly. My husband is
devoted to it." She gave her address and hung up.

And, feeling better, fixed herself at last a cup of black, hot
coffee.

WRAP IT UP
Another noted author born today was Jane Austen, whose novels such as Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, have been worshipped by female readers for more than 100 years.

Her works usuallly aren't appreciated as much by male readers. In fact, American author Mark Twain once said: "Just the omission of Jane Austen's books alone would make a fairly good library out of a library that hadn't a book in it."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
Another meeting for the committee to examine discipline procedures at BHS. The committee members were responsible for reading Classroom Management That Works: Research-Based Strategies for Every Teacher.

While it would be hard to argue against any of the findings of the book (they are all supported by common sense and even one day of experience in the classroom), I think a more practical reading might have been titled School Management That Works. There appears to be be a humongous difference between the approach teachers want and the results administrators believe are appropriate.

Here's hoping the committee can come up with a plan before a rapidly deteriorating situation gets even worse.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We started our new play A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen, which, with its portrayal of a woman who frees herself from a confining marriage, has been called the first truly modern drama.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
We compared the details of the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder with that of this summer's stabbing death of 24-year-old Krista DiFransisco in nearby Evesham. Despite being separated by almost four decades, the similarities between the inaction of neighbors in both cases is uncanny. What is that old adage - the more things change the more they stay the same.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
On this day in 1922 T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" (originally
titled "He Do the Police in Different Voices") was published.

Like many friends and acquaintances, Virginia Woolf thought Eliot
an odd case, but her diary notes how compelling she found his
after-dinner reading of his poem: "He sang it & chanted it &
rhymed it. It has great beauty and force of phrase; symmetry; &
intensity. What connects it together, I'm not so sure...."

WRAP IT UP
Speaking of discipline, philosopher Bertrand Russell had this to say on the subject: "Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
It was our first whole school Paideia for the year. The subject was a poem by Countee Cullen. The theme was similar to John Donne's "Meditation 17," more commonly called "No Man Is an Island.." As usual, results were mixed. One senior called it the worst seminar of his experience, but others indicated that they did get something out of it.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We read and discussed "Marriage Is a Private Affair" by Chinua Achebe. The themes of this modern African tale of forbidden love are as old as the Greek myths and Shakespeare and as current as some of the latest relationships at BHS.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
It was final preparations for submission of the Can't You See the Real Me collages which are due next week.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
Joseph Heller, the author of the classic anti-war novel Catch-22 , died on this day in 1999.

This is the moment in Chapter V of Catch-22when Yossarian asks to be
grounded and gets the famous answer:

Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach.
"Is Orr crazy?"
"He sure is," Doc Daneeka said.
"Can you ground him?"
"I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of
the rule.
"Then why doesn't he ask you to?"
"Because he's crazy, Doc Daneeka siad. "He has to be crazy
to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's
had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."
"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"
"That's all. Let him ask me."
"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.
"No. Then I can't ground him."
"You mean there's a catch?"
"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22.
Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

WRAP IT UP
One of Catch-22 author Joseph Heller's most quoted statements: ""The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
You know it's Christmas time at BHS when the Visual and Performing Arts Department puts on its annual holiday concert which is set for tonight. Our music and art students are extremely talented and always offer excellent performances and exhibits.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
As preparation for an examination of Chinua Achebe's short story "Marriage Is a Private Affair," we discussed the question: is it inevitable that generations must clash?

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
In our continuing look at community, we administered this writing prompt: Explore the positives and negatives between living in a large city and a small town, paying particular attention to the types of relationships formed in each environment.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
On this day in 1918, Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born in the Caucasus Mountains in Russia.

Solzhenitsyn's father, an artillery officer on the German front in World War I, died before Solzhenitsyn was born, and he was raised by his mother, a typist. He began writing as a child but studied mathematics in college because there was no suitable literature program in the town where he lived, and he and his mother were too poor to move to Moscow. However, he did take correspondence courses in literature.

During World War II, Solzhenitsyn was assigned to an artillery unit because of his mathematics background. He was put in command of the company until 1945, when he was arrested for writing a letter that criticized Stalin. He spent eight years in prison and labor camps, after which he was exiled to Kazakhstan for three years. He taught mathematics and physics and continued writing secretly for many years, not even letting his closest friends know about his writing. He was convinced his work would never be published. However, in 1961 he finally let go of his secret, and published One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, a short novel which became an instant success, followed by a collection of short stories in 1963.

But the government then withdrew its permission to publish his work and seized his manuscripts. Solzhenitsyn began to circulate his work secretly and published several novels abroad, including The First Circle (1968), Cancer Ward (1968), and August 1914 (1971). He won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1970 but declined to go to Sweden to accept the award for fear he would be denied re-entry to Russia. The publication of parts of The Gulag Archipelago in Paris in 1973 led to Solzhenitsyn's arrest and exile in 1974. He moved to Vermont, where he continued to write and publish. In 1990, Solzhenitsyn's citizenship was restored, and he moved back to Russia in 1994.

WRAP IT UP
Speaking of a generation gap, sociologist Margaret Mead had this to say on the subject: "As long as any adult thinks that he, like the parents and teachers of old, can become introspective, invoking his own youth to understand the youth before him, he is lost."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
This is a reprint from the Bridgeton Evening News outlining our new proposed program with Cumberland County College.

Twenty Bridgeton High School seniors currently taking college preparatory English classes will be given the opportunity to take a college-credit course at the school beginning next month, it was announced at Tuesday's board of education meeting.

The pilot program, the first of its kind in the county, is viewed by district officials as a head start on a statewide initiative to bring college-level courses to high schools.

It is believed the initiative would seek community college involvement.

The course will be taught by a Cumberland County College (CCC) English instructor in cooperation with the high school's 12th grade college preparatory English teacher, David Price.

"(CCC President) Dr. (Kenneth) Ender thought this would be a good place to get that started in the county," Superintendent Dr. H. Victor Gilson said.

"I guarantee other area high schools will be looking to bring this program to their districts," board Vice President Todd Edwards said.

All college preparatory students wishing to take the course will be given the opportunity to take the Accu-Placer test, a college entrance examination to identify whether they are eligible, according to high school principal Irving Marshall.

The top scoring students will then be selected based on their test results and recommendations from Price and Marshall, the principal added.

Students will begin the course in late January and continue to work within its curriculum through early May, the end of the college's spring semester. The class will resume traditional 12th grade English at that time, Marshall said.

"It's a head start," Marshall said. "It would be a head start toward their college experience and give them a chance to see the rigors of college life while they're still in high school."

Gilson said the fact that a college professor will be in the high school on a regular basis will be good for the high school staff.

It will give them an hands-on opportunity to see what will be expected of their students when they head to college.

"It's really good for our kids and it's really good for our community," Gilson said.

Gilson noted the idea of bringing the college-level course to the high school actually arose from discussions regarding bringing college-level courses to the adult high school and General Equivalency Diploma (GED) programs.

While board President Angelia Edwards credited Gilson for bringing the program to the district in just his fourth month as superintendent, Gilson credited Samuel Hull, the coordinator of the district's adult education program, Margretta Barbee, the high school guidance director, and Marshall for bringing the course to the school.

"We're very excited about it," Marshall said. "Just the opportunity, where we could go from here, other opportunities that could develop for students in our district, and to provide them now with an opportunity to continue their education, it's a great thing."

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We examined Albert Camus' short story "The Guest," which detailed an existentialist's relationship to society

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
We read and discussed the sociolgically-based article "The Murder They Heard," which attempted to shed light on the reasons why 37 New York City residents who witnessed the 1964 murder of Kittty Genovese failed to act or even call the police.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
Emily Dickinson was born on this date in 1830. "I'm Nobody! Who are you?" is one of Miss Dickinson's most noted poems.
This poem is dated c. 1861, which would make it
some months before her letter to the critic Thomas Higginson, in
which she included four poems and asked, "Are you too deeply
occupied to say if my Verse is alive?":

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you-Nobody-too?
Then there's a pair of us?
Don't tell! they'd advertise-you know!

How dreary-to be-Somebody!
How public-like a Frog-
To tell one's name-the livelong June-
To an admiring Bog!

Honors students will be conducting a more in-depth study of this poem after the first of the year.

WRAP IT UP
Existentialist thinker and author Albert Camus once said "a man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
The SAT test scheduled for last Saturday at Cumberland Regional High School that was postponed by snow has been rescheduled for Dec. 20.

All students planning to to attend a four-year college or university should take the SAT in their senior year. This is among the last chances for taking the three-plus-hour test at a local testing site before colleges begin making their admission decisions.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We explored the concept of existentialism, the modern European philosophy that emphasizes the meaningless of the outer world, in preparation for a reading by Frenchman Albert Camus.

Some existentialists such as Camus respond to this meaningless by recognizing that each person is free to make moral choices that define and give meaning to his or her life.

Through their choices and actions, human beings are responsible for what they make of themselves and their lives, Camus contended.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
We examined the famous article "38 Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police, " the New York Times recounting of the brutal stabbing death of Kitty Genovese in 1964. You can learn more about the murder here.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
On this date in 1965, the children's holiday classic "A Charlie Brown Christmas" premiered on commercial TV. I wonder how many thousands of people have seen it since.

WRAP IT UP
Speaking of Christmas and gifts, Charlie Brown creator Charles Schultz once said, "If I were given the opportunity to present a gift to the next generation, it would be the ability for each individual to learn to laugh at himself."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
For those of us who are worried about the future of education, here is an alarming excerpt from this week's Time magazine.

Temper tantrums are nothing new in kindergarten and first grade, but the behavior of a 6-year-old girl this fall at a school in Fort Worth, Texas, had even the most experienced staff members wanting to run for cover. Asked to put a toy away, the youngster began to scream. Told to calm down, she knocked over her desk and crawled under the teacher's desk, kicking it and dumping out the contents of the drawers. Then things really began to deteriorate. Still shrieking, the child stood up and began hurling books at her terrified classmates, who had to be ushered from the room to safety.

Just a bad day at school? More like a bad season. The desk-dumping incident followed scores of other outrageous acts by some of the youngest Fort Worth students at schools across the district. Among them: a 6-year-old who told his teacher to "shut up, bitch," a first-grader whose fits of anger ended with his peeling off his clothes and throwing them at the school psychologist, and hysterical kindergartners who bit teachers so hard they left tooth marks.

"I'm clearly seeing an increasing number of kindergartners and first-graders coming to our attention for aggressive behavior," says Michael Parker, program director of psychological services at the Fort Worth Independent School District, which serves 80,000 students. The incidents have occurred not only in low-income urban schools but in middle-class areas as well. Says Parker: "We're talking about serious talking back to teachers, profanity, even biting, kicking and hitting adults, and we're seeing it in 5-year-olds." And these are not the kids who have been formally labeled emotionally disturbed, says Nekedria Clark, who works in Parker's department. "We have our E.D. kids, and then we have our b-a-d kids."

Is Tarrant County a unique hotbed of precocious delinquency? Not at all, says Ronald Stephens, director of the National School Safety Center in Westlake Village, Calif. Across the country, he says, "violence is getting younger and younger." In the past five years, Stephens says, an increasing number of school districts in the U.S. have instituted special elementary schools for disruptive youngsters. "Initially, it was high schools that created these schools, then middle schools. Now it's elementary. Who would have thought years ago that this would be happening?" he asks.

Despite the proliferation of such programs, few school districts will admit to a violence problem(EM]and certainly not at the kindergarten level. Philadelphia is a rare exception. "We aggressively report serious incidents regardless of the age of the child," says Paul Vallas, ceo of Philadelphia's schools, which serve 214,000 students. This year the largely poor urban district has already had 19 reports of weapons possession and 42 assaults by kids in kindergarten or first grade. Last year at the McDaniel elementary school alone, there were 21 assaults in the first two months of school, including one by a kindergartner who punched a pregnant teacher in the belly.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We explored the short story "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Latin American writer closely linked with the literary school of magical realism.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
Continuing our look at how a community influences an individual, we examined the lyrics of Lauryn Hill's song "Every Ghetto, Every City."

Our writing prompt: If you were the mayor of Bridgeton, what three changes would you want to be made in the community.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
On this day in 1980 Mark David Chapman murdered Beatle John Lennon. He
then sat down to read The Catcher in the Rye, his copy
inscribed on the inside cover with "This is my statement. Holden
Caulfield, Catcher in the Rye." Chapman's previous days had also
been made to parallel Holden's -- a lonely, pre-Christmas
wandering in New York, a prostitute, a talk about the ducks, all
distorted by his voices and hollow point bullets.

WRAP IT UP
Rock poet and Doors founder Jim Morrison was born on this day in 1943. Morrison's favorite poet was British author/artist William Blake. Here is an excerpt from Blake's
poem "The Marriage of Heaven & Hell," which, if you read perceptively enough, just might show where Morrison came across the idea for the name of his 1960s quartet.

The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in
fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have
heard from Hell.

For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded
to leave his guard at tree of life; and when he does, the
whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and
holy, whereas it now appears finite and corrupt.

This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual
enjoyment.

But first the notion that man has a body distinct from
his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do by printing
in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are
salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away,
and displaying the infinite which was hid.

If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would
appear to man as it is, infinite.

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
It was the first snow of the year for BHS. Many students and teachers were late, but there weren't enough flakes to call off school, however. More snow promised for Saturday, which threatens our Saturday program.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We are reading the short story "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Latin Amercian master of the school of magical realism.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
We initiated an exploration of our Bridgeton community by analyzing the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen's song "My Hometown."

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
The first scholastic fraternity in America, Phi Beta Kappa, was organized at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. on this date in 1776, which means the ideas of frat life are as old as our country itself.

Many seniors who enter college next year will have to decide if they want to join a fraternity or sorority. To learn more about Greek life, click here.

WRAP IT UP
Speaking of Bruce Springsteen, the New Jersey singer-songwriter once said: "People deserve... the truth. They deserve honesty. The best music, you can seek some shelter in it momentarily, but it's essentially there to provide you something to face the world with."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
With the rush of the Christmas season underway, making the best use of increasingly limited time becomes even more critical for those of us at BHS. Here are some simple suggestions for time management.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
Today's task was selecting a novel or play for indepependent reading in Decemebr from ARCO's Reading Lists for College-Bound Students.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
As an intrioduction to our next unit focusing on the question where do I fit in?, we viewed the "Prologue/ Jet Song" segment of the video West Side Story. Unfortunately, although some might find the 1950s musical version of gangs too tame, the issue of gangs and realted violence is all to real today in the Bridgeton community.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN
On this day in 1916, W. Somerset Maugham departs on a voyage to Pago Pago. Characters he meets on the voyage, including a prostitute and a missionary, inspire the story "Miss Thompson," which is published in his 1923 story collection, The Trebling of a Leaf. The story becomes the play Rain, which is filmed three times, once starring Gloria Swanson, once with Joan Crawford, and once with Rita Hayworth.

During World War I, Maugham worked as a secret agent. He later wrote about his experiences in Ashendon (1928), a collection of short stories. His portrayal of a suave, sophisticated spy influenced his friend Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond.

In 1919, Maugham published The Moon and Sixpence, featuring an unconventional artist based on Paul Gauguin. Maugham also continued to write plays, short stories, and critical essays. He died at the age of 91.

WRAP IT UP
Leonard Bernstein, the composer of the music for West Side Story once said: "Any great work of art... revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
All across the country, teachers are expressing great concern about the impact of President George Bush's No Child Left Behind education law. Now a New York Times report says that Houston's educational progress, which served as a major cornerstone of Bush's plan, may have been reported incorrectly. You can click here to learn more about the controversial plan.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We examined the poem "Who Are You?" by Andrey Voznesensky which concludes with the idea that any search for identity is difficult because we are "Abominable Snowmen, absolutely elusive."

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
We went to the library to find Young Adult fiction books for our independent reading this making period. This teen reads site, discovered by senior Sharon Leatherwood, contains many ideas for such reading.

COMMUNICATIONS BREAKDOWN
"A Streetcar Named Desire," by Tennessee Williams opened on Broadway on this day in 1947. This is from Scene Ten,
at which point Stanley feels that he has Blanche figured out, and
has put on his silk pajamas:

Stanley: I've been on to you from the start! Not once did
you pull any wool over this boy's eyes! You come in here and
sprinkle the place with powder and spray perfume and cover the
light-bulb with a paper lantern, and lo and behold the place has
turned into Egypt and you are the Queen of the Nile! Sitting on
your throne

WRAP IT UP
Speaking of reading, author Joseph Addison once said: "Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
Superintendent Dr. Victor Gilson held a meeting today after school with administrators and teachers to discuss the feeling that there is growing disrespect from a growing number of students toward all authority at BHS. Here's hoping a solution can be found before the situation becomes intolerable.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
We examined Alastair Reid's poem "Who Am I," which is replete with man-in-the-mirror motiffs and the idea that we may contain multiple selves.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
It was time for final instructions for the Can't You See the Real Me collage project. Now it's up to student ingenuity and insight.

COMMUNICATIONS BREAKDOWN
On this day in 1867 Charles Dickens gave the first reading of his
American tour. All but a few evenings over the five months were a sell-out, with some sleeping out overnight to beat a ticket line
almost a half-mile long. Among the few who were not totally
impressed were Emerson, Twain, and the little girl on the train
who told Dickens she liked his books, though "I do skip some of
the very dull parts, once in a while; not the short dull parts,
but the long ones."

WRAP IT UP
Perhaps no author is more associated with Christmas than Charles Dickens, the creator of Ebenezer Scrooge and Tiny Tim. When miserly Scrooge finally has his Christmas revelation, he says "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year." And that would be an admirable goal for all of us.

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking

THERE'S SOMETHING HAPPENING HERE
Well, we are back from Thanksgiving, stuffed with turkey but back nonetheless. Now its a three-and-a-half week run to the Christmas break and Santa's arrival.

FOR YOUR (HONORS) EYES ONLY
In class today, senior Scott Stoddard pointed out that an epsiode of The Simpsons featured the Kafka Cafe (named for the author of "The Metamorphosis" which we read earlier this year). A beret-clad bug was highlighted in the show. Readers of the story would immediately realize the importance of the insect.

LIGHT MY (COLLEGE PREP) FIRE
We examined excerpts from Walt Whitman's poem "Song of Myself" in a Paideia seminar. As part of the discussion we explored the question - which better captures a person: words or pictures?

COMMUNICATIONS BREAKDOWN
On this day in 1821, British poet Percy Shelley's "Adonais," his elegy to fellow poet John
Keats, was published in England. A cornerstone of both Romantic
poetry and the myth of the Romantic, the poem paints Keats as
Adonis in pursuit of Beauty and Truth, brought down by those less
noble and talented. This was a fate Shelley predicted for
himself, and he died before Keats's gravestone had been erected.

WRAP IT UP
Obviously, Franz Kafka had a strong affinity for books and reading. In one of his more famous quotes he had this to say on the subject: "A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us."

Well that's it for today. So - until next time - keep on reading, keep on thinking