Welcome to The Lawn Online
Read this introductory article to learn more about WHS's newest news project!
Surely it is common knowledge that news can be important, and news that affects the children of tomorrow even more so. Inside the Lawn, the newsletter created by Woodlawn High School students, has tried its best to provide Woodlawn with news that involves its high school students, but it simply hasn’t been enough to fit everything on that front and back sheet of paper delivered in mailboxes monthly. Starting this calendar year, that’s being changed.
Enter The Lawn Online, a digital edition of the Inside the Lawn monthly newsletter and a much-needed expansion compared to what has been provided in the past. Previously, not only have there been limitations in the amount of stories that are able to be included in the newsletter, but those same stories have had a word count restriction- not anymore. Being an online newsletter, there are no length or quantity limitations, so there is much more freedom and flexibility. Since creative freedom is such an important aspect in the art of writing, each article author will have free reign of what they decide to write about. Each article will simply be proofread, not changing any of the original wording unless completely necessary. This maintains originality and the promise of honesty and truth.
One of the best ways for schools to keep in communication with the community is a newsletter or newspaper documenting the happenings of the school. This is exactly what is trying to be achieved by the Newsletter Team- by keeping the people informed, feelings of trust and comfort can be instilled because of the reassurance that Woodlawn High School’s news is simply a click, tap, or walk-to-the-mailbox away.
Welcome to The Lawn Online.
Music to my Ears
March 2022 - The apple of your eye is a common phrase- what about the apple of your ear? Read this to learn more about the Gold Rush Apple of sound.
Music can have a huge impact on a person’s mood. No matter what you’re feeling, putting on one of your favorite songs at just the right moment can be a great feeling. A point can be made that music can be helpful in getting out of bed in the mornings. By simply turning on your favorite upbeat song you can get the motivation to face the day. Music is not only good for all the upbeat moments, but it can also be helpful in calming anxiety or getting rid of stress and can ultimately help you relax throughout your day. Music can also be great for getting work done. It’s not for everyone, but some people prefer listening to their favorite songs when completing homework or doing chores. If you struggle with falling asleep at night, putting on calming music can help you drift off into that deep sleep you’ve been craving. Yet another benefit of music can be feeling great for those headbanger moments! Whether you're at a party or you just feel like jamming out in your room, some good music can totally add to a moment. Music is something that can totally change your mood or add to the mood you’re currently in. So go ahead, treat yourself right now and turn on your favorite song to rock out to!
The Madness of March
March 2022 - In case you live under a rock, here are the details on the United States' latest sporting season.
The men’s NCAA March Madness tournament has not disappointed in the “madness” division this year. This tournament is one of the most popular sporting events in the US, so popular that 30% more money is wagered on March Madness than on the Super Bowl. This year, there have been nine upsets in the first round alone and six in the second round. There were two upsets though that seemed to wreck people’s brackets more than the others.
In the first round, Saint Peter’s beat Kentucky in overtime. Kentucky was a fan favorite and expected to go very far in the tournament. Saint Peter’s is a team that many people haven’t heard of since their college is so small, having only about 2,360 students. Saint Peter’s University is in Jersey City, New Jersey. Including this year, Saint Peter’s has only appeared in the NCAA Tournament four times and of those four times they have lost in the first round three times. This is the first year that they have made it past the first round and that is pretty incredible. The Saint Peter’s Peacocks were 21-11 this year with only one ranked opponent all year, which they lost to. The Peacocks’ Doug Edert leads the way with 302 points in 31 games this season. He had 20 points and 4 rebounds in their game against Kentucky. Doug will most likely continue to lead his team, hopefully further in the tournament. Considering that they were a 15th seed and Kentucky was a 2nd seed, this outcome is pretty crazy.
Another upset that destroyed people’s brackets was No. 8 North Carolina beating No. 1 Baylor. The Baylor Bears were the defending national champions and not expected to go out near this quickly. North Carolina shocked a lot of people but they have proved in the process that they are a force to be reckoned with and much more of a contender than most people had expected. Prior to the tournament, North Carolina was 0-4 up against ranked teams and then they came out beating the defending national champs in the second round to punch their ticket to the sweet sixteen. This game became considerably more heated in the beginning of the second half when North Carolina’s Brady Manek was ejected after a questionable flagrant two foul after elbowing Baylor’s Jeremy Sochan in the face. Many people believe that it was not intentional but in the end, it was the referees’ decision and they decided that it was dangerous and intentional. When Manek was ejected, he had 26 points, contributing to the team’s 25 point lead. This game ended up going into overtime but, as you can see, the Tar Heels pulled out a win. These games just prove that your rank or popularity doesn’t necessarily portray the outcome of the game
Back to the '80s
March 2022 - The line between the past and the future has been blurred as many trends are coming back - find out the details on the latest return.
In the past year, the '80s style has been reigniting. You can see this in clothing, hairstyles, T.V. shows, music, and much more! People bringing back their mom jeans, scrunchies, and acid-wash jeans, the neon style and flashy clothes becoming more common to see when walking down the street, and the recent hairstyles could be bringing our parents back to their high school years. Everywhere you turn you can see mullets and perms galore. Girls are starting to crimp their hair again and they are using scrunchies instead of ponytails.
What you see when you turn on the T.V. is also changing. A new version of Saved by the Bell has come out and even older shows are becoming popular again. Boy Meets World was especially popular for a while.
'80s music has also become more popular in the last year. We’re starting to hear Bon Jovi and Aerosmith more and more on the radio. The '80s were a very popular generation and I'm sure the '80s style is helping some relive that time. The younger generation is becoming more familiar with the '80s style everyday: what an exciting time to be alive!
The Biggest Impact
March 2022 - Sports play a huge part of many people's lives. Find out how a coach can either make or break a person's love for playing sports.
From long practices to bus rides, players are around their coaches for a majority of their high school career, and these coaches could have some of the biggest impact on their players. From college talks to thousands of memories, the way coaches interact with their players can make or break their passion for a sport.
Coaches can leave a positive impact or, likewise, a negative impact on a player based on the attitude the coach has towards each player. When a coach has a positive tone and attitude towards a player, they are more likely to try their best and perform to their best ability. Players feel more comfortable around their coaches who are more positive with them and build up their confidence. Athletes can feel the connection they have with a coach within the first few practices they attend, and many athletes can read the body language of the people around them. If they can sense positive body language and the coach is being positive, it is more beneficial to the athletes and the players. When the attitude in the gym is positive, it creates an atmosphere that all athletes feel comfortable in.
Although coaches can make a positive impact on players, they can also create a negative impact. On occasion, coaches can construct a player, and it can come off in a negative tone and seem harsh, but the coach means it positively. Some coaches tend to be harsher on the players they expect more out of. On the other hand, some coaches can be harsh to the point it pushes the player away from the sport. Negative body language and constant criticism can bring athletes to quit the sports that they once loved. On average, 70% of athletes quit sports before they can even get college attention; additionally, the number one reason for quitting is because the coaches made it no longer fun to participate in.
Confetti the Kindness
March 2022 - Kindness is something widely needed and in short supply. Read this article to see how you can make more kindness confetti.
“Throw kindness around like confetti.” This is so much more than a fun quote. Kindness really is something we need more of in our lives. You could improve someone's day by simply smiling at them or holding a door open for them. You never know what someone else is going through and you could be the little spark of positivity they need that day! If we start being a little more positive, I believe it could change our world greatly. Being kind not only improves other’s day, but it could also improve your day. If you are feeling a little down or anxious about something, try lifting up someone else- it just might improve your mood, too. Our world could always use more positive and kind people. We should be people who not only don’t leave anyone out, but be people who include everyone. People who do not put anyone down, but lift others up; people who do not make others feel bad about themselves, but make them feel confident in their own skin. Those are the kinds of people you should be.
When you think about it, really nothing good comes out of bringing others down. Whenever you’re hurting someone else you are making their day a little more negative. This should not be our goal! So let’s start being more kind and positive people today!
Time Management
February 2022 - Managing your resources is hard, so read this article to learn more about the most unforgiving resource: time
Time management can become pretty hard when you become a high school student. Besides the fact of having homework and studying for tests, there are many other things that come into play. When you turn 16 and get your license, there is an urge to hang out with your friends almost every night. If you choose to get a job while you're in high school so that you can have your own money, your working hours could be really late. By the time you get home, you might not have any energy to do your homework or study for that important test the next day. A lot of stress can be brought onto you if you don’t have that good of time management skills.
Here are some ways to help with your time management:
Try to get as much homework done in class, and if you need more time, use the time you have in study hall to get it done.
When you get home, start on your homework as soon as you can so you can actually hang out with your friends and not worry about having to do homework when you get home.
If you have work, try to get as much done at school as you can. If you have a lot of free time, depending on what your job is, take your homework with you to work to finish it.
It is best to work on your time management so that you won’t cause yourself to have a lot of stress on yourself. Use the time that you have throughout the day wisely, because knowing that everything is done can help make you feel more relaxed for the rest of your day.
Who Really Needs Sleep?
February 2022 - Read this article highlighting something we probably all need more of- and what kind of effects it can have when you don't get it
Sleep: A necessity for life, and something that many people complain about. Whether complaining that they slept through their alarm or that they didn’t fall asleep until the wee hours of the morning, many people- especially students- have something to say about their sleep patterns. Is this just students complaining because they feel like it, or are there actual issues that either cause or are caused by lack of sleep that is common to so many students?
There are many things that can cause issues with sleep, which, according to the Sleep Foundation, includes stress, poor sleeping habits, or various health issues. The life of a student is a particularly stressful one, especially for those who have many extracurricular activities or those who have many hobbies. School takes up a large portion of the day, and the rest of the student’s day may be taken up by extracurricular activities if they happen to be involved in, for example, sports. On top of that, some students also have a job.
The stress that students experience on a day-to-day basis is a likely candidate for why students have trouble getting the correct amount of sleep at night. It isn't the sole reason, though. As a student who doesn’t always fall asleep at a reasonable time, I believe that wanting to get more things done in a day can be a big push for students to go to sleep later, thus waking up tired. I personally like having some fun before the day is over, but I also am not very good at keeping track of time, so playing games around 5 o’clock can easily turn into looking at the clock and finding out it’s 2 in the morning. There are likely many students who follow a similar pattern, but it can be for different activities, such as getting lost in a book or drawing a masterpiece.
Is there a fix for this lack of sleep? There is likely no fix for this unless the school system changes or students change their habits, neither of which are going to happen any time soon.
- Information found in the article can be found here.
What's Today's Wordle?
February 2022 - Catch up on the latest trend with this article, highlighting a game that's got the world playing
The world has gone through many a trend within recent history- one of the new ones is a word game called Wordle. A British website created by Josh Wardle who lives in New York, he originally created the game for him and his partner to play. He was inspired by the nearly identical pen and paper game “Lingo” and the US TV game show “Jetto”. “I wanted to try making a game that she and I would enjoy playing together, and Wordle was the result of that,” he explained in an interview with Slate.
Now let's talk about how you play. Wordle is a game you can play only once a day. When you open the website, you will see 6 rows of 5 squares. This represents your 6 guesses of 5 letter words. There are 2,315 word possibilities. Say you guess the word POWER. If the P is in the right spot, it will highlight green. If it is in the word but in the wrong spot, it will highlight yellow. Finally, if it isn’t in the word, it will highlight gray.
With Wordle’s growing popularity, there have been several spinoffs made. There is now math (NERDLE), geography (GLOBLE), and many other word versions. Everyone loves Wordle!
On a different note, the New York Times recently bought Wordle for “a small number in the seven figures.” The Wordle game will move over to the NYT website and, according to an official statement: “... the game will initially remain free for new and existing players.” So you better get on Wordle and play while it remains so!
- Information from article found from this website.
Stress of Burdens
January 2022 - This article talks about the pressure and extreme stress of having responsibilities both inside and outside of the classroom.
Being a high school student is stressful- everything from grades to how you look everyday before school- stress forming because of judgement from others, stress coming from all the homework, and stress from extracurricular activities. I feel like most people are so consumed in their own stress, they don’t take the time to understand what others could be going through, and typically take their anger out on the wrong people. We might understand the concept of kindness but we don’t usually take action upon kindness. Students can tell which teachers actually try and the ones who don’t, and it makes a big difference. Stress is a cause of headaches and migraines; about 15% of students struggle with headaches and migraines. Not all students are pressured by their parents to have perfect grades, but some are and that just adds to all of the stress. You always hear the saying: “There's light at the end of the tunnel,” but high school students have stress, anxiety, and even depression that makes them feel like there isn’t a light. Then on top of everything else, there is the pressure of getting a job. Most high schoolers get their driver's license their second year of high school, which means they most likely have a car and to keep a car moving you need gas, but to get gas you need money and to have money you need a job. Having a job takes most of your evenings after school and when you're not working you either have sports or homework that you need to do, which leaves no time to live life. I am not saying all students live like this or have all of these problems, but some do and are under the stress to do it all.
Mental Health & Public Schools
January 2022 - This article makes plain the struggles of both living as a full-time high school and having other responsibilities
Students are affected every day by stress caused by things going on in school (like tests) and things going on outside of school (like jobs, relationships, and issues at home). Most schools do offer counseling services and our school is lucky enough to have Sara Wiggins as our school social worker.
Social workers help people adjust to changes and challenges in their everyday lives. Going through a day at school, students experience several challenges that could be either mental or physical. Social workers find strategies for coping with stress that can range from daily frustrations of teen life all the way to very serious situations. Mrs. Wiggins has a Google Classroom available for all students for stress management like coloring sheets to print out, YouTube videos to listen to, and apps to download to relax your mind. Working at schools in students' everyday lives can build bonds with students, which can make things easier to talk about- our social worker, Mrs. Wiggins is very good at that.
Mrs. Wiggins always fits in her schedule whoever needs someone to talk to, a kind word said to, or to help get into contact with an outside resource. Stress is a big factor in students' everyday lives, but Mrs. Wiggins is a big stress reliever for many students. Our school is very lucky to have Mrs. Wiggins.
A Doormat
January 2022 - An article that explains in simple yet complex terms what feeling like a doormat is like- on an extremely personal level
Are you tired of being treated like a doormat? I can tell you that I am so over it. If you have never heard the term doormat, it is someone that lets others put them down or mistreat them. It doesn’t matter how nice you are to anyone; they will start taking advantage of you and not treating you with the respect you deserve. It takes a lot in you not to let it bother you, but it hurts so bad on the inside. The person that is the doormat usually doesn’t stand up for themselves. I can tell you that I don’t stand up for myself because I am a people pleaser and I hate confronting others. Getting treated like a doormat made me realize that I have terrible self-esteem. I am trying to work on it, but it doesn’t help that I have gotten treated like a doormat pretty much my whole life. People often wonder why I’m so eager to graduate, but I’m sure you would too if you were being treated this way. If you’re anything like me and let people walk all over you, let me remind you that you aren’t selfish for standing up for yourself and enjoying things in life that will benefit your life. Most people are quick to give the cliche, “Just wait it out- it will get better,” but these past couple of months haven’t looked any better. I have realized that I struggle with putting myself first because I put other people in front of my needs. I am harder to manipulate now than I have been in my whole life because I have had people trample me for as long as I can remember. If I hadn’t had my mom and a family friend talk to me about what was going on these past few weeks, how bad it has been, and how it has torn me apart. I don’t know where I would be dealing with it this week when last week was awful with being treated like a doormat. The week before and the week of January 17, 2022, it hit hard for me because of how I was being treated, so that is when the three of us talked because they could tell I was pretty torn. I am glad that they realized how bad it was to know that talking would probably help me get through this. If it wasn’t for them, who knows how long I would have let it go and not realize how bad it has gotten in the past week and how bad it could’ve gotten without the talking from them? For anyone else out there going through something like this, be a little easier on yourself, and take pride in the person you are. Just remember that there is a difference between selfishness and being manipulated. I am still a doormat for others, but it has improved since I talked with our family friend and my mom. If you are like me in this situation, go to someone you can trust and willing to help you get through this- it will help you if you talk to someone about being a doormat for others.
Educational Expectations
January 2022 - This article highlights the stereotyping and expectations related to the US public school system
Be an A+ student. If you get an A+ you will be successful in life and get into your dream university. You will be somebody. Study, recite, highlight, get a hold of yourself! Focus. This is the path to make yourself, your parents, and your teachers proud. At least this is what we are believing.
The act of succeeding is exceptionally difficult. The human brain registers success more than failure, even to the extent of rewiring itself to remember that particular accomplishment. However when you fail a particular task, it has no impact on the human brain. The source material for that conclusion can be found here. So, why don’t schools work more toward correcting mistakes and failures, rather than moving on and giving a student a bad grade? Why focus on the A student (who is quite capable of the work) rather than taking time to demonstrate key things from the lesson to the entire class one more time?
Aside from flaws in the United States school system, there doesn’t have to be one path to success. There are a multitude of careers that don’t necessarily need a college degree. While pursuing further education is highly recommended, that doesn’t mean there are not suitable careers for you.