little hawk magazine

The Little Hawk Feature Magazine September 27, 2013

4UP ALL NIGHT

By Sylvia Dean

Braden Offerman-Mims ‘15 and Nile Iverson ‘14 discuss

the challenges of chronic sleep depravation, and an expert

warns against “sleep-texting.”

SENIORS TAKECENTER STAGE

By Ellen Carman

This year, seniors like Gretch-en Burke ‘14, a light techni-cian, and Amy Ostrem ‘14, an aspiring musical theatre

major, will make their mark.

ON THE COVER:WHO’S WATCHING YOU?

By Jacob Potash

An in-depth look at the state of online privacy – and how high school students are ap-

proaching the question of how much to share on the web.

BORN TO TEACH: MR. SCHUMANN New teacher Jason Schumann dishes on “coming out”

as teacher and enjoying Midwestern manners.

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WWW.THELITTLEHAWK.COM

Q&AMR. BERRY

Were you in choir when you were younger? Yes, back when City High was a three-year high school. I was in Sophomore Singers, and then I was in concert choir for two years, and in show choir, 4th Ave Jazz Company, for three years. I was a threeyear all stater from City High. I also sang through college.

What got you into music? I’ve always loved music. I had gone to Regina in seventh grade, and when I walked in the doors at South East Junior High as an eighth grader, I heard the show choir rehearsing, and it was re-ally cool, and I thought “How could I be a part of that?” So I introduced myself to the choir direc-tor, and I got into choir and show choir and had a blast. I’ve been having a blast ever since.

Has choir always been what you wanted to be involved in? In college I did a lot more instrumental music, and it was actually a surprise to many of my classmates when I graduated from college and got a choir di-rector job, just because I’d been doing band stuff for so long.

How long have you been teaching choir? Oh gosh, I started actually teaching vocal music in 1992 at Prairie High School. I’ve been at Prairie High School, Iowa City West High School, North West Junior High, South East Junior High, and Bettendorf. It’s been a long time.

Where did you teach choir before? I was at Bettendorf High School, and it is a grow-ing program that is getting to the point where it is getting pretty good. It’s been a wonderful experi-ence at Bettendorf. Just a real fantastic place.

What genre of songs do you like? Definitely choral music – the text is just amazing and composers use different compositional devic-es to create different moods and imagery. It’s just absolutely fascinating to me. I don’t write a lot of music, but I find the people who do fascinating to teach, perform, and talk about.

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By Emma McNutt

Photos courtesy of Jim Berry

City High alum Jim Berry returns to his alma mater this fall as the new choir director. He brings a lifetime of musical experience, most recently as a director at Bettendorf High.

September 27, 2013 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE

Is anyone in your family involved in music?Everybody is involved in music in my family. My wife is the general music teacher at Lemme El-ementary, and my son, Austin Berry, is a 2-year all stater here in voice, in 4th Ave Jazz Com-pany, drum major in the marching band, plays bass trombone, is in the jazz band, symphony orchestra… I don’t remember. He is in so many music groups I have trouble getting to all of his concerts. My son Jonathan is taking piano and starting to get excited about music.

Why did you want to take the job at City? I have a “Notre Dame clause.” Sometimes football coaches have this “Notre Dame clause,” like Lou Holtz, a coach at Minnesota, who had only been there for two years but had a clause in his contract that said, “If I am offered the Notre Dame job, I can get out of my contract and leave.” I had a gentlemen’s agreement at Bettendorf that as much as I love Bettendorf high school there is only one place I would leave for, and that is City High School. This is “the school that leads,” I am an alum of this program, Dr. Grove has been my best friend for about 20 years, and I still live in this community. This is the greatest job I could ever get.

How are you feeling about your first year? I’m incredibly excited, it’s going to be very excit-ing moving into a new wing, and to get to know the City High students better. It comes with a lot of expectations, obviously. City High school has high expectations, and I will continue those great traditions and expectations, and we will be fantastic. It’s a little daunting, but I can’t wait to get started.

Do you have anything unique you’re bring-ing to City High? I’m not aware we have ever had a City High alum as the head choral director at the school. Like I said, I’ve known Grove for about 20 years. Before that my high school choir director here was Larry Munsin, and before that it was Glenn Gabanski – he was here for 30 years and he was my church choir director – and I know none of them were City High grads, so I might be the first. I’m really excited about that.

What are you most excited about? Being home, I know this community, I know a lot of the people here. City High is an established program. It is going to be awesome.

Sleep disorders can be crippling for students. But is medication the answer?

by Sylvia Dean

2:37 AM

or most people, a sleep-less night is unusual. Walking through the doors of City High at seven in the morning is diffi-cult enough for most teenagers even with eight hours of rest. Yawns of weary teenagers surge through the hallways, but hid-den among them are students who don’t know the feeling of a good night’s sleep. One such stu-

dent has hardly known sufficient rest since the second grade. Braden Offerman-Mims ‘15 began to have sleeping trou-

bles in second grade, and by the fourth grade, it was normal for him to go entire nights without rest. He suffers from in-somnia and hypnophobia, defined as the excessive and irra-tonal fear of sleep.

Offerman-Mims generally averages about two hours of sleep a night, but during periods of stress he will go completely without it.

“In the past week, I’ve slept a total of about thirty minutes. Last night I got maybe fifteen. But sometimes if I’m doing really well, I can get around 5 hours,” Offerman-Mims said. “I adapt to it. Some people can and some people can’t, but I mostly have.”

After adjusting to such little sleep over a long period of time, he has found ways to get more sleep and to maintain his focus during the school day.

“Some nights I read about an hour or so, and that helps. I’ve taken melatonin, but that doesn’t do anything,” Offerman-Mims said. “Physically I’m tired, but mentally I just power through it.”

Offerman-Mims doesn’t take any medication. In the past he has tried melatonin, which regulates the sleep-wake cycle by chemically causing drowsiness and lowering the body temperature. It helps many relax in preparation for better sleep, but does not directly cause sleeping.

Nile Iverson ‘14 regularly uses sleep aids to fight insom-nia, which in his case is influenced by stress and anxiety.

“After a point I had to start taking medication because it got so bad,” Iverson said. “It’s not recommended to use sleep aids long term, but I’ve done so for years and it often worries me.”

Deeply ingrained sleep troubles are not helped by the added stress that comes from being a high school student.

“A big part of stress in school has to do with extra-curric-ulars,” Iverson said. “On top of the work we get, it’s hard to balance sports, and any other clubs or organizations you’re in. Stress does make it harder to sleep, and not just for kids with sleep disorders. I think stress can prevent anyone from

sleeping if it’s too much.” One of the most common treatments specialists suggest

is to schedule regular sleeping patterns by going to bed at the same time every night. Iverson has not always been able to follow this advice.

“There’s no way I can fall asleep at the same time every day. Some nights I’ll be up until midnight just to do home-work. If I didn’t have that, maybe I could have a more orga-nized schedule. But when you’ve got work and homework, it’s hard.”

Most students have the occasional late night, but some may not know the long term health effects.

“Low oxygen to the brain over and over can eventually begin to mimic alzheimer’s,” Dr. Mark Dyken said. “Every-thing you learn throughout the day, dreaming is reviewing. When you take away that deep sleep, it can affect your mem-ory. If you study all day and all night, not getting any sleep, you can’t perform well the next day.”

Dyken specializes in sleeping disorders at the University of Iowa’s Hospitals and Clinics. He empha-sizes that sleep deprivation can have unpredictable consequences.

“A sleep disorder may just as well be called a medical disorder,” Dyken said. “All medical problems that occur while you’re awake can occur just as easily in your sleep. Strokes and heart attacks, for ex-ample.”

Dyken warns that in addition to stress and homework, one of the most common causes of sleep-ing disorders in today’s teenagers is texting, which can be addictive. The average teen sends 30 to 40

text messages every evening, right around bedtime. “You’re in your bed drifting to sleep, and hear that beep,”

Dyken said. “You pick it up to answer, and fall right back asleep. You repeat that process over and over.

“You’re basically sleeping with your cell phone! Sleep-texting is a huge problem. It disrupts sleep to the point where you’ll start doing poorly in school and getting bad grades. It might make the difference between being the President of the United States, or the one sweeping the President’s floor.”

The future for sleep disorders is unclear, but researchers and clinicians are constantly learning more about them..

Professionals are striving to identify insomnia early and discourage use of over-the-counter drugs. Left untreated, the disorder can increase the risk of depression, diabetes, and hypertension.

The National Institutes of Health have lately taken a spe-cial interest in one form of treatment: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

“We learn more every day,” Dyken said. “We can define and treat more and more cases as time goes by.”

5September 27, 2013 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE

F“In the past

week, I’ve slept a total of about thirty minutes.”- Braden Offerman-Mims ‘13

This year, the theater department will present The Foreigner in October

and Oliver, the musical, in April.

By Ellen Carman

In choosing City High’s productions for the year, Drama teacher Troy Peters had to take into account his combination of talented female singers and strong male character actors. The unique mix of tal-ent is part of the reason City High Dra-

ma department will be performing The Foreigner in the fall and the musical Oliver in the spring. This group of thespians includes many seniors who have been involved in theater since their freshman year and are stepping into leader-ship positions for their final City High produc-tions. “I want to show the freshmen how they might just come out just to get involved in some-thing but it could turn into to this whole other thing that they dedicate their entire high school career to,” light designer Gretchen Burke ‘14 said. “Everyone has a good experience with it and it’s really welcoming. You would be surprised how sad you are when its over.” While the end is approaching for these seniors, they still have a school year to take advan-tage of the new shop space that has the potential to allow sets to be bigger and more complicated. “Because we have had such limited space on the wings, we’ve had to be very creative with our set,” Peters said. “Now we will have more space and we will be able to do bigger sets without feeling like we are squeezed into one area.” This will be a drastic change from the 2011 production of Peter Pan where a pirate ship had to double as an underground home. Some seniors also plan to ‘go big’ and try to make it in theater after high school. Amy Os-trem ‘14 plans to major in musical theater and ac-credits her dreams to the lessons she learned from many recent alumni. “They taught me to not settle for some-thing less than I can do. They pushed me to look

at schools that are extremely hard to get into,” She said. “City High has been way more influential than I thought it would be in planning what I want to do with the rest of my life.” Even just as a high school activity this career takes a certain level of dedication. “In Once Upon a Mattress it took me probably a solid month of just sitting in my bath-tub memorizing lines. It was a little awful,” Foster ‘14 said. “The hardest part for me is that I am afraid to let people down. When you are performing you want to do your best. Anyone who says ‘I don’t

care’ is joking or just kidding themselves.” These productions also involve many more people than just those who appear on stage. Burke will be in charge of light design this year. “I listen to the songs over and over again until I’m really famil-iar with them and use the lights to accent big hits in the song,” She said. “You can kind of feel it.”Seniors that will be in-volved in the produc-tion of The Foreigner in October and Oliver

in April hope to have many newcomers join them. “Don’t be afraid to make a fool of yourself. Don’t be afraid to be yourself because everyone is going to love you. Especially if you are in theater because everyone there is pretty weird, so you will fit right in,” Foster said. “Don’t be afraid to try new things.” Ostrem agrees and adds that the theater group is diverse. “The people involved in theater are also involved in so many other things. The theater com-munity brings in people from all different areas of the school and it’s really nice to see those people come together and support one another,” Ostrem said. “It’s a way of making friends that maybe fresh-man year you never thought you would be friends with.”

Don’t be afraid to make a fool of

yourself. Don’t be afraid to be

yourself be-cause everyone is going to love

you.

Elena Foster ‘14

September 27, 2013 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE7

8 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE September 27, 2013

F r e s h m a n Survival Guide

1: Social NetworkingMake worthwhile tweets. Nobody wants to see an-other depressing, melodramatic tweet. Write a poem about microwaves, give a detailed explanation of the history of erasers, or whatever else floats your boat instead, and you’re guaranteed to make interesting friends. You CAN overdo it with Instagram selfies.

Social media is amazing. You can communicate with friends, find some amazing stuff, and learn about current events, but unfortunately, all we get to see on it is (drumroll) teenagers taking hundreds upon hundreds of “selfies.” We get that you’re lookin’ pretty cute, so naturally you want to document it, but 20 selfies a day (or a week, or a month) is too much.

3: PhoniesHalf an inch of eyeliner on your lower lid is a LITTLE BIT too much. You may think people dig the raccoon look, but... not so much. Don’t get a bad fake tan. If you’re going to do it, do it right. A fake tan is better than actually going tan-ning, but a bad one can look Oompa-Loompa-esque.

2: Strive for GreatnessYour grades actually do count. Surprising as this may be, don’t under-estimate the homework. If you keep up a good work ethic all year, you will get the grades you want. And trust us, you want good grades.

4: What Not to WearDon’t dress like you’re going clubbing when in reality, you’re walking to science class. Trust us, you don’t look as cool as you think you do. People are si-lently judging you. GUYS: Socks and sandals are pretty bad, unless you were just working out (or have a foot condition).

5: Go Outside the BoxDo something exciting every day. Be adventurous. Mistakes can be fixed. Be creative. There’s noth-ing wrong with being dorky. It sounds incredibly cheesy, but it’s true. If your friends don’t like you for your true self, then they shouldn’t be your friends any more. Batman is awesome though, be Batman if you can. Remember, you were an eighth grader not too long ago. And the sophomores were fresh-men once, too. Don’t let them get you down.

6: Locker Maintenance This stuff should be a review from junior high, but – a surprising number of people seem to have forgotten proper locker etiquette after a long summer on the loose. Remember your locker combination(s). Keep your locker clean to avoid disembowelment at the hands of your locker partner. Don’t leave clothes in your locker. It’s not your personal closet, and we can smell it when you treat it that way.

7: Smelly StuffFOR GUYZ One spray of

Axe is more than enough

to suffocate every person

in a ten mile radius.

FOR GURLZ Don’t spray the entire hallway with your

perfume.

9: Be YouDon’t be afraid to get into things you like. Unless you like punching kittens in the face. Don’t do that.

10: Hallway MannersYou may think backpacks are lame, but you won’t when you drop all your stuff down the stairs and cause a traffic jam.

And while we’re on the topic of hallways: do not stand in clumps in the hallways. Ever. Be cool. Always walk on the RIGHT side of the hallway. Always. Seriously. And don’t shriek every time you see your friend in the hall. It’s really not necessary. Don’t make out with your BF/GF in the hall-way for your week anniversary, ya nasties. We know that you love each other and that you’re going to be together forever, but nobody wants to see two people having a heavy make-out session on the way to World History.

8: The Best Part of the Day Just because you can buy pizza every day for lunch doesn’t mean you should. Bringing lunch from home may make you feel like a second grader, but it can be healthier and less expensive.

You’re going be here for the next four years. You’ll have an awesome time at City, if you follow these simple guidelines.

by Sonali Durham and Abby Dickson

HOMECOMING COURT

2013

Can you match each homecoming royalty to their responses? Find the correct matches on the back of the LH Feature Magazine.

Emma Greiman Greg Gier Morgan Sammons Jacob Buatti Ellie Benson

Omar Shaban Gretchen Burke Kole Butler Elena Foster Joe Pugh

Emma McIntire Braxton Bell Addie Bockenstedt Danny Burian Micah Cabbage

If you could be an animal what would you

be?

A:Tiger, they’re bad and they know it

B:A Dugong, because they’re the prettiest animal everC:The Arabian Desert Camel, they are so awesome

D:I would be a Mega Shark because I want to battle a giant octopus!

E:Whale because they are majestic and I love the ocean

F:A cat because they’re cute I guess

G: Giraffe, they are so tall like me

H:I’d be a moose because they are pretty chill and have cool antlers

I:A baby sloth because they’re really beau-tiful, but I can’t grow up because adult sloths are just gross

J:Flamingo because they’re pretty cool

K:A Polar bear because they are fierce and fluffy

L:I would be an otter because they are quick and good swimmers, and also cute

M:A porcupine because why not

N:A Lemur, Lemurs are cool

O:I’d be a pterodactyl because they’re sweet, and they could fly

A:Becoming the most successful group in 4th Ave history my junior year

B:The formation of the Gorgle Crew

C:The formation of the Gorgle Crew

D:Freshman year Mr. Rogers class when Amy Ostrem stood on her desk and said “O’ captain my captain!”E:Spain, every moment spent with Mary Kelly, and the night I asked Kole Butler for the math homework

F: The time I balled so hard I swear I thought I was Kobe

G:When Lexi Wichman hung out of the window on the way home from the MVC Super Meet last year

H:Winning 3 grand champion titles at show choir competitions and making 4th Ave history

I:Getting lost with Maddie Donahue in New York on St. Patty’s Day

J:14 hour bus rides to New York City!

K:Beating West High at the Super meet last year

L:That one time I saw Greg Grier in the hallway and we dapped each other up like it was 1996

M:Getting super off track in Burkle’s class everyday

N:Bonding with Chip

O:When Sam Buatti and I would do flips off of each other during lamb thrash at the football games

Hidden Talents

A:It’s rumored that I can belly dance better than Shakira...

B:Underwater basket weaving

C:Being a Bro

D:I can blow bubble rings underwater

E:I can tie cherry stems in my mouth

F:Making beats

G:Making people feel uncomfortable

H:I’m a skip-it pro

I:Correcting people’s grammar by verbally assaulting them

J:Early-bird ultimate frisbee

K:Hula hooping

L:I am a semi-decent dancer

M:I do a mean tree twerk

N:Eating a gallon of ice cream in one sitting

O: I’m a man of many talents. I can make a clover with my tongue, flare my nostrils, and wiggle my ears

A:I share the same birthday with my mom

B:I have a birthmark on my chin

C:I was born in Egypt

D:N/A

E:I got a perm last year

F:I’m Jewish

G:I have Tourette’s Syndrome

H:I was born in Des Moines and moved to Iowa City in 1st grade

I:I write songs on piano and guitar

J:I’m a vegetarian

K:I am from Canada

L:I went to Regina up until junior high

M: I’m a closet Disney song addict

N:I got a mullet sophomore year for XC

O:That I’m in love with Justin Timberlake

Favorite CHS memory Something people might not know about you

10 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE September 27, 2013

September 27, 2013 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE 11

FOR MORE NEWS COVERAGE GO TO:

www.thelittlehawk.com

By Jacob Potash

Who’s watching you?” was once a relatively simple question. Apart from

someone peeking through a keyhole, or hiding in a bush, you could answer the question with a simple glance around.

But as our lives become more and more mediated by sophisticated tech-nology, old assumptions no longer hold: words can now be frozen and preserved forever; moments can be photographed and shared instantly; activity can be monitored invisibly.

Today’s teenagers round out the Millennial Generation. They’ve had to navigate uncharted territory as they navigate a new “normal” for commu-nication and privacy. How much do they know about who’s watching them? And who is watching them, anyway?

Tiara Phillips is a senior who uses the typical array of online services: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Vine. (Snapchat is another application popular among high school students.)

Phillips is not worried about keeping her posts private from strangers. There is one group that she tries to avoid, though: family.

“I block most of my fam-ily on Facebook,” Phillips said, “and if they follow me on Twitter, I tend to block them too. It’s just weird!”

She says she does censor her-self sometimes – she avoids being “too wild” in pictures – if only for the sake of her coworkers and boss.

There are also students who do not need to censor themselves – but only because they don’t use social media sites. Senior Eric McDon-ald, for example, has only a Face-book account, and rarely logs in.

“Twitter is just a phase, and so is Face-book really – it comes on for a year, then it goes,” McDonald explains. “So I figure there’s no point in me doing it really. I have no desire to become socially inter-twined with all this junk, you know?”

Schools have struggled to keep up with the rapid pace of techno-logical change. Take, for example, the Iowa City Community School District’s technology policy, ad-opted in 1999 and revised in 2008.

The policy outlaws a long list of activities – among them “instant mes-saging,” “playing non-educational games,” “excessive personal emailing

or web surfing,” and “accessing social networking sites for personal use.”

According to the policy, infrac-tions could result in “ loss of... privi-leges, suspension or expulsion, and/or legal action.” In daily practice, the school takes a much more le-nient attitude toward technology use.

Dean of Students Doug Lestina claims that administrators are also relaxed about keeping tabs on the content of social media postings.

“There’s no preemptive moni-toring,” Lestina says. “We don’t get on Facebook to see whether ‘this’ kid is doing anything bad.”

That’s not the full story of adminis-tration involvement, however. If an of-fense is reported to the school, Lestina says, administrators can and do use so-cial media to investigate the problem.

The three most common categories of behavior that come under the admin-istration’s purview are (1) using social media to threaten or harass, (2) surfing pornography, and (3) using websites that are otherwise inappropriate. Examples of the last category could include using proxy sites to to reach a page blocked by the school’s Safe Search system.

Lestina says he and colleagues deal with 15 to 20 cases per year that re-quire administrators to use social me-dia as evidence of harassment. Not all cases of online harassment merit dis-ciplinary action, though. Administra-tors only get involved if the behavior disrupts the school day. Lestina does, however, try to counsel students on how best to handle unpleasant on-line attention, even when it falls out-side of the school’s scope of authority.

When it comes to teacher-student on-line interaction, there is no district-wide policy. It is general practice for teachers to wait to “friend” students till after grad-uation. Lestina abides by this custom.

“You’ve gotta kinda be ignorant a bit, or you’ll be stressed and con-cerned all of the time,” Lestina said.

The average student may not need to worry about scrutiny from school administrators, but privacy concerns surrounding college and employ-ment loom large in many teenag-ers’ minds. Phillips and McDonalds had sharp words on the subject.

“If you’re applying to a college with your good grades and your work ethic, and you do volunteer work or whatever you’ve done,” Phil-

lips said, “I don’t think what you do in your free time should matter.”

“[Employers] shouldn’t make any major decisions over it, because I don’t feel like that’s the company’s business,” he said. “The company’s business is between the interviewer and the boss.”

But according to Jeff Blevins, who leads the University of Cincinnati’s De-partment of Journalism, social-media searches on job applicants have become standard practice. And the kicker? There’s not much anyone can do about it.

“A lot of people assume that we have this kind of absolute right to privacy, and we don’t,” Blevins said. “Many peo-ple assume that that’s kind of implicit in the 4th amendment of the Constitu-tion, but it doesn’t address the kind of information that we willingly put out there online about ourselves. And that’s really kind of the vexing thing. We are our own worst culprits, if you will.”

The only major restriction on a social media company, accord-ing to Blevins, is the terms-of-service agreements that every user agrees to when they sign up for an account.

“Really what the terms of ser-vice is, is that in order to use the ser-vice for free, they can collect your personal information and do what-ever they want with it,” Blevins said, “and you willingly agree to that.”

The average user is not in a position to create such a contract – they can take it or leave it. And if they are eager to use a service, they will simply click “I agree.”

On the college front, at least, things look more hopeful for those who don’t want adults snooping through their posts. Admissions officers seem a little more sympa-thetic to the teenage point of view.

“It’s unrealistic to think that at Iowa, with 21,6000 apps for this fall, that we would have very much time to cruise those [social media] sites, checking them out,” Michael Barron, Director of Ad-missions at the University of Iowa, said.

Iowa applicants’ web presence is occasionally screened, but the pro-cess is not systematic. Barron says that his office monitors only the Twitter and Facebook pages that they them-selves run to connect new students.

“It wouldn’t be out of the question for us to see something we thought was very interesting or curious, that somebody might post, and then we might probe more deeply, by going to their own site,” Barron said. “If we

were to see some less than favorable images of a student and his or her be-havior, then, that might call into ques-tion an admission decision or impact, say, a students scholarship application.”

Barron claimed he knew of many smaller colleges – with more man-ageable applicant numbers – that regularly looked into applicants’ social media profiles. But Tina Iyer Elfen-bein, an Assistant Director Admission at Grinnell College, confirmed that Grinnell never considers applicants’ online presence in their decisions.

Policies differ by school, though, and Barron had words of ad-vice to any prospective students.

“You’ve got to decide, before you post,” Barron said, “If someone that had the ability to make a meaningful deci-sion about you were to see this, how would it reflect on you, and then how might what they see impact the decision that they’re going to make about you?”

The biggest privacy news to most Americans has been the series of rev-elations about the NSA’s extensive monitoring that Edward Snowden’s leaks sent in motion. To high school students, though, privacy doesn’t seem to be important in and of itself, and un-like admissions officers, government officials don’t seem too threatening.

“I feel like if they do know what we’re doing, I don’t think it affects us all that much, unless you’re doing drugs or something like that, then maybe,” Phillips said. “But if you’re posting a picture with your friends, like what are they going to do with that photo? Look at it? I don’t think it matters.”

“I’m kind of a paranoid guy, a little bit,” McDonald said. “I know the government can get what they want, when they want it, but it’s noth-ing new and uncomfortable to me. As long as you’re not doing anything wrong, they won’t come for you.”

Blevins advocates in favor of in-creased media literacy education for students, but he thinks that some simple growing up will also help young peo-ple come to peace with social media.

“A lot of times, the best teacher is making a mistake. You now, you make a poor judgement, you suffer the consequences for it, and you go ‘Well, I’m not gonna do that again.’ A lot of times I think younger folks simply haven’t had the experience.”

September 27, 2013 LH FEATURE MAGAZINE 13

JasonShumanJoins City High

A Teacher Profile:

By Jacob Potash

September 27, 2013 LH MAGAZINE 15

A new teacher on his lawyer years, coming out as a teacher, and Iowa nice.

Are you teaching now? I substitute taught a little bit at the beginning of the year. I was mostly at South East junior high, and then spent a couple days here, a couple days at that other school, and then I’ve been taking care of her – she was born in December, so that’s been my primary job since December, because my wife works. Come August, she’ll be in day-care, and I’ll be hanging out with you guys.

What position exactly are you taking next year? It’s a social studies teacher posi-tion. There will be a combination of Ameri-can studies and world history, and, I think, one success center class. Some combina-tion of those. AP is sort of an aspiration goal.

Any thoughts on the AP system? I think in general the tests expect you to know a ridiculous amount of coverage – call it a mile wide and an inch deep – and they don’t do a very good job of ensuring that students have the skills that they need to utilize their knowledge. So, I sort of have mixed feelings.

I tell people like it’s a job, if you take the AP exam. If you can be successful on the test, you then get college credit – that’s thousands of dol-lars in college courses that you avoid taking. I was in the same position when I was in high school. I was fortunate enough to get some of my college credit taken care of. If you can

think of it as a job and approach it that way, you have a tendency to be more successful.

What would be your ideal class to teach? Are you equally interested in all these areas? Absolutely. I love teaching U.S. history, world history, and government, so any combination of those three. In terms of my background, I was a history major in college, at North Carolina, and then had this choice – I could either become a teacher, like my parents, or I could go to law school, so I did my last act of childhood rebellion and went to law school. I came here to the University of Iowa, graduated, met my wife. It was very successful in that area.

I moved out to Seattle, practiced law for five years, and decided I wasn’t fulfilled enough in my career, and so I went back to school and got my teaching certificate, and student-taught mostly out in Washington State for a little bit, and then moved here. My wife and I both missed it out here and wanted to start a family.

Based on what you know about stan-dardized testing in public schools, and testing-based learning in general, do you think it’s overdone? I think it’s al-ways important to be measuring the growth of students in terms of their learning. I think it’s overdone, because there’s a lot of learn-ing that you can’t demonstrate through a test. For my own personal style, I like students to be doing a lot of composition work: compos-ing stories, songs, whatever – which is maybe a little bit unusual for a social studies teacher.

But I do think it’s critical to measure student growth and ensure that teachers are actu-ally teaching and there’s learning taking place.

So, when did you move back to Iowa? We moved to Davenport first a little over a year ago, and then after about six months we moved to Iowa City – about a year and a half ago. We sort of always knew that we wanted to get back to Iowa City. My wife and I loved it when we were here. We knew we were ready for an adventure when we moved out to Seattle, but in the back of our heads, we both knew that we would eventu-ally come back, for a lot of reasons - the schools are great, it’s a smaller community than Seattle.I’ve lived in the South, I’ve lived in the Mid-west, I’ve lived on the West Coast. And I just think generally people in the midwest – this is probably a common thing to say – but they’re just generally nicer than people anywhere else in the word. That’s been my experience.

When did the whole application process start? I’ve been keeping my eye out since we came back, and I was substitute teaching on openings in the area, so it got posted about a month and a half ago, and I got called back for an interview and to do a thirty minute les-son. So we went through that process and found out about three weeks or four weeks ago.

So this is all very recent. Yeah! I’m re-ally looking forward to next year, learn-ing the traditions and bringing some of my own ideas, and hopefully I think it’ll be a good fit. I know it’ll be a good fit.

Are your parents happy you’re a teacher now? I think so. It was kind of like a coming out moment, – I don’t want to equate it to com-ing out, because I think that’s very different, but it was sort of like this “alright, you’re ad-mitting what we could tell and see you should have always been.” I say, it’s sort of the family business. Some people are born into a family of electricians, some people are born into the mafia. I was born into a family of teachers.

What was your first impression of city high? I think I taught here the first week of school this year, and my first impression? The students were lively and funny and there was a lot of healthy diversity which I love.

It was fifteen minutes before incoming histo-ry teacher Jason Schumann was scheduled to arrive for an interview, and I, like a true jour-nalistic star, was still thinking up questions. In he walked, holding his daughter, Finley. I excused myself for a few minutes, finished scribbling some questions, and re-entered the news lab for what turned out to be an ex-tremely pleasant (and adorable) interview. A portion of the interview was lost – in which Mr. Schumann reflected on his time as small-town prosecutor. He recalled feeling that put-ting high school students in jail wasn’t helping them; by comparison, he said, teaching is like preventative medicine – he gets to help kids make the right decisions in the first place. If he strikes you as well-spoken here, be doubly impressed: left out are baby moans, burps, and other vocalizations! – Jacob Potash

#LHFEATURE

Answers from LHFeature 9-10: A) Micah Cabbage, B) Greg Grier, C) Omar Shaban, D) Jacob Buatti, E) Emma Greimann, F) Kole Butler, G) Addie Bock-enstedt, H) Emma McIntire, I) Elena Foster, J) Gretchen Burke, K) Morgan Sammons, L) Joe Pugh, M) Braxton Bell, N) Ellie Benson, O) Danny Burian

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