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SOURCEVolume 9 Issue 6

December 16, 2011

575 Tienken Road, Rochester Hills, MI 48306

Big Green Gig bounces back bigger for second year

With Christmas approach-ing, probably the most popu-lar adjective on people minds is “white.” White snow, white Christmas, etc. But this is not so in our Earth Advocates club. They constantly think green, but more in particular at this time of year because of the up-coming Big Green Gig on Jan. 13.

The Big Green Gig is return-ing from last year, the show’s first year, as the Earth Advo-cates Club decided to expand on the The Gig that had occurred years before.

The show itself will be full of bands, food, merchandise, and culture. The club brings in a multitude of local acts, provides food and refreshments, various merchandise, and other “earth-friendly” themed things.

The club members are all about the earth, and pop cul-ture.

“We try to incorporate a healthy earth setting with good music. It’s a fun show with a good meaning behind it” junior Courtney Bourgoin said.

The first Big Green Gig was put on for charity and raised over $2,000 for the club, all of which was do-nated to various charity founda-tions. This year the club hopes to earn much more than that, and plans to do-nate to charities once more, ac-cording to club presidents Lind-sey Diamond and Kira Bucks-baum.

This year they are looking at bringing in four solo or acoustic acts and four full band acts as well. Returning from last year will be Boys Don’t Sing and local uprising band Alive In Standby.

Alive In Standby vocalist Chris Koo loved performing last year, and is looking forward to this year as well.

“Playing in a big auditorium is a nice change of pace from most local shows. It’s really a

lot of fun,” Koo said. “Last year was a blast, and as soon as they asked us to play again this year, I was all for it.”

Besides his excitement to play, Koo noted that shows like The Big Green Gig are extreme-ly beneficial to perform at.

“Shows like this are great for local bands. They appeal to a younger fol-lowing of kids, sell a lot of mer-chandise, and get the name out through the school system, a key factor in getting known,” Koo said.

Also confirmed for this

year’s show is The Bends, the band of student teacher Kevin Briski.

Besides those three, the club is still looking around for other good local acts to fill the bill.

Senior Kira Bucksbaum, Earth Advocates President, is

busy getting bands together. “We want to even the show

out a little bit more than last year,” Bucksbaum said. “We want to start off with acoustic or solo acts, and build to the best one, then move on to full bands, and build to the best one

in that category too.” The Club is pulling the whole

show together currently, count-ing down the days until Jan. 13. With all the snow coming this month, a little green will be a nice break from the white for our Earth Advocates.

by Blake Adams

Sports Team

Teacher have mixed feelings over evaluationsby Matthew Pitlock

Editor-in-Chief

Teacher Julie Frerichs advanced into the Language Lab on Nov. 30, her troops of Advanced Placement Spanish students flanking her on each side. In tandem, each Spanish-speaking warrior took a seat opposite the enemy, typed his or her name into the log-in panel of the enemy’s screen, and pressed “enter.” The war had begun.

Already a computer screen went blank. Already freshman Miah Khan’s mouse had fallen, no longer able to click. It was a normal Wednesday in the Language Lab.

Ever since school began, these battles with the Language Lab have been an issue in the world language department.

“The problem is that the computers [in the lab] are ten years old,” Frerichs said. “That’s pretty much it.”

This computer lab, designed exclusively for world language classes, is programmed with technology and specialized software meant to engage students by giving them the chance to listen to native speakers and also to record themselves speaking.

However, because the computer lab is now ten years old, its technology, its software, and its appliances malfunction on a regular basis.

According to Frerichs, the headphones and mice of the lab do not always work, logging in is sometimes unreliable, and Sony Soloist, the listening and recording program, will no longer

convert .wav files to .mp3 files and often fails to record on some student computers.

Desai affirms Frerichs’ statements. “During the practice dialogue sessions, it

closes off on me...but when it opens back up it doesn’t save my recording,” Desai said.

In addition, according to Frerichs, this past summer brought a new Windows update to the leading computer of the lab, the teacher’s computer, but not to the student computers. This adds compatibility problems to the list of issues students face daily in the lab.

But students and teachers alike say that the daily inconveniences of the Language Lab are not the primary reason for their frustration with the technology.

“I can deal with it on a day-to-day basis with my students in class,” Frerichs said, “but when it comes to the AP, it’s not fair to the students if it’s not working.”

As the AP Language tests are held on-campus, due to speaking and listening portions, the tests are administered in the Language Lab.

Frerichs, known by her students for her determination for their success on the AP test, finds herself worrying about the setback the malfunctioning lab will bring.

“Going into the AP, I want my students to not worry about the technology and worry about what they know, so it frustrates me,” Frerichs said.

According to CollegeBoard.com, should any sort of irregularity occur “College Board may decline to score the exams of one or more students...whether or not the affected

(see Language, pg. 2)

by Lindsey Scullen / Nick Cruz

Managing Content Editor / Managing Design Editor

Language lab crumbles before APs

Juniors Emmie Ashwell and Brooklynne Garrett paint a poster to advertise for the Big Green Gig. The Earth Advocates Club has planned on mass advertising to bring more people to this years show. (Photo by Kira Bucksbaum)

Senior gets skiing sponsorship

pg. 8

Student survives car crashpg. 4 and 5

(see Teachers, pg. 2)

Every worker needs to be evaluated. Sales people have their sales figures, lawyers have their winning percentages, even athletes come with some sort of average attached to their name. It only makes sense that teachers be evaluated by data as well, doesn’t it?

This year Michigan legislatures enacted a law requiring up to 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluations to be based on data by 2014.

To comply, Rochester Community Schools and the teachers’ union developed a new teacher evaluation system that they hope the state will approve.

According to Principal Larry Goralski, the new system is much more data driven, which allows every teacher to set goals for each year that can be monitored as part of a self evaluation program. He thinks this type of system gives teachers a better understanding of how their students are performing.

“That’s the point of it all,” Goralski said. “If people actually measure what they do instead of assume that ‘I teach it well,’ and you challenge kids to do better, then they’ll eventually rise.”

The data based system is meant to be a much fairer, less subjective, process. History teacher Mark Dillon agrees that a system like this could prevent personal biases from tainting evaluation results.

“They used to find anything they want to criticize you on,” Dillon said. “At least now we have something to go to and say, ‘Oh, ok, well then I’ll work on that’ and the data can be raised.”

According to Dillon the administrators were wasting their time giving teachers grades on their observations. He hopes that the new system will allow administrators to work with teachers in a more efficient way than they ever did

“As soon as they asked

us to play again this

year, I was all for it.”

Singer Chris Koo

(photoillustration by Nick Cruz)