By: Haley Garafola
On a Tuesday morning from 9:58 a.m. to 11:10 a.m., a group of high school students climbs into the bus to head to Clinton Elementary to go teach the young students. As they were heading on the bus that morning, they were all bouncing with excitement and nervousness. The class was happy to get hands-on experience but also hoped the young students would like them and not be mean or rude towards them. The teacher, Mrs.Gonias, who is running this class for the first time tells us we’re going to be amazing and rock our first impressions of them. These will be our future teachers.
On the first day of school, it's 9:58 a.m, fifth period starts, and the students walk into the classroom. They knock on the door so as not to disrupt the class too much and say hello to the students and teacher in the room. They put their stuff down and have a small chat with the teacher before announcing to their class that they will have another teacher joining them from the high school. The teacher gets set up with their “All about me” document to introduce themselves. Some teachers had the high schoolers just observe for the past couple of weeks while others had them jump right in to help with the young students and do some work with them.
Intro to teaching is a brand new class that engages students to help them pursue an education career for the future and to help students see if they are cut out for teaching kids or if they want to teach older kids.
In this class, the students get to learn about some legal stuff everyday teachers have to know to protect their students. The students learn stuff like FERPA( a legal term that protects the students' identity from leaving the school and their actions are being told to other people outside of the staff). They learn how to deal with students who struggle with invisible disabilities or visible disabilities and how they can help them.
The students also learn about an alternate teaching method called Harkness. Harkness is a learning method where the classroom just has a giant round table for everyone to sit and they learn from each other. The students discuss ideas in an encouraging, open-minded environment with only occasional or minimal teacher intervention.
The older students learn to observe classrooms as well as make mini-lessons for the students they are teaching. Students would bounce ideas off one another as well as, of course, make their own ideas for the mini-lesson. This Introduction to Teaching will help students with their careers as well as understand what's behind the teachers' motives to help their students for their class to strive for success.
Video by: Emoni Barrett
Photo by Jacquelyn Cervini
Photo by Jacquelyn Cervini
Video by Dyllan Northover
Business in the School Day
By: Jacquelyn Cervini
Imagine getting to run your own business with some of your best friends and classmates during a school day. Well, that's what Virtual Enterprise is all about! Virtual Enterprise is a nationwide educational experience that prepares students for the business world. The program has been running since 1996 and has helped prepare students and get a glimpse of what a typical workday looks like for adults.
The Virtual Enterprise class here at Comsewogue has been running for a few years now. The teacher, Mr. Ketterer, has had some very successful classes. He and his teams have traveled to conventions and displayed their business products for other VE classes to see. One class even made it to the top 50 in the nation!
When asked about the class, Senior Jack Montoya had nothing but good things to say about the class. He said, “Virtual enterprise definitely helps students learn real-world applications for business and applying for jobs and interviews, so I think it is a very good class.” Jack took the class last year, so he’s basically a pro. He was the design manager, helped create the logo, and worked with branding the company. When asked what his favorite thing about Virtual Enterprise was, he said, “I think the fact that the students get to lead each other is very important in that class.” Jack is the CEO of the company SimpleCycle and loves to work with his fellow students to lead a strong, confident business.
When Mr. Mosca came, Mr. Ketterer had already been the VE teacher at Comsewogue for four years. His task as the teacher is to help set up our business and observe and intervene if needed. Seeing that this is one of his favorite classes to teach, he said “This class is an amazing class because not only is it offered for college credits, but it's also all PBL, and it's a real hands-on approach. Students in the class, actually get to take the role of a business professional and learn all different aspects of running their own company.”
Another major aspect of the class is the field trips they go on. The class, or just a few select managers, take the day and go meet with other VE classes from around the country. They are tasked with presenting their product and trying to get people to invest in their company.
People should definitely be excited to take this class. Everyone is involved and you get to learn how to work as a team with your classmates. As someone who also takes the class, I definitely recommend it to everyone as it gives you an inside look at what running a business looks like!
By: Aleayah Arman
Many new classes have been added in the last few years, many of which students now face a new problem when making their schedules. With many options to choose from, the Fashion Class has been alternating every other year due to the lack of student interest.
But all that is changing because between style today and internet trends, finding one’s individuality through the clothes one wears has become more and more popular and important to the youth. Mrs. Melton, the teacher who runs the class, expresses her delight when she sees her students ignite new creativity in her class, she is excited to see the progress as the course continues. For there are new events to stay on the watch for.
The “Intro to Fashion” is exactly what it states: it presents an introductory level to sewing basics, draping, figure illustrations, and more. it expands to a line of jewelry making as well. It is hard to expect what the fashion class may achieve this year, as there are more students attending the course.
Mrs. Melton responded to the question of how she feels about the class so far by stating, “I'm really excited, about the class so far it's a lot bigger than it usually is and everybody is at different places and different levels but that makes it a lot more fun I think, everybody seems to enjoy it I'm so- I'm happy about it.” this refreshingly optimistic view is just what the class needs. The fashion class has gained new recognition this year because this year starts their involvement with the Fashion Show.
When we asked how Mrs. Melton felt about the class involvement in the Fashion show she spoke, “ I’m a little bit nervous because we've never done it before, but again I’m really excited it's a new opportunity for the fashion class, we’ve been running it every other year so maybe this will allow us to run it every year. There are definitely more and more kids going to fashion schools so this may be a great opportunity for people to see what the Comsewogue students can do.”
Not only can we look forward to the future suspense, but hopefully bring a new perspective as years go on. Having the Fashion Class run every year and continue to showcase Comsewogue students’ potential in art.
Photos by Aleayah Arman
Video by Micheal Lettich
Video by Julia Arriaga
Photos by Julia Arriaga Martinez
by Julia Arriaga Martinez
The Reasons For Choosing Art is a metaphor for all the varieties of art around. Out of the many varieties of art, I can help you choose one that best fits you. This is very important and we will see your qualities and aspire to help improve them to learn how to handle that kind of subject you have to have patience, I hope to help you find one.
For example Introductory to Fashion, Craft Class, Drawing & Painting, and Advanced studio/Portfolio prep. These are some of the art forms which you can learn as they are variants of the art, you can choose any of them or create your art, following some of the variants that I have shown here. If you want to learn or directly have a class with the selected arts teacher Mrs. Melton. She is in room 123. If you have any questions she will surely help you.
In the Fashion class, students learn to create personal and unique styles and that is part of the art as it is a variant of it. In the Jewelry design class, they teach you how to make rhinestones, rings, and everything related to accessories, and that is also a variant of art.
In the Craft class, they teach you the basics, to the most difficult to work with handmade things, like working in wood, clay, etc. Which is a way of representing art in 3D.
Drawing and Painting class is one of the most basic classes to start , to create , to imagine and your creativity never ends because you can show your personality in your drawings or painting , and that is a characteristic of Art .
Advanced study/portfolio preparation. This is an important class because if you want a successful and challenging career, this will be a good option for you because if you take two years of preparation you will be able to have a variety of careers to choose from because of your skills.
With all these examples you can choose a class you are interested in learning. That is the reason to learn because no one is born knowing ,with time we learn, you will never get everything right at the beginning if you do not have a purpose to do it , That is why Art is complicated if you are not interested.
These are just some of the many Reasons For Choosing Art.
by Justice Lovell
The photography class is a great elective for students who would like to learn about cameras and different ways to take pictures. Mrs.Verdisco is the teacher of digital photography and she will show you all the techniques for using a high end camera.
One of the techniques we learned was ghost photography where you take a picture of something but it takes a few seconds to take the full photo. You get 2 of the same object in different places and it looks like a ghost of the object.
Another one of the techniques we learned was softbox lighting where you take the light that the professionals use to take your school picture and you pose for the picture. You get great results if your settings are set correctly.
Another technique that we learned was negative space is when you set the settings on your camera where you are focused on an object and the background is blurry the best results show when your pictures aren't too bright and aren't too dark and the object you are focused on should not be blurry.
Video by Justice Lovell