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Published December 18, 2020
Meet Our New Principal
↠ By Tara K. and Gopika N.↞
Matthew Poska has joined Elm St. as our new principal. Mr. Poska had been the principal at Briscoe Middle School in Beverly, Massachusetts for 14 years. Mr. Poska is excited to become the new principal of Elm Street and he has big plans for the future of our community.
Mr. Poska got interested in education because of his parents who were both teachers. He taught for 8 years before becoming a principal, three years in middle school and 5 years in high school. Mr. Poska describes his principal experience as having fun meeting the students and staff, and making the school a better place. He believes the easiest part of being a principal is making decisions in order to positively impact the school as a whole. Especially this year, since we are doing remote learning, Mr. Poska thinks the most difficult part of becoming a new principal is that he’s starting halfway through the school year, and it’s going to be difficult to form relationships with the students and teachers.
There is a long and complicated process to becoming Elm St’s new principal. Mr. Poska had 3 separate interviews and he had a meeting with the board of education. Mr. Poska picked Elm Street because he enjoyed his interactions with everyone in Nashua and he likes the pride of the people in Nashua. In his previous school, he had a great relationship with the students and staff by going into the classrooms and the lunchroom so he could talk to the students. Since he had a great relationship with everyone at his old school, he also wants to form a good relationship with the students at Elm Street even though it’s online. Right now he’s figuring out his way with new technology, jumping into zoom classes to get to know the students, and working towards getting to know students in hybrid school.
In his previous school in Beverly, Massachusetts he had 1,400 total students in his school, grades 5-8. He said that there were a lot of students but their school is a family and we’re a family as well. Just like a family, everyone has their own job to do. Mr. Poska decided to leave his old school because he had been there for a long time and he wanted a new challenge. Mr. Poska has many hopes and goals to improve Elm Street by being better today than yesterday. He wants to improve online learning, continue with teaching but also learning, and overall make a positive impact. He wants to help students in remote learning, and help with the decisions regarding the building of the new middle school building that will replace Elm St.. We are very lucky to have him as our new principal.
Pros and Cons of Remote Teaching
Pros and Cons of Remote Teaching
↠ By Angelise P., Camryn P., Gopika N., and Tara K.↞
Everyone has mixed feelings about online school since we’ve been doing remote learning since March. Some students and teachers think it's good, while others think it’s awful. The main drawback of online school is the difficulty of being on a screen. We asked teachers whether they prefer remote or in person learning, and why. Overall, they preferred in school learning. Remote learning has it’s pros and cons.
Remote learning has it’s pros, even if the teachers don’t prefer it overall. One of the main reasons is they have fewer classes in a day. Since teachers have less classes, they’re able to do other things, like spend time with family and doing activities they enjoy. Spending time with family is important, especially during times like these. They also have time to do their hobbies that they enjoy. The less classes leave them more time to do things that make them happy. Another positive aspect to remote learning is a tighter schedule. A tighter schedule is a benefit because you know when things are happening and it often doesn’t change. Those could help while planning things, school related or not. Another plus of remote learning is having less distractions. Having less distractions will be important so that way it will be easier for teachers to get more work done. Another pro to remote learning is having more time to grade papers. When classes are online, teachers will have more time to grade papers and give corrections to the kids. These four reasons are why some teachers prefer remote learning.
The new online learning is not as good as in-person learning according to teachers. There are fewer connections with the students, causing students to participate less. The teachers can not tell if they have left when their cameras are off, therefore causing less participation. With the school being online and on a call with people who have their cameras and mics off, it’s hard for the teachers to get to know their students better. Back when school was in person, teachers got to connect with their students by seeing what their personalities are like. Another reason why remote learning isn’t a good thing, is kids can more easily cheat on schoolwork. Teachers assign work and students are too lazy to do it, so they cheat and look up answers online. Cheating doesn’t really help students since it gets them in a bad habit of cheating and not doing it themselves. Another drawback of online learning is staring at a screen all day. When we were in person, students got to talk to friends and do hands-on activities. Online, teachers and students stare at their screens for about 4 hours a day for school, putting a strain on their eyes and getting less social connection. These are four reasons why teachers do not prefer online learning.
Although you can spend more time with your family, have more free time and have less distractions with remote learning, teachers prefer in school learning. Remote learning causes students not to participate, cheat and not have a connection with their teachers. Those things don’t cause a good learning or teaching environment, so it benefits no one. From the knowledge we’ve gained from Elm Street Middle School’s teachers, about 87% prefer learning in person due to those reasons. Hopefully, we’ll be able to go back to in person learning soon so we can eventually get back to normal!
Student's Opinions On Remote Learning
Student's Opinions On Remote Learning
↠ By Diya P., and Leah F.↞
Multiples students from every grade were surveyed about remote learning. Below are the results of the survey.
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Christmas Mad Lib
↠By: Katelin M.↞
Dreamers
(an original story)
↠ Written by William M .↞
↠ Edited by Aidan G. ↞
Chapter One: My Art Tries to Kill Me
“No!”
I shot up in my bed, my fists clenched as I racked my brain trying to find scraps of the dream that was fading away again.
I sighed. I guess the dream is gone again.
I got out of bed seeing my alarm Clock read 7:57. I got dressed then ran out of my room to see my roommate, Danny, eating bacon.
“Morning' Mikey,” he greeted.
“I told you to stop calling me stupid names like that,” I told him sternly.
He did a quick scan of me. I knew what I looked like. Red face, sweaty palms, unsure look on my face, that was the look I had after the dream.
“Did you remember anything this time?” he questioned.
“Yeah, I heard a voice.”
This was the third time this month that I had this dream, and I can never remember what it’s about. But this time was different. I remembered a voice.
“Do you recognize it?”
Danny had a way of interrogating me.
“No, get off my back ok?” I snapped, “S-sorry Dan. I just get worked up, y’know?”
I walked over grabbing a slice of bacon from his plate and putting it in my mouth.
“Nice bacon, well-cooked, store-bought. You can't cook anything except a sandwich and even then you make a mess.”
We hope that you enjoyed this edition of The Eagle Times student newspaper.
If you have an idea for a future article, or a unique comic, story, poem or illustration that you would like to include in the next edition, please contact us at oneils@nsd42.net
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