By Kayla Gahagan

In the midst of an economic meltdown and ongoing budget woes in the Rapid City School District’s operating budget, I had to read in amazement at how a Pocatello, Idaho economics teacher handled his district’s budget problems.

The teacher at the school struck a deal with a local pizza shop to cover expenses in the classroom. Every handout and test given to students has “Molto’s Pizza 14″ 1 topping just $5″ written on the bottom of every page.

The teacher said ads are sold for the yearbook and for the school newspaper - why not the classroom?

While this is a great idea, it open up all sorts of questions about classroom distractions for students, the time a teacher might spend pitching a product instead of teaching, and more so, whose responsibilities is it - the community’s, parents’, the state - to make sure that the people in the classroom are not having to grovel for money.

Don’t we want the people in front of our students doing what they do best - teaching? Finding money to fund that should be left to others. When it’s not getting done, I have to applaud this teacher who took it into his own hands. I hope it serves as a shot of reality for this community and lawmakers, and not as a precedent, with other teachers soon to follow.

We ran the story in our print edition last week, and while I’m hoping you already read it there, you can check it out here too.

By Kayla Gahagan

Mike Kenton (director of support services at the Rapid City school district) was probably annoyed with how many times I called him last week to keep tabs on how the district was preparing for the storm.

While two days of classes were cancelled and students stayed at home warming their toes by the fire, Kenton’s crew was hard at work plowing, preparing buses, and de-icing.

The buses all got to their routes with no mishaps and the students were all in school safely Wednesday. Our hats go off to all the people who made that happen.

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By Barbara Soderlin

If you’re a teacher (or a sociologist) you’ve probably heard about the Iowa teacher and her famous blue eyes/brown eyes experiment. Jane Elliott, after the 1968 shooting of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., wanted to teacher her students what it felt like to be discriminated against for something they couldn’t help, like race, or in her case, eye color. So she started treating blue-eyed and brown-eyed children differently, with fascinating and painful results. The experiment has always been controversial, but it illustrates how children live up to our expectations for them.

Here’s an interesting story in which a girl who grew up in Iowa, an Asian girl adopted by white parents, tells how the experiment affected her, and interviews Elliott on her thoughts on race in light of the Obama presidency.

“Elliott was the first white person I ever heard who admitted to the privileges of whites, acknowledging that visible differences affect how the world perceives us,” wrote Corina Knoll in the L.A. Times. “Her words sparked a hunger in me for more.

“My first year in college, I took courses on race and ethnicity and Asian American history. Race, I learned, permeated everything, and it was OK to say so. I found myself with strong opinions and a circle of outspoken black and Asian friends with whom to share. The world felt bigger, and I felt empowered.

“Much of my decision to move to Los Angeles eight years ago was to answer a longing to live somewhere diverse. When I discovered Elliott quietly living nearby, it seemed fortuitous that I had become a reporter. I could interview the woman who unknowingly sent me in a new direction.”

By Kayla Gahagan

Was I smarter in high school than I am now?

When I was in high school, I fell in love with my English classes and grew to loathe my math classes. If I could have written essays all day and skipped four years of math equations, I would have done it. Yes, I was a writing nerd, even back then.

So, I was suprised, and a little embarrased when I spent some time in a Central High English class last week and read a vocabulary list students were studying from and it included: trousseau, obstreperous, guilelessness, apoplectic, philippic, and interdict - words that are familiar to me, but not enough that I could have passed a spelling or definition quiz on them.

So, in true writing geek form, I looked them up for you. I feel a little bit smarter already.

trousseau - a bride’s collection of clothing and personal items

obstreperous - uncontrollably noisy or defiant

guilelessness - without craftiness

apoplectic - of relating to, or causing a stroke

philippic - a discourse or declamation full of bitter condemnation

interdict - an ecclesiastical penalty which (temporarily) bars a specific person or group of people from receiving the sacraments