With 8 million Americans suffering from eating disorders according to the State Department of Mental Health, Seth and Eva Matlin decided it was time to take action.

As founders of the Off Our Chests magazine and fashion label for women, the Matlins are trying to pass their new Self-Esteem Act in congress.

If passed, this act would require that all images of models in digital or magazine media be accompanied by a disclaimer if the image is significantly altered. Just a simple statement telling the reader that the image was edited.

“The Self-Esteem Act isn’t about judging, it’s about clarifying. If you’re not comfortable declaring it, don’t do it,” said Seth Matlin in a Huffington Post Article.

Sophomore Murphy Mathers agrees that photoshopped pictures should include a disclaimer, but  does not feel personally attacked by the media.

“I look at pictures and think ‘man that girl is photoshpped.’”

Though Mathers understands that media is edited, many girls aspire to these false images of perfection.Nevertheless, she admits that sometimes she too compares herself to the models she sees.

“It’s hard not to,” says Mathers.

The bill would not prohibit photo-shopping, butit would require a disclaimer stating it had been changed.

“It would remind people that you don’t have to be photoshopped to look beautiful,” said Garfield junior Maddie Canty-Gill.

Prior to the Matlins’ action in the U.S, two L’Oreal ads were pulled from the British Media because they were deemed overly photoshopped. Julia Roberts’s face had been so airbrushed that the ad campaign was cited as promoting a negative body image.

“You see a picture like that and you get an idea of what you are supposed to look like,” said Canty-Gill of the L’Oreal campaign.

The Self Esteem Act was created in response to the staggering amounts of insecurity and low self-esteem among females in the U.S. According to the Self-Esteem petition, 50 percent of 13 year old girls in the U.S. are unhappy with their bodies, and by high school, approximately 70 percent are unsatisfied. By 17, this number reaches nearly 80 percent.

According to the Dove Self Esteem Bill, it doesn’t end with teenage years, as 80 percent of women in the U.S reportedly felt worse about themselves after viewing unrealistic media. Media that is meant to entertain is actually leading to depression and eating disorders.

Though not exclusively, most female cosmetic ads highlight inadequacies, while ads for male viewers tend to emphasize enhancement. Women are bombarded daily with messages that tell them they are not good enough in American media.

“You constantly see what perfection looks like, and so you ask yourself why you don’t look like that,” said Canty-Gill.

“It is a big movement,” said Darren. “It doesn’t have a central message because there are a lot of little things screwing a lot of lives up.”

For Garfield teacher Jesse Hagopian, one of these “little things” is public education. A prominent participant in the Occupy Seattle movement, Hagopian has given numerous speeches advocating for education and conducted a teach-in at Chase Bank where he tried to educate the bank’s employees about their effect on the economy.

“We dared them to open the doors and face the truth. Like some of the most difficult students however, they’re having a hard time listening,” said Hagopian at a Chase Bank protest on October 29.

“But as an educator, I believe that all children can learn.”

To the delight of a growing crowd, Hagopian went on to discuss how the  lack of income tax in Washington State hurts the poor. According to Hagopian and other teachers at the protest, the wealthiest 1 percent of Washington pays only 2.3 percent of their annual income in sales tax, while the poorest 20 percent are forced to pay nearly 17.5 percent.

Like Hagopian, many people are frustrated with society and have turned to the Occupy movements around the country to affect change. The Occupy Seattle effort parallels other grassroots groups that have sprung up around the nation to protest the growing wealth gap between the 99ers and the wealthiest 1 percent of the nation.

99ers, as they are called, represent the 99 percent of society that has been hurt by bank bailouts and the faltering economy.

“Workers are the 99 percent, we are the 99 percent,” shouted the Occupy Seattle crowd.

Since the protests began in September, occupiers have hosted many different events to address the plethora of issues at hand. Currently, many of these occupiers are living outside Seattle Central Community College in a small tent city.

Filled with makeshift shelters, the encampment hosts a kitchen, an information booth, and a medicine store to help occupiers survive the cold winter months. These amenities will likely increase the longevity of the movement  and allow occupiers to protest through 2017, as their website suggests.

Arriving just before 2 p.m. on Wednesday, November 2, we were swept into the crowd of protesters already gathered on the corner of Pike and Broadway. Some held signs reading “Bail the people out. Tax the 1 percent.” Others chanted into megaphones, “Hey hey ho ho capitalism has got to go.”

Flanked by policemen and walking in front of oncoming traffic, we marched with the procession north on Broadway towards the Chase Bank. Here the crowd stopped to occupy the bank and congregate around its entrances.

Later we learned that five people had arrived earlier at the bank to lie on the floor in protest. With the expectation of getting arrested, these protesters believed their efforts would help bring more attention to the 99ers’ cause.

“We, independent members of the occupy Seattle movement, are occupying this Chase Bank to interrupt business as usual. We are here to show you that the polished, sanitized spaces of our day to day lives are places of horror,” read a protester named Carson from the occupiers’ statement.

As police barred entrance to the bank, the occupiers continued to chant, accusing Chase Bank CEO Jamie Dimon of “committing crimes against the people.”

“Are you going to arrest Dimon?” demanded some.

Later that evening, Garfield parent Jayne Foy was participating in a different protest against Jamie Dimon when she was brutally forced out of the Sheraton for atempting to listen to Dimon’s speech. Others were pepper sprayed by police who were attempting to clear an entrance to the hotel, and six were arrested. Foy was removed from the premises for not having a name tag.

“I felt it was so ironic that he was receiving a leadership award,” says Foy. “I just wanted to hear his speech.”

Foy says that it was her interest in non-violent civil disobedience that drew her into the Occupy Seattle movement. She hopes to get trained in de-escalating crowd aggression and other important aspects of non-violent protest.

“You have to know which rules you can break, and which are not worth fighting,” she says.

Former Garfield student Fiona Gaffey has attended many Occupy Seattle events over the last few weeks and was protesting outside Chase Bank with her family.

“I think it’s very important for our future to be present here,” says Gaffey. “The biggest concern is fixing the economy in ways everyone can benefit from. We are stuck until the wealth is a little more balanced out.”

Gaffey argues that educating ourselves is the first step to making our contribution to the Occupy movements.

“Young people need to be aware of what’s going on,” she says, “even if they don’t actively participate.”

In addition to the many protests that occupiers hold, they also host General Assembly meetings to discuss issues related to the movement. These public assemblies are held nightly to organize the Seattle chapter through discussions, presentations, and education in non-violent civil disobedience.

However, Garfield student Asher Wycoff feels the movement lacks effectiveness. “The specificity of some of the points makes the overall message a little unaccessable for high school students,” says Wycoff.

Though many high school students may not feel connected to the occupy movement, Hagopian believes that we will nonetheless experience its effects.

“As college tuition rises to make higher education out of reach for many, an increasing number of students are demanding that our society put the needs of youth before war funding and Wall Street bailouts,” says Hagopian.

Hagopian and other occupiers are committed to improving our society and say they will return to Chase until their message is heard.

“The people are too big to fail,” says Hagopian.

Ava Lewis: Why did you choose to become an administrator?
Meghan Griffin: I chose to become an administrator because when I was teaching there were a lot of things that I wanted to do that I didn’t have time to with my students. There were different projects and curricula I wanted to incorporate so I thought if I became an administrator I would have more time to work with and affect a greater number of students.

AL: What are your main duties here at Garfield? How are they different from Ms. Moore and Ms. Lee’s?
MG: Well, the main difference for me is that I have an actual class of students. I’m not responsible for students within a section of the alphabet, instead I have all of the freshmen. I don’t really deal with any of the older students.

AL: How does Garfield compare to the other schools you have worked at?
MG: Garfield is definitely the biggest school I have ever worked at, and I would say that it is also one of the most diverse schools I have been to. And I mean diverse in every sense of the word. For me, school is school, but I am still getting used to some of the different policies here.

AL: As far as policies go, what are your views on the dress code?
MG: I think that there needs to be some sort of policy to make sure that student’s choices aren’t distracting from learning. We come to work every day and I wouldn’t wear the same exact clothes here that I go out on the weekend in, and that is what we are preparing students for. The work life. For me, the biggest things are the really short shorts, and the sagging pants.

AL: What has been your most memorable moment at Garfield so far?
MG:  I would say the first assembly we went to. I saw so much school spirit there, and also with everyone dressing up around homecoming. That morning I walked upstairs to the second floor hall and radioed Ms. Lee, “There’s paper everywhere and people are dancing! Is that ok…is this normal?” I wasn’t quite prepared for that but I thought it was really great. It was memorable in that I didn’t know what was happening.

AL: Have you had to deal with student electronics at all this year?
MG: I personally havn’t had to confiscate, but I have gotten a lot of phones this year from teachers. I think Ms. Lee has probably gotten more.

AL: If you weren’t an administrator, what would you want to be?
MG: I would probably want to be a professional athlete. I don’t know what sport….but I would be an Olympic athlete. Probably basketball or soccer, or maybe track.

AL: I have seen you at some of our soccer games, are the administrators coming to all the sports matches this year?
MG: We have a schedule that we try to follow, so right now we go to football, soccer, and volleyball. For each season there are certain sports were required to go to, but it’s fun because I get to meet you guys and see you in an environment outside of school.

AL: What is your favorite part about Garfield?
MG: I think my favorite part so far are the students and the staff. Everyone seems to really like Garfield. People really enjoy being here, which is a huge bonus for me. When I first started everyone told me how much I would love it, and what a great environment it was.

AL: What should students know about you outside of school?
MG: Well I play a lot of sports, especially basketball and soccer. My entire family works in education, and my husband is an assistant principal at Lakes High School. We actually play them in Basketball this year at the Martin Luther King Tournament so we have to win — put that in there — because if we don’t, I have to wear Lakes clothes for a week. But if we win, then he and the coach have to wear Garfield stuff for a week. We have to win!

“About halfway through the trip I had the luck to decapitate a chicken using a knife –called a kukuri– which I had for dinner the next day.

“It was somewhat traumatizing,” says Swigget.

Brothers Dylan and Jack Swigget spent last summer journeying through remote areas in Western Nepal, working at a school in the small village of Shikha.

Jack remembers the extreme poverty he witnessed along the way. “The huge piles of garbage on the sides of the roads in Kathmandu were pretty shocking.”

After a ten hour flight and layover in Seoul, Korea, the brothers spent three days driving by tractor and hiking from Katmandu to Shikha.

“The village is almost inaccessible by cars, except for occasionally tractors during the winter when the roads aren’t washed out,” says Jack.

Adds Dylan, “The drivers are so crazy in Nepal that I’m not sure I would survive a second trip.”

Upon reaching the small Upper Shikha secondary school, the brothers set to work installing technology throughout the school.

“We installed a ten panel solar array on the roof of the school library, wired an entire electrical system with batteries and a connection to the grid, and set up a ten-laptop computer lab for the use of the school and the community,” recalls Dylan.

Although they were not the first to donate laptops to the school, the building’s unreliable electrical system rendered these computers almost entirely useless.

The solar panel and electrical system that the brothers installed fixed this problem and allowed the school to have access to the internet.

“The hope is that the students at the school will be able to use the computers and the internet to learn things that their teachers aren’t able to teach them, for example, through the use of websites like Khan Academy,” says Jack. “It will help connect them with the wider world.”

Jack and Dylan worked alongside their parents, inspired by their father’s coworker Tilak, a former member of the elite Nepali Ghurka military force. Having attended the small Shikha School as a child, he had personally experienced the poor quality of technology and electricity there.

“They have very few opportunities to break out of that farming life and connect with the wider world or integrate into the modern economy,” says Jack.

Although Shikha is more sanitary than the urban centers in Nepal, the overall lack of infrastructure appalled both Swigget brothers.

“The living conditions throughout Nepal and India were easily the worst I have ever seen. There is no system in place to deal with garbage, poverty, disease, overpopulation, or any of the other things that we never have to face in the United States,” says Dylan.

The Swiggets’ adventure to Nepal was their first experience with a service learning type trip, and although they had a significant impact on the Shikha students, Dylan feels that there is still quite a lot more to be done.

“I learned that in a project like this one, work is never done. I will always feel a part of the village I worked in, and will always be ready to give them continued support.”

18 minutes and 26 seconds later, the 56 passengers aboard United flight 175 plummeted to their death, destroying the south world trade center tower, leaving hundreds more civilians dead. It was 9/11 2001, and America was under attack.

Though she was not actually in New York at the time, Garfield student Olivia Dack will forever be affected by the tragedy of 9/11. Dack lost her father who was at a business meeting in the world trade center that Tuesday morning.

“I knew my dad worked in the buildings and once I heard it, something kind of dropped in my gut,” Dack says. “It was really surreal when I look back on it now.”

Unlike other children who have lost a parent, Dack was forced to deal with the public nature of her father’s death. “On the news, I heard that some people had escaped and I always had hope that he would come back. It took me a year or two to understand that he was gone. I was just severely confused,” says Dack.

Though most of us cannot fully comprehend what Dack experienced, we can all learn from the events of 9/11. “I don’t expect pity, just the ability to relate almost, even if the other person can’t. I have always wanted the person who I’m talking to, to ask me questions, or simply talk; it makes me feel less alienated and more open,” says Dack.

Other students are linked to 9/11 in a less tragic way. Garfield senior Kayla Kerr was hoping to celebrate her 7th birthday on 9/11, before America was attacked.

“I remember I woke up to my mom crying and I couldn’t figure out why, because it was my birthday. I didn’t really know what was going on since I was so young.”

Though Kerr’s 7th birthday is ten years behind her now, she still feels the effects each year.

“It was more of a memorial than a celebration for years after the attacks. It’s almost bittersweet when your birthday is a day for remembrance of nearly 3,000 victims.”

*****

Garfield history teacher Hersh Mandelman was routinely listening to the Tuesday morning news when he first heard of the attack. “I was shocked,” he states simply. He immediately called his brother and sister in law, both of whom lived in the New York area. They were safe, however, and his friends who worked in the tower had not arrived at their office yet.

Jonathan Stever, another Garfield teacher, recalls his memories of 9/11. Like Mandelman, Stever’s first reaction was total shock. “After I got over the shock I was saddened and a little angry by the reality of what happened,” says Stever.

“I tried to help students understand what had happened. Many students understood what was going on, many others were confused and somewhat disconnected.”

Garfield math teacher Jeffrey Nomura was on his way to school when he learned of the first plane crash. “I felt on that day that any problems I may have had were nothing compared to what the people in New York City were going through,” says Nomura.

Susan Derse, principal of Garfield at the time,  took a moment of silence to honor those who had died in the attacks, and classes resumed shortly after. Though the North tower collapsed while students sat in their first period seats, most were too distanced to really understand the importance.

Mandelman was teaching a European History class where students wrote in a daily journal. “I told my students to write in their notebooks that their lives would never be the same again,” recalls Mandelman.  “Today the world has changed.”

*****

However, many students do not understand that change. Despite living through the event, most Garfield students were too young to comprehend it. Having just turned 6 at the time, I don’t even remember where I was that day.

So I created a survey.  I wanted to know how many students knew the basic premise of 9/11. When asked where the planes crashed, only one in eight students named the twin towers, the pentagon, and Pennsylvania, and only one in four had a rough idea of how many people died. With answers ranging from 200 to 500,000, it’s clear that many of us are uninformed.

“My students at that time, they didn’t get it yet. They didn’t get the importance, and most still don’t,” says Mandelman.

9/11 was the Pearl Harbor of our generation, and yet because it was so recent, many curricula do not cover it yet. The generation behind us will study it in their 7th grade history class, and the generation before us was old enough to understand it at the time. And thus the current high school generation is left in the middle, old enough to remember, but too young to understand.

*****

Shogo’s family lives in Tokyo where residents are still being affected by the recent natural disaster.

“My mom has to walk five hours to work because the trains are down in Tokyo,” says Shogo. He still cannot call his family and relies on email to stay in touch.

In response to the Japanese catastrophe, aid programs have launched all over the world. In Seattle, donation boxes can be found throughout the International District; many Japanese restaurants, such as Kamome, Tsukushinho, and Munekineko, also provide donation opportunities.

Shogo believes these efforts are extremely important and plans to start an aid campaign at Garfield.

“I am making posters to hang around the school and also a donation box for students. The box will be located in the main office so that everybody can contribute.”

The Japanese classes at Garfield are also fundraising.

“All of my classes are folding cranes for a Japanese relief charity,” says Gwen Johnston, Garfield’s Japanese teacher.

Japan is currently relying on aid from around the world to get back on their feet. After the 8.9 earthquake and 30-foot tall tsunami, much of the country was destroyed, including the nuclear power plant at Fukishima.

The nuclear leakage has led to massive evacuations around the plant so as to reduce the risk of radiation, although not all have escaped.

“Teachers and students are being exposed to radiation,” says Makino. “People are still living in villages around the nuclear electric plant.”

In response to these disasters, organizations such as the Red Cross have provided much needed support. They have given countless supplies to those whose homes have been destroyed, as well as medical attention to thousands of injured survivors.

Save the Children, another group that has aided Japan, is focusing on sheltering and caring for the Japanese youth victims.

“We are extremely concerned for the welfare of children and their families who have been affected by the disaster. We stand ready to meet the needs of children who are always the most vulnerable in a disaster.”

Despite the aid of these organizations, the overall relief effort has been minimal compared to that of the Haiti earthquake. Within the first nine days after the earthquake in Haiti, Americans raised $355 million in aid. Nine days after the earthquake, tsunami and ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan, Americans raised only $163 million.

Many, including charity watchdog group president Daniel Borochoff, believe that the lack of donations for Japan has been caused by Japan’s relative wealth.

“With Haiti there was a lot of guilt about how poor the people were and how much suffering they endured. But with Japan, it’s a rich country, their GDP is similar to ours, and in many ways the needs of their people can be met by the Japanese government and the systems they have in place,” says Borochoff.

Unfortunately, this belief is seen not only throughout America, but also locally in Seattle. Seattle University student Claire Seigel remembers the vibrant support community at her school following the Haiti earthquake, and regrets that similar efforts have not been made following the Japan earthquake. She plans to start a community project at Seattle University that is connected to the charity organization, architecture for humanity to aid Japan.

Stephen Bower, another Seattle resident involved in the relief effort, often collects donations outside of QFC on Pike Street. He believes that the relief effort for Japan has fallen short simply because it’s the second recent world disaster.

“It’s the second tsunami in a pretty short amount of time […] in the grand scheme of things,” Bower said. “If it isn’t ‘cool’ in the news, pockets won’t empty as much as last time.”

Though the relief effort has not been remarkable thus far, there is still time to donate. The Red Cross and other organizations have created texting campaigns where people can donate a set amount of money, usually around $10. The younger generations have become involved by Texting “Japan” or “REDCROSS” to 90999, or by buying itune’s benefit album, “Songs for Japan”. With these local options, Garfield students should have no trouble finding ways to contribute.

Harpham, 36, of Colville WA was identified as an associate of the white supremacist National Alliance. His attempted bombing of the Martin Luther King parade was immediately identified as race related, and labeled by investigators as domestic terrorism.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, an Anti-hate organization founded in 1971, investigated the case and found records of Harpham’s affiliation with the National Alliance. The National Alliance is a neo-Nazi, white supremacist group, based out of West Virginia. Until the death of their leader William Pierce in 2002, the National Alliance was the most dominant and dangerous hate group in America. Their ideology was, and still is genocidal, though the group experienced a major decline after 2004.

According to the SPLC, Pierce once described how he hoped to lock Jews, “race traitors” and other enemies of the “Aryan” race into cattle cars and send them to the bottom of abandoned coal mines.

Such is the ideology of many extremists across America. In Washington alone, though the home of Seattle’s dominant liberal demographic, there are still at least 13 major hate groups, ranging from neo-Nazi  supremacists to black separatists. Accounts of beheading as well as other extreme acts of violence have been recorded over the last 40 years. In fact, in 2010 the number of known hate groups across America surpassed 1000 for the first time since the SPLC began documenting them in the 1970’s. This increase in extremism can be attributed to the difficult economic times, as well as to the election of President Obama.

For forty years the SPLC has been working to fight hate, teach tolerance, and seek justice. Under the leadership of Morris Dees, they have successfully terminated many hate groups, most notably a neo-Nazi group from Hayden Lake, Idaho. In this case, the SPLC won a $6.3 million verdict, forcing the Aryan Nations’ leader Richard Butler to auction off his 20 acres of land as part of his bankruptcy proceedings. The Aryan Nations was a prominent hate group in the Northwest that lost power in 2000 after the SPLC broke up their financial revenue.

According to Mike Potok of the SPLC, right-wing extremism is currently growing. The inland Northwest, once a hotspot for white supremacism, is feared to be once again on the rise. The count on the I-5 corridor between Seattle and Eugene is more than 300 known neo-Nazis.

“Americans need to understand that there is a very vibrant and radical growing right that is completely capable of inflicting great violence,” says Potok.

He attributes this in part to the Patriot Act, as well as the political agenda of figures like Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and Lou Dobbs.

Youth recruiting among neo-nazi organizations is also on the rise. Nineteen Nazi skinhead recruiters entered a high school in Salem last year, attempting to befriend students.

These tactics are helping to bring in bright new members to help organize the increasing number of neo-Nazi groups in the Northwest.

Though Washington state’s malicious-harassment law makes it a felony to threaten, damage the property of, or physically injure someone because of ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, disability or sexual orientation, hate crimes are still present in Seattle.

A hate crime study in 2007 showed that downtown Seattle and Capitol Hill had the highest rates of hate crime in Seattle, with approximately 79 documented in 2001. These hate crimes range from brutal beatings to attempted bombings like the one in Spokane.

Fortunately, the Spokane bomb was decomissioned before detonation, and therefore didn’t become statistic. This was made possible by the vigilance, and cooperation of many people, starting from the initial street workers who found the bomb, to the bomb squad officials who destroyed it.

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said: “Violence begets violence; hate begets hate; and toughness begets a greater toughness. Along the way of life, someone must have enough sense and morality to cut off the chain of hate.”

The financial scandal allegedly began in 2008 within the small business contracting department of Seattle Public Schools. This department funded local minority owned businesses, the majority of which were run by African Americans or women.

Silas Potter, a midlevel manager in the small business department has been the main target of public criticism. He has been accused of breaking financial rules as well as favoring certain businesses and illegally distributing public tax payer money. Potter’s actions have led to a statewide audit, a criminal investigation, and the removal of Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson.

However, Potter denies his role as the mastermind behind the contracting scandal, and instead claims to have been following instructions all along. Potter blames two managers above him, Supervisor Fred Stephens, and School attorney Ron English, both of whom deny accountability.

“The bottom line was that I followed directions,” Potter said in a Seattle Times interview. “Everything I did I went through Fred and he asked Ron English if it was OK to do it.” Potter claims he is a scapegoat.

During his time in office, Potter contracted $1 million to minority business owners, predominately to those of African descent. According to February’s audits, these contracts were legitimate and Potter had been following Stephen’s directions.

The Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle was the main beneficiary of the program, receiving approximately $250,000 a year, and $595,000 in total. However, when Potter began to notice that Urban League was accomplishing little, Potter requested that they be eliminated from the program. Stephens apparently refused, and continued pushing Potter to support African American-owned businesses.

By 2009, however, Stephens had agreed to reduce the Urban League’s scholarship to $60,000 dollars after a second complaint from Potter. At this point, no criminal activity had occurred but the district was  beginning to lose money.

By June of 2010, the district had largely phased out Potter’s program, so he began a non-profit private organization under the same name: Regional Small Business Development Program.

When a $35,000 check from the Tacoma School district ended up in Potter’s private organization three days after he resigned from the district, Potter was accused of criminal activity, and a police report was fired. He later blamed it on a clerical error, and again claimed that his intentions were not malicious.

The $35,000 check along with the million spent on contracts and approximately $500,000 spent on the Urban League left the Seattle School district with approximately $1.8 million in losses.

Of the $1.8 million misused, $280,000 was labeled completely lost, while the remaining $1.5 million fell under questionable funding. Some of the money lost went to private businesses that Potter was connected to, and some went to potential services that did not go through. In total, $1.8 million tax payer dollars went to waste because of the small business contracting department.

Though Goodloe-Johnson was not directly involved with the department, the school board felt that she should have acted when the news was discovered. Recent audits show that Goodloe-Johnson and Kennedy did in fact know about the problem but chose not to respond to it. This incompetence led to  their ismissal on Wednesday, March 2.

Goodloe-Johnson’s tenure began 3  1/2 years ago, and since then she received a no confidence vote by district teachers in July, changed boundaries so that Garfield suffers from over enrollment, and questionably closed schools throughout Seattle.

However, she also improved district enrollment by about 300 students for two consecutive years, increased the number of college prep classes and college bound students, and outlasted the nation’s average superintendent by two years.

During her tenure, Goodloe-Johnson faced low budgets and difficult economic times. Though these excuses made it difficult, the school board was not satisfied with her performance. In a recent board meeting, Goodloe-Johnson was voted out of office with no opposition from any of the participating members.

One major problem during Goodloe-Johnson’s tenure was that a newly instated district policy limited connection between employees and board members within the district. It generally limited employees from reaching the school board memebers, but not the other way arounf.  This created a culture of fear that can be blamed in part for the $1.8 million scandal.

This district protocol was initiated during Goodloe-Johnson’s tenure, preventing internal concerns from ever reaching the school board. . Thus, the school board remained largely in shadow during the whole scandal until after it was made public.

“They made it impossible to go to the school board. I could have been fired for passing over their protocol,” said Nderu, a former district auditor that recognized the contracting department’s mismanagement  approximately two years ago.

Bureaucracy within Seattle Public Schools is not a foreign concept. There have been three superintendents in the past decade, and significant improvements have yet to be made.

It was just eight short years ago that the Seattle School District faced another financial crisis, overspending their budget by approximately $35 million.

As yet another turnover takes place, we can only hope that Interim Superintendent Susan Enfield will be able to lead us out of our financial mess. Enfield has a one year contract with the largest district in the state to make her mark on over 47,000 students. Let’s just hope her money’s where her mouth is.

Not only did students become better photographers, but many were forced to step out of their comfort zones.

“I noticed students […] really appreciating the area. They definitely became more involved than before,” says Louviere.

Students were encouraged to take pictures of people and places that caught their attention.

Garfield sophomore Caroline Sheffield participated in the project, and earned recognition for a photo she took of a barber in the Madrona neighborhood.

“We tried to capture everything we could see,” says Louviere.

However, without donations from the Quest Foundation, Garfield wouldn’t have been able to acquire the necessary SRL cameras.

After months of work, students were expected to submit their five best pieces, and from that the top 20 were chosen to represent the class. (These photos are expected to go up in the Douglas Truth Library later this week, and will be displayed for one month.)

In the early stages of the project, some business owners were skeptical of the student photographers.

In an interview with the Capital Hill Times, Louviere described an eye-opening experience some of his students had while trying to photograph people outside of Starbucks. After being told briefly what the project was about, one man responded, “Oh, so you’re taking photos of black people.”

In response, Louviere had his students create flyers describing how they were trying to document the nuances of the Central District.

“[The flyers] really emphasized the importance of the project,” says Louviere.

Another goal was to help students identify their visual talents. According to Louviere, several students clearly stood out, including Garfield junior, Lucas McCormick: “His work was exceptional in quality and subject matter,” says Louviere of McCormick.

“You could tell he put a lot of time into the project and took his work seriously.”

In fact, McCormick was named the “featured photographer” of the project. McCormick’s photo of the inside of an Eritrean Church was exceptionally well-done, and was even displayed on the front cover of the Capital Hill Times.

McCormick was also quoted in the article for his work.

Louviere has high hopes for his future photography classes, and hopes to make the class more creative by launching other projects like this one.

Louviere expects to do a similar project but on a smaller scale, in addition to focusing on a specific portion of the Central District.

Louviere is also considering looking at different parts of the city—another collaborative project in the making.

Chua’s book was released January 2011, and has been the source of national controversy in recent weeks. Chua was recently interviewed on the Today Show, and featured in Time Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.

In Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua recounts in detail how she raised her children, from throwing away birthday cards to calling her daughters “garbage.”

Although Chua insists that her book is not meant to instruct, her memoir has received criticism from those who view her self-proclaimed “Chinese” mothering methods as monstrous.

To the average “Western parent,” forcing your child to practice piano late at the night without snack or bathroom breaks may seem excessive, or even appalling. According to Chua, however, this was out of respect for her child.

Chua raised her kids in what she refers to as the “Chinese way.” Though she admits that she’s made mistakes along the way, Chua rails against Western style parenting, which she feels is too permissive.

“To be perfectly honest, I know that a lot of Asian parents are secretly shocked and horrified by many aspects of Western parenting,” said Chua in a Time Magazine interview. Chua was especially disgruntled with the vast amount of time Western children spend on Facebook, watching television, and playing video games.

Although the sharp details of Chua’s memoir are what stand out the most, the distinct cultural differences she presents deserve attention. By generalizing parenting styles into the “Chinese way” and “Western way,” Chua also touches on educationwal differences between the United States and China.

In China, for example, students generally attend school from 7:30 am to 5:00 pm. With their month-long summer vacations often spent studying for entrance exams and attending summer classes, it’s not surprising that Chinese students consistently outperform American students in global rankings.

In Chua’s book, facts like these tend to support benefits of her “Chinese” parenting style. In fact, recent psychology research has shown that children who are forced to overcome difficulties early in life are more likely to avoid the anxiety and depression that many of their Western counterparts endure throughout life. “Sheltered western children,” as Chua puts it, become ill-equipped for the harsh reality that awaits them.

Some view Chua as a tyrant, while others, such as New York Times columnist David Brooks, merely consider her a “whimp.”

Brooks argues that children experience more cognitive stress in social situations, like sleepovers and school plays (both of which Chua restricts her children from participating in), than from hours of math problems or violin practice. Group environments, Brooks argues, require communication skills that out-compete the purely academic studies; thus, Chua is a whimp.

“I believe she’s coddling her children. She’s protecting them from the most intellectually demanding activities because she doesn’t understand what’s cognitively difficult and what isn’t,” says Brooks.

While some have critiqued Chua’s memoir, others have praised her style and even reflected on how to improve their own parenting methods.

Based on the scale of Dr. Spock, America’s most beloved parenting expert, Chua would fall under the “authoritarian” category: she makes constant demands on her children, often using very undemocratic principles. Spock and others argue that parenting should represent a balance between nurture and structure.

The controversy raised by Chua’s book demonstrates a great diversity of parenting styles. To her credit, Chua acknowledges that different methods can be successful in different ways. Apparently, even the tiger mom has a soft side.