Good day faithful Dispatch readers, and welcome to another
edition of
”
Mustang Country
”
. I have a few different topics I will be covering this week,
but I think I will start by addressing Mr. Alan Johnson, who
responded to my last column regarding the CAHSEE (state high school
exit exam) with a letter to the editor.
Johnson replied by saying,
”
Chris, have a little heart.
”
Mr. Johnson, I am not heartless, I am realistic.
Good day faithful Dispatch readers, and welcome to another edition of “Mustang Country”. I have a few different topics I will be covering this week, but I think I will start by addressing Mr. Alan Johnson, who responded to my last column regarding the CAHSEE (state high school exit exam) with a letter to the editor.
Johnson replied by saying, “Chris, have a little heart.” Mr. Johnson, I am not heartless, I am realistic. While letting students who fail to obtain the proficiency level required to pass the CAHSEE to walk with their class at graduation may seem to be the compassionate thing to do, it will only hurt those students and the community in the long run.
I have to say that I was somewhat surprised when Johnson suggested that I should postpone my college plans to stay and help students who didn’t pass the CAHSEE. That’s a very nice sentiment Mr. Johnson, but as I recall you teach at GHS, so isn’t that your job?
While that comment surprised me, what really got me was when Mr. Johnson said that one day my new muscle car will have a flat tire on the side of the road and the tow truck driver I call for assistance will just pass by because he did not pass the exit exam, and I advocated that he not graduate. Now there are two things very wrong with that hypothetical statement. The first is that I can manage to change my own tire, so I would only need a tow truck for a much more drastic breakdown.
The second is the stereotype Mr. Johnson conveyed by assuming that students who do not pass the exit exam will one day be driving a tow truck, which Mr. Bracco of Bracco’s Towing pointed out to be a respectable profession in his own letter to the editor.
Even though he disagrees, I have to thank Mr. Johnson for the feedback; I always enjoy a little friendly debate.
Now we shall move on to what else is going on at Gilroy High. Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few weeks, you probably know that basketball is what is going on at GHS. Both the boys and girls teams are having great starts to their seasons, which is evident by looking at the Dispatch sports section, which I think should be renamed the GHS Basketball Page Featuring Sports.
The teams are good, the competition is stiff more often than not and most of all the games are exciting. Last week’s overtime thriller at Live Oak was easily one of the most intense sporting event atmospheres I have ever experienced, high school or otherwise. Emotions among the players on the court ran high and to say the fans were feeling the tension between the rival squads would be an understatement. I have been at all the homes games so far this year and none of them even compare to the OT victory over the rival Acorns.
There has been a lot of talk about the teams going undefeated in league and winning TCAL and so on. But personally I think it’s a little early for that kind of talk. The bottom line is that we are all in for an exciting season of Mustang basketball.
Last but not least on this week’s smorgasbord of Mustang country, I have a confession to make. I have finally been a victim of the tardy sweeps that I helped make infamous. Last Thursday, on my marathon walk from the quad, completely around the gym, past the pool area and finally into the exiled portable buildings the tardy bell rang when I was a mere 40 feet from the door to my classroom. That was when Mani Corzo and a yard supervisor corralled me, along with about 15 other students and started handing out black trash bags.
As I bent down to reach for a bag of Hot Cheetos and begin my sentence, Mr. Corzo stopped me and informed me that we were not picking up trash in that area. No sir, we walked back past the pools, around the gymnasium and into the quad where we would pick up liter. Apparently the quad trash is far superior to that of the portable area and therefore demanded our immediate attention. After I filled my bag with a few cafeteria trays and some Algebra II homework I headed to class, 15 minutes late with my hands covered in a mix of maple syrup and cream cheese.
After that lovely experience of trash duty I was even more perplexed by the logistics of the tardy sweeps than before I had actually experienced them myself.
So in a recap of today’s top stories, Mr. Johnson, tisk tisk on calling me heartless, GHS basketball is scoring big in a gym near you and tardy sweeps stink. Literally.
