n A Day at Edwardsville High School
Written by Collinsville High School students Tara Giebe & Adam Harris
Published in The Kahoki
Updated: February 05, 2004 at 08:16 PM

A DAY AT EDWARDSVILLE HIGH SCHOOL
BY: Tara Giebe & Adam Harris - Collinsville High School Student's

On Friday, March 14th, Tara Giebe and Adam Harris-- Collinsville High School seniors who write for The Kahoki, the CHS newspaper-- attended Edwardsville High School in order to write an article about what it is like for a teenager transfer to a different high school. The following is Tara and Adam's article as it appeared in the April 1, 2003, edition of The Kahoki.

We arrived at Edwardsville High School shortly after 7 a.m. The first thing we noticed about EHS was that the entire school (students and staff) stands up, faces an American flag in the classroom, and says the Pledge of Allegiance, which is being led over the intercom by a student in the main office.

It was our first day and we were already scheduled to meet with Principal Norman Bohnenstiehl and Associate Principal Joe McNamara. Trying to suck up to our "new" principals, we arrived early, but ended up sitting in the office for 20 minutes. The longer we waited, the more noticeable the butterflies in our stomachs became.

Once we met McNamara, our butterflies were put to ease. He made us feel incredibly welcome. He called down the first of our two host students, EHS senior Mandi Stumpf. She was really excited to have two "new" students follow her from class to class.

Our first class was mythology, taught by Dave Lipe. They weren't in a normal classroom that day; they were in the school cafeteria. They were rehearsing skits that were to be videotaped the following day.

Since a student in Stumpf's group was absent that day, Adam stepped in and took his place. The title of their skit was "Jerry Springer: Fool, You Trippin,' I Created The Universe." This group's skit had to do with ancient Chinese mythology. After a few times of running through it, Adam got the hang of things and the skit actually was decent. Towards the end of class, Lipe allowed Stumpf and her friend, senior Ashley Niebur, to show us around the school.

They walked us around the school and explained to us how their maze-like hallways worked. Their numbering system for room numbers was extremely confusing. And they showed us their not one, not two, but three gymnasium's. After our tour was complete, it was onto second hour.

Second hour was a superb time of enjoyment. The class was sociology, taught by Kevin Paur. After the bell had rung for class to begin, Paur introduced us to his class as two Collinsville kids who were here on a journalism assignment. Our reception wasn't as cold as we thought. Actually, the students were pretty interested in our assignment. This class was mostly seniors.

Since it was the last day of the quarter, Paur's class just discussed their previous day's events. The day before we were at EHS, Paur's classes competed against O'Fallon High School in debates on various topics, such as: drug abuse, sexual orientation, twins, siblings, intelligence, and deviants. Out of 24 debates, EHS won 15. At the end of class, the students started asking us questions, too. We must've picked a good class to sit in on because we met three students who were actually new to EHS that year, seniors Matt Rulo, Brent Ruggles, and Yara Murgas. They told us their first impressions of EHS, how EHS compares to their old schools. It truly was a learning experience.

Third hour was pretty boring for both of us. It was mainly work, Imagine that - working in a classroom! This was the only class that we actually had to work in. It was chemistry, taught by Alesa Rehmann. Since both of us had already taken chemistry, this class was pretty unentertaining to us. The classroom was quite impressive, though. It was very open and spacious. And the equipment they had was also very impressive. To make us feel welcome, Rehmann handed us books so we could follow along. Whoo hoo! For the main part of class, the students took notes and graded papers and did some book work.

McNamara requested that we see him before we went to lunch. He offered to pay for our lunches. That was a true act of kindness. EHS has four lunch hours, just like CHS does. The first lunch hour begins at 10:30a.m. and the last lunch hour ends at noon. Stumpf had 'A' lunch because she took part in their co-op program. We sat in the middle of the lunchroom with Stumpf and all of her friends.

One thing we noticed at lunch was that there were TV's broadcasting school news, such as upcoming events and schedules and awards for people.

We didn't really have a fourth hour class. McNamara told us to come back to his office after we had lunch and we would meet our second host for the day, senior Katie Bevis. Bevis is involved in track, basketball, and cross-country. She was a really nice young woman.

Our fifth hour class was art class, taught by Kim Lemmon LeBar. Again, this classroom was very open and inviting. The ceiling was interesting. There was some substance that looked like cement covering it, but amazingly enough, it looked cleaner than some of ours here at CHS. During this class, the students were just finishing up their projects and turning in late work. This classroom was decorated with beautiful murals and paintings, done by a counselor at EHS.

After art class, it was onto the sixth and final hour of the day, journalism, taught by Carrie Deist. Their journalism class was a tiny class. Including us, there were only eight people in the class that day. It took place in what resembled our room 116. They were finishing their assignments for March and adding the finishing touches to their pages. They described their senior magazine, which is a fancier version of our senior newspaper. It's full of senior wills, ad dedications, etc.

All in all, our day was pretty similar to a day at CHS, except we were lost. Their school is huge, but ours I what we call "home." In the end, this experience was an amazing social and education learning experience that we will take with us throughout our lives. In the following paragraphs, both of us will tell you what we found most interesting about our day.

Tara: The thing that completely threw me for a loop about their school was the relationship between Associate Principal McNamara and the student body. As he showed us to our class, we followed him down their massive hallways. The more we walked, I noticed one thing in particular; every student he passed waved, said hi or even high-fived him. And even more miraculous was the fact that he seemed to know each and every student by his or her first name. He was very social with his student body. It almost seemed as though he went out of his way to know at least one personal or academic fact about every student he encountered. He also took extra time throughout his busy day to show us, a couple of CHS students, around his school.

Adam: I noticed one thing in particular, at EHS, the mass majority of their students were the typical "upper-middle class Abercrombie & Fitch models." I mean, at CHS there are those kids, too, but there is also a diverse crowd in addition to that group. And just to expel some rumors, Edwardsville kids are not nearly as stuck up as we think they are. And, they are kind to total strangers, like Tara and me.
 

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