The Student News Site of Lowell High School

The Lowell

The Student News Site of Lowell High School

The Lowell

The Student News Site of Lowell High School

The Lowell

Who’s who? New staff join the Lowell team, part one

Originally published on October 16, 2015

Fly fishing enthusiast shares her acquired taste for science

Bonnie Daley, science teacher

What are some of your hobbies/interests?

My favorite hobby is fly fishing. I usually go over the summer and on weekend trips at Sierra and Shasta. This summer, I also went to Yellowstone. I really like the outdoors and seeing wildflowers and birds and I’ve always liked to fish. I started fishing as a young child but I used a spin rod. Then my grandfather gave me his fly rod, and I tried to figure out how to use it, but it was really hard and it got all tangled. So I joined a fly fishing club, and by going on trips with people who were experienced I eventually learned how to do it.

What were your favorite subjects in school?

My favorite subjects were art and history. I liked art and I enjoy drawing nature. For history, I was really attracted to anything that had to do with the underdog. For a while I was very interested in Native American history and alternative political ideas like communism and socialism.

“I would take the experiments home on evenings and weekends and my roommates thought I was completely nuts because I would spend hours working on them.”

What’s really funny is that I didn’t like science because I didn’t have a very good science teacher. I can’t remember learning anything with my middle school teachers. And then in high school we did one lab the entire year, and it was dissecting a frog. I remember I was trying to get to the brain of the frog and I really butchered it so the teacher made fun of me and said “Well I’m not going to hire you as my brain surgeon!” That made me think I didn’t like science. Then one year before I got my first teaching job, I got a job over the summer as a camp counselor and I fell in love with all the experiments I did with the kids. I would take the experiments home on evenings and weekends and my roommates thought I was completely nuts because I would spend hours working on them. I think science is creative which is why I enjoy it.

What is one thing you would change about your high school experience?

When I was in high school I was totally into sports; I was in cross country, basketball, track and

ice hockey. So I think the biggest thing I would redo is spend more time being social. When it came time to go to college I was ready to be social, but then it was time to really buckle down and study.

If you could teach another subject for a day, what would it be?

I think art would be cool, especially painting with watercolors. I have taught P.E. and I really enjoyed that. I remember when I taught P.E., I did a unit of flag football and a unit of floor hockey and they were really fun.

– by Josephine Dang

Former chess club president embraces his love for numbers

Robert Tran, math teacher

What are some of your hobbies/interests?

I liked to play a lot of strategy games that use your brain and solve math puzzles. When I was five or six, my brother taught me how to play chess and he totally kicked my butt the first few times. Being a kid, I told myself “I have to get better and win.” I didn’t really get into chess until freshman year of high school. That was when computers became more personalized and chess was one of the basic games on the computer. I played it all winter and I got a lot better. I was the chess club president when I was a student here and no one would join our tournament if I played so I had to opt out.

What were your favorite subjects in school?

“Whenever I saw random numbers like telephone ads I would ask myself, ‘Hey is that divisible by three?’”

Math and hard sciences like chemistry and physics. I like how there is only one right answer, but there are multiple ways of getting there. I like the satisfaction you get when you’re stuck on a problem forever and you finally figure it out. Since I was a kid I was always amazed by numbers. In third or fourth grade I remember my teacher taught us how to find out if a number is divisible by three by adding all the digits and dividing it by three. Whenever I saw random numbers like telephone ads I would ask myself, “Hey is that divisible by three?”

What is one thing you would change about your high school experience?

I don’t think I would change it. It was great.

If you could teach another subject for a day, what would it be?

I would probably teach either chemistry or physics. I’m more into physics than chemistry because physics is applied math. A lot of students are doing math in their math class and don’t know what they’re doing. The teacher tells them to

use this formula to find that. They only know how to do it, but they don’t know what it means. I’m trying to change that so they know what they’re doing too. I think science is a good way to apply math.

– by Ciana Adams and Samantha Sicairos

Foodie cooks up creativity amongst her sophomore and junior students

Claudia Park, English teacher

What are some of your hobbies/interests?

I really like to eat. I like trying new restaurants, going out to eat with my friends, and learning how to cook new things. I like trying out new recipes and seeing what happens. I’ve been trying to learn how to cook Korean food for my mom, but my mom lives far away and she doesn’t write down recipes, so a lot of the time it’s just me with her on speakerphone and her yelling directions from the phone.

What were your favorite subjects in school?

“I’ve been trying to learn how to cook Korean food for my mom … a lot of the time it’s just me with her on speakerphone and her yelling directions from the phone.”

Unsurprisingly, my favorite subjects were English and history, and that’s actually what I ended up majoring in in college. I’ve always liked to read, ever since I was a kid. I like that English is a little more creative; there isn’t necessarily only one single answer to questions, but it’s more about the process of thinking through a problem. Also, people write some really beautiful stuff and it’s nice to see what other people are creating.

What is one thing you would change about your high school experience?

If I could change my high school experience I would spend way less time working on school stuff. I think I was so academically focused that I forgot to do the fun stuff outside of the classroom and outside of homework. I also spent too much time doing really intense hobbies. I played instruments and tennis, and it was just a lot of stuff, and now those are the things that I remember. I just wish I had done more stuff with my friends, even if it was just hanging out with them.

If you could teach another subject for a day, what would it be?

Maybe something like American History. I think history and english are so closely tied together because the time that the author was living in had so much of an impact on them. I think American History is really interesting and also really useful for people who want to be responsible, engaged citizens.

– by Alyssa Poon and Clarissa Wan

Diving fanatic makes a splash in the counseling office

David Beauvais, counselor

What are some of your hobbies/interests?

I am an avid scuba diver. I used to be afraid to go into the ocean because I’m from Michigan, where there is nothing in the water that will eat your butt; out here in California you have a number of things in that ocean that could kill you. Then I went to Hawaii together with my wife and I went snorkeling. Like I said I’m from the Great Lakes and all the fish there are nice, but they’re not like Hawaii fish, where it’s colorful and looks like a paint factory exploded down there. I fell in love with it. Later that year near Christmas, my wife and I went to Florida and she got me the gift of scuba diving with an instructor. I went down and then all of a sudden I saw a shark. The guy said, “Don’t worry about it, just follow me. The sharks roam around.” And the shark roamed around and took off because it wasn’t interested in fat old men. After that I got certified and went diving in Mexico, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Florida, and I’m going to the Caribbean soon. I just love it.

“I love history. History’s no mystery.”

What were your favorite subjects in school?

History. I used to teach history. I love history. History’s no mystery. It’s right there in the book.

What is one thing you would change about your high school experience?

I didn’t do it right. I didn’t do well in school. I didn’t pay much attention. I would do mostly all of it differently. I would’ve done more sports. I would’ve learned music and done better in my classes. Instead of being such a knucklehead. I don’t regret it. I don’t often think about going back and doing stuff over again. It is what it is. It made me who I am.

If you could teach another subject for a day, what would it be?

I used to teach history. I dug it. I would do that again. I’m not qualified to teach other things.

– by Ciana Adams and Samantha Sicairos

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Who’s who? New staff join the Lowell team, part one