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12/13/2023

Mental health is taking over teens' lives in America

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By Caroline Kuehner Freedom Forum Student
A rising issue that is making a huge impact on our everyday way of life
   Why is mental health so ignored in the world? Almost 50 percent of adolescents have had a mental disorder at some point in their life. That is 12.8 percent of the total population or roughly 42 million people (from 2019). Compared to 8.1 billion people this number may seem small it is minimal by comparison, but imagine 42 million people standing side by side in a single room. It would be a gigantic room. This is why mental health is ignored because people compare that 42 million to 8.1 billion and think “42 million is not that much.” Yet, in reality, no one can imagine being around 42 million people, because it is a giant amount of people.
   It may be surprising, but mental health is a serious issue that is becoming increasingly worse throughout America. In the 2020-2021 school year, 60 percent of college students were qualified to have at least one mental health issue. In another study from 2015, on the impact of mental health issues on college students, 30 percent of students were impacted by stress, 22 percent of students were impacted by anxiety, 20 percent of students were impacted by sleep difficulties, and 14 percent of students were impacted by depression. These numbers are insane, considering that students are dealing with these issues, and to many people, mental health is considered a small issue.
   Furthermore, bad mental health can have a huge negative effect on people's lives. Especially when they are left untreated. Jody Freed, the director of special education at East Penn School District, said “Mental health can have a huge impact on someone's “normal” behavior. I have seen too many successful teens disengage from school, friends, and family following the pandemic. Teens have gotten used to socializing through their phones, playing video games with friends from their rooms, and therefore become overly anxious or overwhelmed when interacting with others in person.” It is clear that as the world continues to evolve around us new technologies are being created and become a distinct part of our lives. Furthermore, the effects of these new technologies are continuing to show large effects on mental health, and people who use them. Yet with what Ms. Freed said, it is not necessarily the technology that is causing these problems, and removing the devices from teenagers may even worsen how they feel. It also seems that there is a large difference in opinion between older and younger generations, especially regarding technology.
   Even with the new opinions that younger generations are spreading around the world, there are still stigmas surrounding the topic of mental health. Especially with parents, stigmas against mental health can have a serious negative impact on kids. Imagine a child trying to talk to a parent about suicidal thoughts and the parent shuts them out. This could be very harmful to the child, making them less likely to open up and speak to someone who could help them. The stigma around mental health is one of the main reasons people will not speak up about their issues. It makes people scared about losing friends, family, and people close to them because of their mental health problems. Stigma against mental health needs to be ended so that people's lives will not be.
   Mental health is a rising issue for people all around the world and if the problems surrounding mental health continue to get worse, they may never get better. People need to work together to get rid of the stigmas surrounding mental health so that people can get help more easily. If no one tries to help, then it will just continue to get worse until every teen all around the world is struggling with mental health. Just a reminder: if you or someone you know are struggling with mental health, make sure to reach out to anyone. Admitting that you need help is the first step to getting better.

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12/12/2023

The New Picture of College Football; Big Changes and Sudden Moves

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By Brian Renshaw Jr., Freedom Forum Student

  College sports are taking a new turn, which can have a positive and negative effect on the sports world as a whole. Are the new playoff structures, television deals, endorsements, and lifestyle changes for student-athletes really worth it?
  With the 2024 season coming in hot, there is a lot to know to be prepared as a sports fan.
  Over the summer many teams made deals to switch out of conferences and join another. Big moves include USC and Oregon moving into the Big 10, Texas into the SEC, and the Pac-12 will remain with just two teams to start the 2024 season. The new changes result in conferences gaining teams and also losing teams causing some conferences to almost be nonexistent. These changes will impact college football forever. New teams mean new competition within conferences which could impact the new playoff picture. Adding programs into conferences shakes things up and makes them have to play teams they may have not necessarily before which could be for the better or for the worse.
One enormous change will be the change from a four-team to a 12-team playoff. The new playoff allows for more competition and watchtime as the playoffs will be dragged out much longer. This allows teams who are not usually in the top 4 a chance to prove themselves and can promote the school as being a football school.
All these teams and the NCAA would not be making these moves if they did not benefit in any way. Over the offseason the teams made the deals to switch conferences, but the perks of that is the revenue they acquire increases. The teams moved to get endorsements and TV deals with big-time networks like FOX and CBS. More money allows for schools to get better facilities and to expand their recruiting process to get better recruits.
Jacob Hauze, freshman, is a football and baseball player at Freedom High School. He said, “I do think it is good, Oregon in this case is in a weaker conference and I feel they need better competition.” Oregon is a great example because they are now joining one of the best conferences in the country, the Big 10. Three teams in the Big 10 are currently in the top 10 college football teams in the country. He also said, “As a college football fan it makes it better because all the good teams will be in the playoffs now compared to past years.” With the expansion of the playoffs these good teams that could not qualify before for the top four either because their strength of schedule is too weak or because they have one too many losses still now have a chance. As well as giving these athletes a better chance to be drafted because these added playoff games can bring recognition to them.
Even though it all sounds perfect and great for the NCAA, there are some big detrimental effects that this is causing. The season will now be pushed back and made longer which can create an academic conflict for the athletes during the spring semester. The big question is how the athletes will handle the changes.
The pre-alignment of conferences was pretty neutralized between the location of the teams they played. Now there will be teams on the West Coast playing teams on the East Coast. During the interview with Jacob Hauze, he mentioned a perfect point contributing to one of the questions. He stated, “No, I don’t think it’s fair to the players because they are going to have to travel in some cases across the country and I’m sure as an athlete it’s not easy with schoolwork and those long travels.” The long trips across the country can affect the “student” in student-athletes by creating a harder time for them academically. They might not have enough time to complete their schoolwork or delay themselves from getting it done because they have a game on the other side of the country which could result in jetlag or no wifi.
  As changes emerge, that means everything else will follow. These athletes must adapt to continue playing where they are and to the best of their ability.

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12/11/2023

The Need to be Cyber-Smart

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By: Jonathon Chiu, The Freedom Forum
Why you should consider learning about cybersecurity.

   You’re going about your day and surfing the internet on your phone. Suddenly, you get an email from your bank saying that someone has made a transaction of $2,500 and they require your credit card information to resolve the issue.
   There is a link attached to the email. You click the link in a panic and are taken to your bank’s webpage. You fill out the information and hit submit, feeling relieved that the crisis has been averted, only to find out later that your bank account has been emptied and that the webpage you thought was valid was actually a fake.
   This is a phishing scam - when a bad actor sends an email to an unsuspecting victim - and it is one of the most common cyberattacks seen today as more and more people begin to use the internet for the majority of their everyday activities.
   “A fair amount of research and analysis shows a tremendous growth in Internet usage since 2000,” said Marie Bachman, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the Bethlehem Area School District, “When you consider online shopping, online banking, online meetings, remote work, telehealth visits, and social media… at least 80% of a person's daily life may depend on the Internet.”
   This increase in internet usage has also come with an increase in cyberattacks, with Norton reporting that up to 2,200 people experience a cyberattack every day.
   While these attacks may be levied against anyone regardless of age, an article by Vox reports that younger generations are experiencing more cyberattacks, from phishing to identity theft, than their older counterparts.
   These cyberattacks have caused devastating damage to the networks of high-profile institutions, with the BASD requiring a district-wide password change from student ID numbers only a few years ago following a cyberattack that saw the breach of several student accounts.
   The rise in cyberattacks has caused many to become interested in learning cybersecurity, with a survey given out to select students throughout Freedom showing that over 60 percent of those who answered expressed interest in learning about cybersecurity.
   “Kids are aware that there are hackers out there or people that… [want to] mess with them [online],” says Mr. Blozinsky, a cybersecurity teacher at Freedom High School.
   With all the dangers that lurk on the internet, it is important to consider what is safe to disclose to others through means such as social media, with responses to the survey mentioned earlier showing a general consensus that sensitive data - bank details, address, or even birthdates - would be compromising to one’s digital security should they be posted online.
   It is also important that other security measures be taken to better protect yourself online, with some basic tips being to create a password that is hard to figure out as well as using different ones for each account you have.
   There are also a number of additional protections available to the public to better their cybersecurity, from free antivirus software that counters cyberattacks to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that encrypt your online signature. However, it still remains important that you are aware of the dangers of the internet regardless of the level of protection you have.
   “Its certainly good… to take the basic steps [to protect yourself online],” Said Brian Stokes, a professor of data security at Northampton Community College (NCC), “should you have antivirus? Yeah. Should you use a VPN? absolutely! Will there still be problems? Yes, but I don’t think we’ll ever go back [to not using the internet].”
   A quotation from the movie “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” That seems relevant here, “The 21st century is a digital book”. While these words may stem from a work of fiction, their meaning remains evermore true through how our digital footprint, like a physical book, can easily be read by others, whether we want them to or not, if we are not careful.
   Should we allow our personal data, and thus our lives, be stolen by those that mean us harm or will we instead make it our mission to learn all we can on how to better protect our digital footprint and thus ourselves? Should we learn to become Cyber-Smart?

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12/11/2023

The Barbie Movie: Taking the world by storm

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By: Phoebe Cunningham
How the live-action Barbie Movie has taken over audiences of children, teens, and adults all over the world. Spoiler Alert!
  Is Barbie secretly depressed? The live action movie featuring the most famous female doll in history dives much deeper into the meaning of Barbie's true emotions.
   While most children that played with barbies only knew her as the doll that had A million jobs, dated Ken, and dressed in pink, this movie shows people that the true reason for Barbie’s existence is to teach young girls about feminism, how to love themselves, and how to defy stereotypes that are applied to women. In this movie, Barbie starts out as the typical perfect doll with the perfect life. However, as time goes on, she begins to experience problems with her self esteem and she feels “incomplete”.
   Barbie and Ken move from their home of women-empowerment and feminism to the human world, where she discovers that women are discriminated against and that men look down on them. Her mission throughout the movie is to prove that women are powerful in the human world and to find how she can change her world with what she learns along the way.
   When Oscar Cunningham was asked about his overall opinion of the Barbie movie, he explained that, “I thought it was good, even from a male perspective. It really shows guys how women can be treated sometimes and that they can also retaliate very easily. My friends and I loved the movie because it incorporates a little bit of humor from the actors into a deeper meaning that has lots of layers to it”. Barbie actress, Margot Robbie, agrees with this viewer's statement. In an interview with Vogue, Robbie states, “As funny and silly as the movie is, it’s also very clever.” Although this movie has controversial views because of the topic of feminism, women all around the world appreciate where the message comes from and can relate to the sexism that Barbie experiences in the world. However, the cast and crew were able to make it as meaningful and memorable as possible.
  With actors like Ryan Gosling, Will Ferrell, and Michael Cera, the movie was as humorous and significant as it could be. As a producer, Robbie also believes that the casting was done perfectly. In a talk with New York Post about co-star Ryan Gosling, Robbie describes how, “I just bribed him really. That’s the basis of our relationship”. These actors and actresses were able to create a big message out of the barbie stereotype, and it has appealed to billions of viewers.
  Somewhere along the way, it became a trend to wear pink to the film for teenagers. This popular fashion choice took over social media outlets like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. As well as the wearing pink trend, the songs and dances that were included in the theaters made their way to TikTok immediately after the movie’s release and creators began to replicate them. By this point, it was safe to say that the Barbie movie was one of the most popular films ever created.
  But not only this, people on social media began posting videos of themselves ranting and raving about the movie and what it meant to them personally. This encouraged many people to share their stories with similarities to what Barbie goes through and brought a safe space to social media for viewers of the film.
  Contrary to what many are saying on social media, after seeing the film I was mildly confused with the plot and some of the events that took place. Although I can see and appreciate the film’s message and the ways that it supports women, I wish that Ken had been nicer to Barbie while she was helping him throughout the movie and supporting him. But I suppose that is another aspect of the challenges that women face in this movie and the outside world.
   Barbie has to face lots of adversity throughout her journey, especially when she interacts with Ken. In the world of little girls, Barbie and Ken are known for their loving, respectful relationship. However, in the made-up movie, Ken discovers sexism and patriarchy and acts extremely disrespectful towards Barbie. However, his rude actions ultimately help her discover her self-worth in the end, and she goes on to achieve her biggest goals.
   Currently, the Barbie movie has had over one billion dollars in ticket sales, and no movie in Warner Bros. history has ever sold tickets so quickly. Although it was shocking to some how popular the movie became in so little time, for teenagers and adults who grew up playing with barbies, the film captured their interest straight away. The mix of twists from the original Barbie doll with aspects that gives viewers nostalgia is what makes this movie so impactful.

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12/1/2023

Behind The Curtains

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How do plays and musicals come together? What goes on behind the scenes of a show?
By Kiersten Jo-anne Rubery, Freedom Forum

Cast and crew members of It's a Wonderful Life (Photo from FHSTC Instagram, 2023)

What goes on behind that big red curtain? How does a performance seem so effortless like the actors were born as that role? A lot of hard work and effort goes into a play or musical before the first curtain opens, but most of it the public doesn't see. For months on end, it takes constant energy and dedication. Ask any theater student what they’re doing after school they’ll always reply saying “Rehearsal.”
    How does a play come together? While the set is being built, students are hard at work rehearsing everyday practicing and memorizing lines. Everything happens because the whole company works together. The hardest part of the process but the cherry on top of completing the show is “tech week.” Tech week is where everything comes together, the mics, the lighting, the music, the set moving. Even if it doesn’t seem ready and everything is a hot mess, it always comes together in the end and everyone loves it and it all pays off.
  Marion, a senior, who played Belle last spring and plays George Bailey’s mother in the upcoming play, said, “I think people should join theater because it is a very good experience, it helps students gain confidence, and it's also just a very fun time. Everyone is so sweet and you’re bound to have fun on and off stage.” A lot of love and dedication goes into theater and if you have the compassion to pursue it, do it!
  Even if someone is not the performing type, but still wants to be involved or near the environment of theater, they could help out with the crew! Crew is a fun creative job that helps with all the set changes, and behind the scene things that make the show really come to life! The show couldn’t function without crew so they deserve all the praise.
    Without scenery, a play’s story cannot be expressed and imagined, so it's important to have a good set. Building a set takes a lot of people with mental and physical strength and creativity.This year’s winter play of 2023 is It's A Wonderful Life. Set building dads come in every Saturday on their own time to help build some important set parts for the show. But why help out? The lead set dad said, “I used to always be involved with my girls when they played soccer, but now they’re in theater so I help out with this too and I enjoy doing it, it's fun.” That is some true fatherly love; many parents of the students involved in the show help out to support the theater company and their kids. Some parents, even though their kids graduated, still help out too; that's how strong the bond is between everyone in theater.
   Theater is an experience like no other. It teaches people a lot. It helps students learn how to sing, dance, and publicly speak! Though it takes up a lot of time it's totally worth it in the end!
   While theatre shouldn’t be competitive, schools and students can still be commended for their work with the Freddy Awards. Last year at the Freddies, Freedom’s show, Beauty and the Beast was nominated for 10 Freddies, got a chance to perform in front of a huge audience, and won outstanding use of scenery!
      Behind the curtains are a lot of hard-working kids and helpers who put their whole heart and soul into everything they do. Constantly developing and going on to make an amazing production come to life to be as spectacular as the audience sees it on opening night.
   Make sure to see Freedom’s next upcoming winter play, It’s a Wonderful Life. It’s the heartwarming story of a young man named George Bailey, following his life of fighting with struggles of money, considering to end it all. When a special someone visits him to show him how important he really was, and what a wonderful life he had. Make sure to buy tickets at www.showtix4u.com/event-details/76616 or at the door, only from December 1st through the 3rd!

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2023-2024 news

Mental health is taking over teens' lives in America

The New Picture of College Football; Big Changes and Sudden Moves

By Brian Renshaw Jr., Freedom Forum Student

The Need to be Cyber-Smart

The Barbie Movie: Taking the world by storm

Behind The Curtains

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2023-2024 news

Mental health is taking over teens' lives in America

The New Picture of College Football; Big Changes and Sudden Moves

​By Brian Renshaw Jr., Freedom Forum Student

The Need to be Cyber-Smart

The Barbie Movie: Taking the world by storm

Behind The Curtains

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Archives

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By Brian Renshaw Jr., Freedom Forum Student