NOCTILUCA Spring 2016 Vol.XXI Issue 11

NEWS Appleton, Wisconsin Spring 2016 Volume XXI

Issue II Page 2

Ms. Reed reflects on her career path

H umans of n ortH

North history teacher leads effort to help Siberian youth deal with chemical weapons

held at Appleton North every three weeks) the student pleads guilty, not guilty, or no contest to truancy. The Judge then has the ability to require students to do community service to make up for the missed school. If the student continues to miss school they would pay the $200.50 fine. On northnoct.com Read the letter AASD sent to families regarding policy changes. So the kids constructed an evacuation plan for them. They worked with the city council in Appleton to get the city to donate old sirens--there were no warning sirens. This village was so backwards, they didn’t even have a telephone, half of the time there was no run- ning water, there’s no electric- ity. No internet. So, an archaic city. Maybe the United States in 1885...and then chemical weapons, right next to each other. But they took us to the weapons deconstruction plant; we were able to get the whole tour. The kids got maps to try to figure out an evacuation plan, and my friend Mosha asked, “Where did you get those? We can’t get those.” It was weird. And then we trained a team of Future Problem Solvers in Chuchee so that they knew how to do this too. That was part of it as well, education, training, and safety. They [the Chuchee locals] had to feel safe enough to accept that. Then there was the International Conference, and all of the Russians came here. That’s when we met Gor- bachev. And last March, the last chemical weapon from the depot was destroyed. But, be- fore we left Chuchee, we went to Mosha’s flat to eat, because there was no place to stay that had running water. We came in, and her father had just picked wild strawberries. I mean, they lived like it was fifty years ago. And he had just milked the cow. So we had this warm, fizzy milk and strawber- ries. And people were toasting to each other. Mosha’s mother, she went to toast and said, “If you had told me anytime in my life, that I would have Ameri- cans, sitting at my table in my home, I would have never be- lieved it.” That was profound. If you lived through the Cold War...that was so powerful.

By Maeve Salm

The Noctiluca: What are

you most proud of?

In the February issue of the Noctiluca there were inaccu- racies in the article regarding AASD attendance and truancy policies. All students have up to ten unexcused absences. To be absent for a full day a student would have to miss more than two thirds of a day or have excused absences accu- mulating to two thirds of a day. If a student were to accu- mulate a total of 10 excused absences a medical note would let, and he said, “I wish my PhD history students could do this.” And that’s all he said. Which you know, planted this little seed, like “Oh. I guess I’m kind of good at history.” It’s funny…all of the junc- tures through life. So, my first two degrees are in music, and I have hundreds of extra cred- its. I had gone back to school to become certified in history, and went back again to be- come certified in broadfield social studies. I’ve really never stopped going to school. So, I think I’ve found the right field...I’m in the right field. By Nora Ptacek For North U.S. history teacher Ms. Marlyce Reed helping students solve global problems is just as important as teaching history. In an effort to explore the story of a well- respected and erudite faculty member of Appleton North, the Noctiluca conversed with Ms. Reed. The Noctiluca: Describe your collegiate pursuits. Mrs. Reed: I was a clari- netist in college. I practiced so much that I actually destroyed my embouchure. To this day, if I put a clarinet in my mouth, my mouth, it just shakes and quivers. So, I was forced to find another passion… . That was kind of a bad time. Then I ended up here. It was really a circuitous path. When I obtained my mas- ter’s at Northwestern, you know, you have to sit in front of a panel of professors. I’ll never forget the music history professor. See, I was a compo- sition major at the time. He just took my test book-

be sent home to the family and the school would work with the family and student to help them with whatever their needs may be, said Assistant Principal Mr. Patrick Lee. Even if the family would have no medical reason for the ten unexcused absence the school would work with the family, taking vacation and conferences into hand as each circumstance is unique, Mr. and ears open for a circum- stance where they could apply these skills to the real world. One night, I was at dinner at a friend’s house, and they were involved in the Sister City Proj- ect in Russia. One of them was the head of ThedaCare, one was the head of Boldt, one was a doctor, one was a big business construction owner, one was a hospital administrator; they were people in the community that had great influence. They had definite, tangible things they could provide, and I sat at the table thinking, “What do I have to contribute?”And then it was like a lightning bolt. Future Problem Solvers. The kids. But I never expected even at that level for it to end up as it did. I still can’t believe their par- ents let me take them all of the way to Siberia, near a chemical weapons depot. But they did. They were awesome. And this small village of Chuchee, it correction Mrs. Reed: So, I coached this program called Future Problem solving. And the kids got really good; they were just really talented kids. They kept winning, winning, winning. They’d win state, and then they’d win internationals. Well, in the program, they’re given topics of global significance, and futurists, like people from MIT, would prepare scenarios with respect to predicted future problems. And then the kids would generate problems and solve them. It occurred to me after awhile, that it was all kind of academic. They had all of this talent here; why didn’t they actually solve a real problem? So I was keeping my eyes

Ms. Reed, left, stands with members of Future Prob- lem Solvers near the chemical weapons stockpile in Chuchee, Siberia. This image is a part of a series of infographics detailing the team’s efforts to help villag- ers. See all the infographics at northnoct.com. Graphic courtesy of Ms. Reed

Lee said. An inaccuracy in the previ- ous article referenced a shift from minutes based recording to periods based recording but this does not affect students be- cause their absences will still be measured by periods. Only in the system will the minutes missed be recorded and purely for the Department of Public Instruction’s data col- lection purposes. After every unexcused ab- sence (this could be all or part ons depot. It was full of Cold War chemical gas canisters. And my friend Mosha that I met on an exchange; she was from this village. Her father was in charge of the railroad in the village. And for all of these years during the Cold War, train load after train load of these chemical weapons were coming in. And even Mosha’s mother didn’t know. Nobody knew what was on those train cars. But it was all chemical weapons...and they were being stored two kilometers from the town. So the Soviet Union dis- solved, and all of a sudden, no- body was guarding the chemi- cal weapons anymore. This old, run-down, barn-like build- ing from the 1940s or 1950s had a wire fence around it, and you could walk around it and see places where it had been cut. People had been in and out. The lock on the front was a padlock sealed by a wax-like stamp, similar to stamps used to seal legal documents in the Middle Ages. They put a piece of wire through it and melted was just two kilometers away from town. There was this huge weap-

of one day), the parents are called and the student speaks with the dean to try and work through any problems causing an unexcused absence. After four unexcused ab- sences, the student’s family will receive a letter requesting a meeting with Mr. Lee where they will work to help the stu- dent attend school and inform them that if they have one more unexcused absence they will have to appear in truancy court. In truancy court (which is senators, Nunn and Lugar, got a bill passed in the Congress where the United States donat- ed 248 million dollars to build a weapons deconstruction plant there. But the people who lived in Chuchee who had just, for the first time, found out those weapons were there--which is mind boggling--were just ter- rified. Because they [the weap- ons] were going to be handled, and there was the threat of po- tential accidents, and so forth. So, the kids’ project was to con- vince the village that this was a good idea. And to do that, they set up a program called SASY, Save a Siberian Youth, where people could buy any student at the school or anyone in the vil- lage a gas mask. They used to tell the kids to put a scarf over their faces. Which is like tell- ing us to dive under the desk. It wasn’t going to save anybody. wax. That was how they knew if someone had broke in. The guard didn’t carry a weapon. And inside, there was enough serine gas in this one place to kill every human being on the planet three times. In other words...no security. So, these two American

Attendance policy change redefines full day of absence