Wednesday’s teen news – local(∆) and national

(∆) Best friend remembers fallen soldier – Sam Rosenthal on Pfc. Morris Walker, who died in Afghanistan:“What people should know about Mo is who he was as far as how he made other people feel when they were around him. He was just a joy. I think that he epitomized cool….He passed away in the middle of war where the last world he knew was a horrible place where horrible things were going on away from his family and everyone that he loved. That’s no way to go.” (Independent)

Why teens don’t Tweet – Kristen Nagy, an 18-year-old from Sparta, N.J., sends and receives 500 text messages a day. But she never uses Twitter. “I just think it’s weird and I don’t feel like everyone needs to know what I’m doing every second of my life,” she said. Largest growth in social media is adults, not teens.  (NY Times) photo by Tim Shaffer

Profile of teen environmental activist – 15-year-old Otana Jakpor of California speaks regularly about her air quality experiments at EPA hearing and environmental conferences. When then 13-year-old Otana stepped forward, the audience expected an “adolescent” presentation, Dimitri Stanich, a board spokesman, said. But within minutes, Otana, dressed in her signature black suit, had breezed through a PowerPoint presentation of the only data shown that day directly linking the machines to decreased lung function. (LA Times) photo by Kirk McCoy

Chris Brown sentenced to 5 years probation - Judge also ordered him to stay away from Rihana, even if meeting was consenual. (MTV)

Teen lit full of plus-size characters – Overweight kids as heros part of growing movement for heavy teens to accept their bodies, as long as they are in good health. Titles include “Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies” and “This Book Isn’t Fat, It’s Fabulous” and don’t require main character to lose weight as part of feel-good ending. (AP) photo by Rich Shultz

(∆) Editorial opposes teen curfew in Clayton – A curfew suggests that a town has a crime problem. Not crime, which every community has. But a crime problem, which only undesirable places have. Undesirable for families and the businesses that cater to them. The Record argues that the community should solve this problem, not the government. (Garner Clayton Record)

(∆) How Triangle schools are handling swine flu – Beginning of school year could trigger outbreak, health officials encourage students to get flu shots which may make you less susceptible to swine flu. “The idea is that if kids are healthy and are trying to bolster their immunity to seasonal influenza, hopefully they will be healthier to be able to withstand other types of influenza,” said Stephanie Willis, the district health coordinator for Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools. (N&O) photo by Shawn Rocco

Teens arrested for racist graffiti – One of the students responsible for the KKK vandalism was black. (Washington Post)

Monday’s teen news – local(∆) and national

High schools attempt to ban freak dancing – Students left a homecoming dance last fall en masse after a Kansas school disallowed grinding.  With similar rules, a different Kansas school canceled a dance at 9 p.m. after only 6 kids showed up. “Everybody’s staying away,” Salina junior Tayshaw Long told the Salina Journal. “We can’t dance the way we dance.” (Kansascity.com)

Advice question – Is it fair to ask teen to contribute summer job money to family budget? (Washington Post)

(∆) Maya Angelou addresses Duke freshman – Tells story of FOX executive using a racial slur in her presence, encourages students to see all people as human beings. (Duke Chronicle)

Teens without papers face extra challenges – Raised by the LA welfare system, Jamal King does not have a single piece of identification. He can’t open a bank account, obtain a job, receive government benefits, enroll in higher education.”It’s like I don’t exist,” King said. (LA Times)

Teens abuse of ADD drugs soaring – Trips to the emergency room for abuse of ADD drugs is up 76% in last eight years.  Use of other people’s prescription pills, according to experts, can lead to life-threatening symptoms.  (Newsday)

Profiles of 5 extraordinary teens - Diverse listing of teens who have brought attention to important causes. (Charlotte Examiner)

(∆) Jury foreman speaks of Castillo verdict - Jurors wanted to do more for the mentally ill defendant who had suffered such a hard knock life, but the foreman said they were bound by law to convict him to a life in prison.  (N&O)

Average gamer not teen, but 35 and overweight – The average gamer, far from being a teen, is actually a 35-year-old man who is overweight, aggressive, introverted — and often depressed, according to a report  from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Wired)

Tuesday’s teen news – local(∆) and national

Teen heads to law school – Feature on 19-year-old Kate McLaughlin who skipped six grades, entered community college at 12, graduated from UC San Diego at 17,and will now be attending Northwestern Law School. McLauhglin says her path has been difficult because she is constantly bored in school and has trouble relating with her peers. McLaughlin is not sure yet what she wants to do with her law degree, but hopes it will help her to be more effective in lobbying for the social causes she feels passionately about – feminism, combatting racism, equal rights for gays and lesbians, and international humanitarianism. Also here is a blog posting about her in the NY Times. (OC Register) photo by Mark Rightmire

Teens buying good grades at summer school – Students from public schools are paying to attend private schools in the summer to obtain an easy A, a trend known as ‘buying a credit.’“There was only seven people in the class, the teachers focus on you, and basically, there was no way I could do bad,” said Sean Donoahue, 17, who paid $2,000 for a 20-day course in Grade 12 English.”That’s what sold me, was that I couldn’t get a bad mark in summer school. There was no way I’d get below an 80.”

Tobacco sales to minors at all-time low – The national rate of tobacco sales to minors for fiscal 2008 was 9.9%, down from 40.1% in 1997. (USA Today)

(∆) Teen musician taught self on Guitar Hero – 13-year-old Matt Plourde of Garner mastered every song but one on Guitar Hero, then parlayed his interest into real music. He opens for the Towne Players Teens’ musical “Seussical Jr.” this weekend at the Garner Historic Auditorium. (Garner Citizen)

(∆) Chatham Co. H.S. students to get laptops – Thanks to a $800,000 grant from the Golden LEAF Foundation, every student at Northwood High, Chatham Central and SAGE Academy will get to take home lap tops.  There is no cost to families unless the lap top is completely broken. (MyNC)

Teens’ counterfeit bills still hitting NC – Union County sheriffs arrested two teens last month for creating hundreds of fake hundreds, but their work is still in circulation, still fooling business owners.  They bleached five dollar bills, then reprinted them as hundreds so that the original paper was still marked as real when checked by a decoder pen.  (NBC Washington)

Friday’s teen news – local(∆) and national

John Hughes, Bard of teen angst, has died – His credits included: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Planes Trains and Automobiles, Vacation, Home Alone, Weird Science, Some Kind of Wonderful, She’s Having a Baby, and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  He walked away from the industry in 1991 and moved to Wisconsin, Kevin Smith compared him to the reclusive JD Salinger.”I stumbled into this business, I didn’t train for it,” Hughes told Entertainment Weekly in 1994. (Eonline!)

Profile of Lil Wayne – He is everywhere and never sleeps, performing at Walnut Creek Saturday night.  (N&O)

Rapper twitters Chicago students to attend school – Some parents are upset because Jeremih’s most popular song “Birthday Sex” includes the lyrics ‘Don’t need candles and cake/Just need your body to make good/Birthday sex’’ and “We grindin’ with passion ‘cause it’s your birthday/Been at it for hours, I know you thirsty.’ The chief of schools disagreed,“He had 70 million hits on his MySpace page. For us to be naïve and believe that this is not what our students are listening to would be not living in the world where our students are. He’s a great role model for our kids. He graduated from high school. He went on to school for engineering. He’s staying in school. That’s the message.” Here is a link to the protest. (Chicago Sun-Times)

Teacher makes teen smoke 42 cigarettes – The teacher was upset when she found a model student, 16-year-old Mohamad Alif Arifin, had a cigarette and lighter in his locker in the school in the northern island of Langkawi. (MSNBC)

Colin Powell, foot soldiers battle dropout ‘catastrophe’ – Only 52% of students in the nation’s 50 largest cities graduate from high school. (CNN)

Thursday’s teen news – local(∆) and national

Teens pay big bucks for image consulting – Moms already bring their teenage daughters for high-end haircuts and mani-pedis. And now, image consultants — who act as personal shoppers, closet cullers and makeup advisers — say their business is thriving among clients of high school age and younger.”I don’t have the best confidence,” says Hannah Abrams, 16, shrugging and offering a small smile. “I feel like a makeover will make people look at me in a different way.” (Washington Post) photo by Lois Raimondo

Exchange students live American nightmare -They came from around the world hoping to spend a high school year immersed in the culture and joys of America.Instead, five young foreign exchange students found themselves caught in a nightmare of neglect, malnourishment and abandonment by those supposed to protect them. (CNN)

Teenage Sonia Sotomayor -“When she opened her mouth and she spoke, she really felt whatever it was,” said Jeanette Valdespino-Torres, a childhood friend.”And she wasn’t just talking out of the top of her head — it was something that she read, she studied, she looked, she knew. She would get into conversations at that age that I couldn’t even touch.” (CNN)

Parents’ group wants less homework - One standard that many school districts are turning to is the “10-minute rule” created by Duke University psychology professor Harris Cooper. The rule, endorsed by the National PTA and the National Education Association, says kids should get 10 minutes of homework a night per grade. A first grader would have 10 minutes of homework each night; a fifth grader 50 minutes. (AP) photo by Paul Sakuma

Should high schools bar average students from AP classes? – A column by Jay Matthews. (Washington Post)

Dear Abby – My daughter has herpes. What should I do? (Dear Abbey)

Teen essayist to meet Obama – Shaquana Gardner managed to score a ticket to the coveted event at the New York Hilton after writing an essay about the challenges no one told her to expect from college: juggling her desire to get an education and help “change the world” with the guilt of moving away from her mom and siblings who depended on her. (NY Daily News)