Let’s answer this age old question: Can gum lead to the apocalypse? Gum is a miniature weapon of mass destruction that threatens to murder us all; it is a doomsday device used to manipulate students into a catatonic state of stupidity in which they become pawns to its plan for world domination…or at least that’s what the teachers have been led to believe!

Controversy strikes Miami High as I dare to wander its hallways, seeking to find out whether or not this chewable mechanism of death should be allowed in school.

Our journey begins, simply enough, as some poor excuse for a journalist makes his way through the soul-slaughtering mental asylum that we’ve all come to know and love as school—a magical place where dreams and self-esteem come to die and decent paychecks are non-existent. Now you might call that exaggerated and untrue, but then again, I’m a journalist.

Many who work here at the High seem to express a general negative consensus towards gum usage as they consider gum chewing to be a distracting and repulsive habit. “Most students don’t know how to chew gum with their mouths closed!” said math teacher Mr. Urusuno (a.k.a. Mr. U) as I found him lurking through the halls. He claims that on a daily average, about 30% of students in each class chew gum.

Ms. Missick, one of our recently departed guidance counselors, despises gum, claiming it gets stuck on the floors as many of the students carelessly dump it after they’re done using it, and is extremely difficult to remove.

On the other hand, our school principal Mr. Valdes claims that while he doesn’t exactly endorse gum chewing, he doesn’t really mind it all that much either, since there haven’t really been any major issues regarding gum damage caused to

Now let me play devil’s advocate here for a second and say that some of the teachers here are so hypocritical that even Fox News would get offended. I might not be a Miami High veteran, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t seen at least two or three teachers chewing gum, and while teenagers tend to be a disgusting ball of hormones most of the time, they might have a point this time.

Many students here at Miami High such as senior George Mosqueda chews gum on a “weekly basis” but have no clue as to why they do it. However, freshman Karen Paguero chews gum “everyday” to help cope with stress and increase focus as well.

According to an article from CNN titled “Chew on this: Gum may be good for body, mind” by Chris Gajilan, some studies have shown that gum actually increases productivity and focus in school. Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine, for example, conducted a study in which they followed 108 eighth-grade students for 14 weeks straight. They divided the students into two groups: One group chewed gum while doing homework and during testing, while the other group didn’t chew gum at all. The results then concluded that gum-chewing students saw a 3% increase in their overall grades over those who didn’t chew gum.

Ms. Bravo, our school librarian, on the other hand, questions the validity of these studies as she feels that many of the students chewing gum just do it for the heck of it, and even if the studies are true, she said that still doesn’t defeat the fact that students are constantly sticking gum under the desks or on the floor after they’re done chewing it. Like many of the teachers, this has resulted in Ms. Bravo placing a strict no gum chewing policy in the library.

As for how the students feel about it, however, I’ll just let the image accompanying this story speak for itself.

While it might not be the cleanliest of habits and definitely not the most attractive, some students just can’t help chewing gum, but punishing them for it to the point where they have a crime record worse than Charles Manson won’t solve the equation either. If anything, it will just feed students, need to rebel and make them chew it even more.

The only viable solution I see to this that will please both parties is if we allow gum usage, but with certain restrictions and with the addition of more receptacles available so our school won’t end up looking like a total crapshack!