K-pop dances join other cultural numbers at annual banquet

LAUREN GERNALE

Staff Writer

Treats, laughter and dance numbers were on display March 16 at the fifth annual World Language Banquet, featuring Spanish, French, Mandarin and newly added Korean student and staff performances.

The banquet featured nine class performances, including a fashion show from French, a Spanish Korean dance performances. Students could also choose from activities and food throughout the night. Two long tables were dedicated to a cultural potluck. Student-led booths featured French Mardi-Gras mask decorating, face painting and Chinese calligraphy.

The French fashion show showcased traditional and designer looks from the 1910s to 1990s, created by senior Jack Lawrence with the help of sophomore Ian Angelopoulos. Teachers also joined in on the fun, with Korean teacher Sunyoung Jeon and Mandarin teacher Linda Chen singing a duet of “Your Shampoo Scent in the Flowers” by Jang Beom-June.

A K-pop dance performance to “OMG” by

NewJeans, featured freshmen Erica Kim, Kate Okishima, Pauline Kang, Adelle Kang and sophomore David Tran.

This is the scond time the group has performed, having had no prior dance experience.

Kim said it has been her favorite experience so far this year.

“Once in a while if you do something impulsive and new you can earn something good from it,” Kim said.

Spanish students from teachers Merry Sara Maddelein, Heather Votava and Leticia Molina’s classes also joined in class performances. Votava enjoyed seeing her students outside the classroom setting.

“I’m glad the kids have time to socialize and connect again outside of the classroom,” Votava said. “I think it’s important. I don’t think we have enough opportunities to do that.”

French teacher Katia Saade said she enjoyed seeing how students shared appreciation for different cultures.

“They’re expressing themselves in such a lovely, beautiful way,” she said. “I love seeing everyone happy and enjoying the food, the dances and the cultures.” will hold mock exams, like the AP Language classes are doing, along with study sessions before and/or after school.

“It’s gonna be three things going on at once,” said Gudeli. “You have to juggle studying and then also regular homework and then also getting ready for prom.”

Follett also urges students to communicate with their teachers. She knows students will have extra work on top of AP tests, so she wants students to know the importance and how helpful it can be to talk to teachers.

“I know that can be really hard and sometimes people feel intimidated, but you have to especially if you’re in an AP class,” Follett said, “Make sure you have an open dialogue with teachers and not just emailing your teachers but actually talking to them.”

Both Potts and Gudeli plan to ask for on-lev- el teachers to take it easy on the AP students, especially the ones in ASB who are working double-time.

“As long as we’re doing more things in class instead of after school I’ll be ok,” said Gudeli. “After school time is going to be heavily focused on studying and preparing for the AP test.”

The ASB prom planning group also recommends students to find the importance of talking to their teachers and utilizing their tutorials that they have each week in order to help students better prepare for the hectic week that could be called Hell’s Weekend.

“Going to tutorial, asking your teachers questions, and making sure to make good academic choices.” Krishnapillai said. “You can enjoy yourself at prom as well as performing well academically.”

Damian Fragano, Spanish A future in the U.S.

For Spanish 2 and 3 teacher Damian Fragano, teaching in America represented a possibility for him to live a better life than in Mexico.

When he was young, he often struggled with education, having to be held back in school for many years, due to the lack of academic resources at hand. His father passed away when he was 5, so his mother and his grandparents had to make ends meet moving from city to city.

“It was rough for me,” he said. “I remember just feeling really behind everyone, and the reason was there was not as much support. ... There was not a tutorial, and my family didn’t have the resources to hire a tutor.”

Later, his mother helped bring him to America, where he initially did not consider enrolling in college, but preferred to just hang out with friends and family. But when he came back to visit Mexico, he realized that he couldn’t see a future in Mexico and needed to travel back to the United States.

“I didn’t see any light at the end of the tunnel,” Fragano said.

He decided to come back to the United States and enrolled in junior college to take English classes to learn the language. When he applied for financial aid for college, he felt relieved that the California colleges

Kevin Kalman, science

A future in the U.S.

not only paid for his classes, but gave him enough money to make a living, buy a car and attend school.

Despite noting that there were not many resources in Mexico to help him prosper, he found his teachers both in Mexico and California helped inspire him to become a teacher.

“A few teachers motivated me to do better and gave me that warning like either you applied yourself or you’re not going to finish high school.”

Fragano said. “At some point I had to hear that.”

Although he still had some student loans as he worked to become a foreign language teacher, he said he is thankful. As a public school teacher, he feels supported by the government to help pay back his student loans.

He has since taught at Berkeley High School for three years, and at Branham for seven years. Beyond teaching itself, Fragano values being a foreign language teacher because of the community he has gained.

“At the very beginning, it was more like, I have to do this, that, and they have to learn that now,” he said. “It’s more about learning from them too, and getting to know them as people, not just as students. And that’s something that inspires me more, and motivates me more as a teacher. I also have absorbed that positive energy from them and that’s what keeps me going.”

— Alli Wang

Science department co-chair Kevin Kalman has been teaching at Branham for seven years. He had graduated from San Jose State University right after the economy crashed. He began working at the Petco on Branham and Meridian. Still unsure of his prospects, he enrolled grad school, conducting field research in labs and discovered that he enjoyed teaching. He began as a substitute because he was unsure what age group he wanted to teach for. He enjoyed teaching high school classes the most, which influenced his decision to teach high school science at Branham High School.

Second Life

While most teachers enter the profession out of college, others didn’t.

16% the proportion of high school teachers who come into the profession as a second career.

Lauren Cellini, English Crafting a career

In high school, Laura Cellini was inspired by her teachers to pursue a career in education. Because mother was a kindergarten for many years, she thought that she had wanted to become an elementary teacher. Volunteering in her mother’s classroom made her realize that working with young children was not meant for her. She also didn’t want to teach every subject, and knew that English was her passion that she wanted to focus on. In college, Cellini worked at JoAnn fabrics, where she picked up a passion for crafts. She had also picked up sewing during the pandemic and cntinues to sew as a hobby.

— Shantala Muruganujan

Ioanna Theodosopoulos, science

A fourth act

Physics and AP Physics 2 teacher Ioanna Theodospoulou didn’t plan to teach in America.

She was born and lived in Greece, and shortly after receiving her bachelor’s degree in physics, she taught students privately for 9.5 years.

Education in 1985 in Greece was different, with fewer resources and no hands-on learning.

“It was 1985 and I was in college, and unlike today, we had no lives,” she said, jokingly.

She taught in Greece for nine-and-a-half years, in England for 10 years, and the U.S. for eight years. In Greece, she tutored privately and received an international license to teach. In England, she taught in high school from grades 9 to 12. She was always interested in physics, and recollected a demonstration of circuits from her professor. But she wasn’t able to physically touch or experiment with a circuit, unlike the experiences high school students in America have had via hands-on physics experiments. However she said that moving internationally was due to a mix of life’s circumstances and unexpected obstacles.

“Life happened. I got married and my husband moved to England to work as an engineer. A year later, I followed him to England. I didn’t teach for 6 years. I actually worked as a telecommunicator for Alcatel-Lucent, which is German Based.”

She went to England to support her husband in the fiber optics industry, before the industry collapsed in 2003. She wasn’t initially a teacher in England, but rather a telecommunicator. But she then realized she needed to support her family, and found teaching her best option due to having experience in Greece.

Later, she moved back to Silicon Valley to work as a Quality Assurance process engineer for Oclaro, hoping to engage in another field of physics. But the factory had since shut down, with its other unit in England remaining due to factory costs.

“I was unlucky in terms that the factory had shut down,” she said. “And I was like,’ Okay, Ioanna, we can just teach.’ ”

She was told to get another teaching credential for California, even though she had an international credential. When she was 47 years old, she balanced time between being a student at Santa Clara University to get a California credential while working as a substitute teacher. Although her eventual teaching in the United States was not planned, she said she’s “not complaining.” She found value in teaching because she’s able to collaborate with various people and work in various fields with her degree in physics.

During college, social science teacher Stefanie Menera worked for the City of Monterey Museum and Cultural Arts Division as an archive and artifact specialist intern. Menera assessed, photographed and prepped exhibits. She also participated in Greek life and took a trip to D.C. for a conference with one of the student organizations she was a part of.

— Shantala Muruganujan

62% of those who teach have a degree other than in education.

— Sources: Journal of Teacher Education

“Teaching opened my mind to other fields and I improved as an engineer as well as a physicist.” she said. “Although I was a private teacher in Greece and had experience, my experience teaching in America was miles away from my experience in the U.S. I learned so much about teaching not just from Professional Development, but from the people around me: how to communicate, not just teach.”

— Alli Wang

English teacher Melanie Vega said that she always knew she wanted to become a teacher. During college, Vega was part of a teaching program. After graduating, she moved to Spain and taught the English language. She also traveled to Europe and other parts of Spain. Once she returned back to the United States, Vega started teaching at Branham.

— Shantala Muruganujan