Globe Newsmagazine, September 2018, Issue 2, Vol. 90

9 NEWS

34 SPORTS

43 OPINION

Maryland Ave is being resurfaced and adding new bike lanes.

CHS senior and soccer captain James Dulle hopes to lead the team to a state title.

The Globe’s opinion editor details her foodie roots in this month’s Love, The Globe column.

globe.

A More Perfect School

What would a school look like if it was designed with human biology and best learning practices in mind? | 22

issue 2, volume 90 Clayton High School. Clayton, MO. September 2018.

2 | SPONSORS

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! The Globe is an entirely self-funded publication. We receive no funding from the school district for printing. Each issue of the Globe costs approximately $2000 to print. We are deeply grateful to our sponsors for their support of our publication. They make our work possible. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, please email us at globe@claytonschools.net.

ISSUE SPONSORS ($2000 Level) Gail Workman Herbie’s in Clayton

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WORLD TRAVELER SPONSORS ($100+ Level) N o r t h w e s t C o f f e e Sangeeta Khanna and T h e L a G e s s e S t a n t o n F a m i l y A s e e m S h a r m a The Brown Family The Chung Family T h e H i g u c h i F a m i l y T h e S t u r m o s k i F a m i l y W a s h i n g t o n U n i v e r s i t y P h y s i c i a n s Allergy & Immunology Clinics The Abburi Family Mary and Dick Anthony J ane Cross Robin and Neil Snelling E u g e n e C r o s s B o b a n d B e t s y C u n e o C h r i s t y H a g e r D D S M i s s o u r i F o o t a n d A n k l e A n n S a c h a r S arah Bernard Bob Chapman D r. J a m e s F e h r Cursed Bikes and Coffee D r. A n n e G l ow i n s k i The Stemmler Family Charlotte de Sauvage Nolting

The Curtis Family

3 | CONTENTS

September 2018 10 ARCH

RENOVATION The Globe explores all facets of the Arch’s new renovation, including its classification as a national park.

9 MARYLAND RESURFACING A look into the new addition of bike lanes to Maryland.

14 LGBT TEACHERS

A look at the effects of the 2011 non-discrimination policy on Clayton’s LGBT faculty.

16 WYDOWN ROBOTICS

Expanding the Clayton High School Robotics team to Wydown Middle School.

20 FRISBEE GOLD MEDAL

Clayton High School’s new history teacher, Kate Lyons, won a gold medal in the Czech Republic.

22 A MORE PERFECT SCHOOL

An in-depth investigation into how CHS can create a better school environment for student learning.

42 ASIAN MISREPRESENTATION Hollywood’s history of miscasting Asian roles.

globe.

STAFF

REPORTERS

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF Michael Bernard and Jacob LaGesse

Natalie Ashrafzadeh

Kaia Mills-Lee

CHIEF DIGITAL EDITOR

Luka Bassnett

Margaret Mooney

Kaitlin Bates

Siddhi Narayan

Disha Chatterjee

Ruth Pierson

Danielle Choo-Kang

Reese Quinn

Cece Cohen

Dheera Rathikindi

Justin Guilak

CHIEF PHOTO EDITOR Michael Melinger

CHIEF VIDEO EDITOR Sean Kim

COPY EDITOR

Ella Cuneo

Helena Reuter

Anna Sturmoski

Sofia Erlin

William Redington

BUSINESS MANAGER

Kate Freedman

Maya Richter

Daniel Cohen

Belle Gage

Ingrid Stahl

Sahithya Gokaraju

Josefina Stone

Molly Green

Abigail Sucher

Mhari Harris

Jackson Swinigan

Ta l l u l a h H a w l e y

Louis Van’t Hof

Maxwell Keller

Jessie Wang

SECTION EDITORS

Sasha Keller

Summer Williams

David Higuchi, NEWS

Moriah Lotsoff

Angela Xiao

Sara Stemmler, FEATURE

Gabriela Madriz

Yiyun Xu

SENIOR MANAGING EDITORS Richard Cheng Grace Snelling L i l a Ta y l o r

Daniel Cohen, SPORTS Ashley Chung, OPINION Hongkai Jiang, REVIEW

PAGE EDITORS

PHOTOGRAPHERS Isabella Clark

Caroline Marsden

Gwen Duplain

Mallory Palmer

Catherine Holtzman

Deborah Park

Sarah Baker

Neema Naemi

Xuenan Jin

Maya Richter

Josephine Cross

Katie Snelling

Lucia Johnson

Elia Rios

Lise Derksen

Junyi Su

Areeba Khan

Annika Sandquist

Zachary Fisher

Sophie Thompson

Cicely Krutzsch

Madalyn Schroeder

Katie He

Bridget Walsh

Julian Lawless

Emma Siegel

Noor Jerath

Victor Wei

Kathleen Lay

Anna Walsh

Whitney Le

Lauren Wolff

Jimmy Malone

Rachel Markenson Professional Affiliations: Sponsors of School Publications, Missouri Interscholastic Press Association, Missouri Journalism Education Association, National Scholastic Press Association, Columbia Scholastic Press Association

5 | editors letter

from the editor From the age of 10, I’ve spent my summers in the Northwoods of Minnesota at Camp Kamaji for girls. My home away from home lacks air conditioning, electricity and most importantly, wifi.

Those who are brave enough to travel to camp with their phones have them confiscated within minutes of arrival. They’re returned, usually dead, after eight weeks.

We resort to scribbling the occasional letter to our parents or a quick note to a best friend from home.

At camp, there’s no texting, Instagram or Snapchat. The closest thing we have to social media are our yearbooks, an essential part of updating your camp friends about your year.

For some kids today, giving up their phones would be harder than giving up a limb. We sleep with our phones inches from our heads. It’s the last thing you see before you go to bed, and the first thing you see in the morning.

Teenagers sit with their friends in silence while they scroll through pictures on social media, myself included.

Phones have become a wall that we use to block out any awkwardness or difficult social interaction.

You text your friends ‘Here’ when you pick them up so you don’t have to talk to their parents. You go on your phone when you’re waiting for something, so that you don’t have to be left alone with your own thoughts. You end relationships over text, so that you don’t need to have that difficult conversation face to face.

This all melts away when you’re at camp. I

never understood how little my phone meant to me until I experienced camp.

I’ve never missed anything less.

The removal from technology altogether is the most eye opening childhood experience I could’ve asked for. I love not having outlets or lights in my cabin. You can appreciate how late it stays bright; the sun doesn’t go down until 10 up there. You never miss an inside joke, a laugh, or a smile because your head isn’t bent over a screen. There’s no time wasted watching Netflix. Without technology, you can see thousands of stars across the night sky.

This absence of technology forces you to have face to face conversations with the girls around you. I can personally attest, there is nowhere to escape when you live with 12 other girls.

And at camp, there’s no need to.

The bonds that you’re able to create when there’s no social pressure are awe-inspiring.

Year after year, the same girls return to this magical pocket hidden away from society.

Year after year, the second you’re reunited with these people, the friendships resume like you were never apart.

This past summer, I wasn’t a camper. I had come back to be a counselor. This included days off, kids to look after and my phone.

Camp and phone had always been two very separate ideas. I had no idea how to handle them together. Would I still talk to my home friends? Would I just use it to call my parents? Maybe only use it on days off… God forbid I would try to watch TV. I had thought a lot about whether or not

I wanted to come back to camp as a counselor after my last year as a camper--whether or not I wanted to have a summer at home for once, whether or not I wanted to travel, instead of staying in the same place for nine weeks.

Despite these hesitations, I signed up to go back to Bemidji, MN for yet another summer.

As camp approached, I felt more and more anxious. I was having the time of my life in the one week of summer at home I got to have before I left. I didn’t want to experience that fear of missing out with my home friends. I was scared to see their posts on social media, all of them together, without me.

Turns out, having access to your phone and feeling the need to be on it are very different. Being surrounded by engaging people who capture your attention overpowers that addiction to have an electronic device in your hands.

It’s hard to realize how amazing escape from the modern, technology-filled world is until you spend hours with your friends, talking the night away with a full moon over the lake.

Even though there’s no city-less sky full of stars at CHS, and the closest thing we have to a lake is Creve Coeur – basically a glorified pond – there’s still people around you who should make you put your phone away.

Go for a run. Take a walk in a park with a friend. Sleep with your phone charging in your kitchen.

Unplug, and plug in to the world around you.

LILA TAYLOR | SENIOR MANAGING EDITOR

Photo by Michael Melinger

GATEWAY CITY St. Louis is now home to a national park - The Gateway Arch National Park.

Celebratory 4th of July fireworks during Fair St. Louis illuminated the Gateway Arch and its newly renovated museum -- read more about the expansion on page 10.

The Arch is both a symbol of St. Louis’ role in Westward Expansion and a memorial to Thomas Jefferson.

MICHAEL MELINGER | CHIEF PHOTO EDITOR

8 | NEWS

news & notes.

DAVID HIGUCHI | NEWS SECTION EDITOR

Loufest Canceled

LouFest entrance in 2014 (Photo by Felix Eans)

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort agreed to cooperate on Friday, Sept. 14 with the Mueller special counsel probe into Russian interference and collusion in the 2016 election. In return, Manafort pleaded guilty to reduced charges stemming from consulting work he did with pro-Russia groups in Ukraine

(Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS)

(Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/TNS)

Florence, a Category 3 hurricane with winds topping 90 mph made land fall early Sept.

14 in North Carolina. Florence, the first major storm of the 2018 hurricane season, is forcasted to pour over 18 trillion gallons of rain in seven days over the Carolinas and Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Maryland. Over 1.7 million people live in mandatory evacuation areas. (Photo from NASA)

September

The 9th annual LouFest music festival was cancelled early Wednesday, Sept. 5, just three days before it was scheduled to begin. The festival which was founded in 2010 had been rumored to be in jeopardy following reports that key vendors had pulled out. In a letter announcing the cancelation, organizers cited “financial hurdles” including debt from previous years and a rainy forcast as the main reasons for the last-minute decision.

Just a week prior, LouFest promised the festival was happening, tweeting “We are 100% good to go—load-in has already kicked off!” The last minute cancelation left would-be attendees, many from out of town, frustrated with expensive travel plans and no festival. It also hit hard for vendors who had already paid for a spot in the festival and invested in preparing food for the festival.

The cancelation has also left questions about the future of the festival next year. LouFest has been the most popular music festival in the city for the past eight years, drawing a record 50,000 people to Forest Park in 2015.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the DC Court of Appeals sits before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is President Trump’s nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court.

(Christy Bowe/Globe Photos/Zuma Press/TNS)

The bus carrying the girls’ golf team was involved in minor accident as the team headed to Normandy Golf Course on I-170 for practice. The bus was rear ended by a car hit by another car during a crash that occurred behind the bus.

The driver of the car that hit the bus was taken to the hospital. Everyone on the bus was okay.

Tales from the Clayton Police Report

“On Friday, Sept. 7th at 6:40 pm, a male suspect dined and dashed at IHOP. He was identified by the job application he submitted to the manager prior to the theft.

This matter should be resolved soon.’’

The St. Louis Blues start their 2019 season Oct. 4 with a game vs the Winnipeg Jets.

(Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group/TNS)

Photo by Wikimedia Commons

maryland’s new look.

9 | NEWS

A shared turn lane and protected bike lanes will be added to Maryland Ave. SHANE LAGESSE | REPORTER

Photo from the City of Clayton On Tuesday, Aug. 28, the Clayton Board of Aldermen decided to add protected bike lanes to Maryland Avenue during the resurfacing of the street, after meeting on previous occasions and hearing opinions of many Clayton residents.

The Board’s decision was to add bike lanes to Maryland Avenue in four sections: from Gay to Forsyth, Forsyth to Meramec, Meramec to Central and Central to Hanley.

The bike lanes will be protected from Forsyth to Hanley, and shared from Forsyth to Gay. Many CHS students bike to school.

Maryland Avenue is a useful path and separates the school from Gay field, where many students go to for sports after school. The addition of bike lanes on the road will help protect the bikers who use the road and make the road easier to cross. The lanes would also offer easier access to Centennial Greenway, a bike path which runs through Shaw Park to Olive Boulevard.

Much of the opposition to the project arises from business owners located along Maryland. The addition of protected bike lanes may cause increased car congestion.

Some of the business owners view this as a hindrance for their stores. Some say that bikers wouldn’t buy anything from stores, cutting down on actual customer traffic.

“We need to do anything we can to protect that retail,” Clayton Alderman Ira Berkowitz said, adding data that suggests the bike lanes should in fact increase customer traffic.

Other residents also question the safety of the lanes.

“We’re going to have some accidents … we’re going to have some banged up people,” Harold Sarner, a resident who lives on Forsyth, near Maryland, said.

Maryland is a street which receives a fair amount of traffic as is, and functions well with five lanes for cars to drive on. With a reduced space, problems arise despite the

protected bike lanes.

In contrast, many Clayton residents support the addition of protected bike lanes.

Clayton Mayor Harold Sanger referred to the new apartment buildings bringing new residents; even if only 40 percent of the residents have bikes, this adds 240 new bikers.

Every day bikes are used for recreation and commute in the city, only becoming more popular with the recent introduction of LimeBikes in April. Many of the residents who spoke at the meeting on the 28th felt that the bikers in Clayton lack safe paths to ride on and would bike more often if there were protected lanes for them, their children and others.

However, this could also congest the road.

As of now, Maryland has five lanes, and one for parking. After the resurfacing, the number of lanes will decrease in number, leaving only three lanes for much of Maryland. The

added protection of bikers comes at the cost of reducing driving space for cars.

Some residents do not yet know what to fully make of the situation. “Let’s run with it, but let’s think ahead to what the broader plan is,” said Jeff Leonard, another Clayton citizen. Many people are skeptical about it, but are also optimistic that the new bike lanes could offer safer access to bikers in Clayton on Maryland.

The addition of the protected bike lanes could mark a progressive move for the City of Clayton. Cities across the nation have been adding bike lanes to promote the method of travel. Some residents also view the addition of bike lanes as being attractive for the city. Clayton Alderman Michelle Harris commented: “We are trying to attract these young people who are active, families who are active.”

10 | NEWS

ARCHitecture & renovations

NOOR JERATH | PAGE EDITOR JOSEPHINE CROSS | PAGE EDITOR

F

or St. Louisans, the Arch really means home,” Tom Nagel, communications manager for the Gateway National Park Foundation, said.

“When they see it from an airplane, or when they’re coming back on a road trip, as soon as they see the Arch, they know they’re home.”

Renovations on the iconic Gateway Arch were completed this past July, offering visitors a completely new and improved experience.

The Gateway Arch National Park, formerly the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, was originally built as a make-work project started during the Great Depression.

Hence the former name, it was built as a memorial to honor Thomas Jefferson and other pioneers in the westward expansion movement. While it has always been a unit of the National Park Service, the grounds are now officially a National Park.

The goal of the recent renovation was to make the park more accessible to the public and more connected to the city. Previously, visitors had to cross a parking garage and multiple lanes of traffic just to access the park.

“That really wasn’t a fitting entrance for something that’s so important to the city,” said Nagel.

The plan for the massive $380 million renovation was born out of The City + The Arch + The River 2015: Framing a Modern

Photo by Michael Melinger Masterpiece International Design Competition, which was won by landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburg in 2009.

According to the Gateway Arch Park Foundation’s 2018 update statement, “The Arch has long represented St. Louis’s efforts to look forward.” Valkenburg embraced this idea in his designs by creating an eco-friendly and sustainable system that not only helps the environment, but has also lowered the park’s maintenance cost.

The park now gathers storm water to use for irrigation, as opposed to bringing in water from the city department like they did previously. Before the renovation, a nitrogen fertilizer was used to treat the park’s plants; however, runoff caused algae blooms in the surrounding water. Now, a liquid biological amendment (more commonly known as compost tea) is made with spent grain from Anheuser Busch.

“The water is extracted from [the composted grain] and then the soil scientists kind of feed the microbes in that water and then lay it down within the soil. So the microbes are interacting with the root systems and with other organisms in the soil to produce all those nutrients that the plants want…in kind of a way that’s in harmony with nature,” Nagel said.

He also hopes that this project will set a new precedent for collaborations. “For cities, towns, municipalities and big infrastructure projects, [the renovations have] created a new

model for how agencies and organizations can come together, create public private partnerships and make things happen.”

The renovation marked the largest public-private partnership ever for the National Park Service, the largest amount of private funding for a National Park and the first time that a community has approved a tax to support a National Park renovation.

Forward-thinking is not a new perspective for the park, however. During the Arch’s construction in the 1960s, innovative engineering techniques and new materials such as stainless steel were utilized to create what Nagel referred to as a world-famous icon of modern architecture.

“My dad described how while they were building the Arch in the ‘60s, they were also building jet engines and spaceships…it really embodies not just the past, but the forward looking optimism of the American spirit,” Nagel said.

Since its construction, the Arch has been a point of civic pride not just for St. Louis, but for all of Missouri.

“People can go all over the world and say they’re from St. Louis and everyone knows that’s where the Gateway Arch is,” Nagel said.

The Arch has become a unifying feature that people all throughout the state can identify with.

“The St. Louis region is very diverse — different people from all sorts of backgrounds live here, but everyone calls this place home.

And the Arch symbolizes that,” Nagel said.

“It’s really a magnet that brings everyone together and makes them proud to be St. Louisans.”

In addition to renovating the grounds, the history museum inside the Arch has also been redone. The renovation of the museum not only includes a change in architecture, but changes have also been made to what is being displayed inside the museum. The layout of the museum is different than before, just like the story it tells.

“We decided that the old museum under the Arch, the one that was torn out, did not tell the whole story that visitors wanted to hear,” Robert Moore, historian for the National Park Service at Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, said.

Moore took the lead in deciding what would be displayed in the museum and making certain that everything put into all of the various text panels added up to an overall story that was fair and accurate.

“For me, the project began about eight years ago, when I brought together a group of scholars and historians to discuss the park themes and what stories a museum at this site should tell. We have some very difficult stories involving slavery and taking away land from American Indians and Mexicans, so I wanted to be sure that these groups were represented by historians who had studied them and the effects of westward expansion on them. Basically, having many stories meant that there were many perspectives, and thus we had to have many voices at the table,” Moore said.

The old museum portrayed the story from

the time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 to the present day. However, people lived in this area long before that. Moore decided the new museum should start with the story of the mound-building Native Americans and the story of the French settlement of St. Louis.

The renovated Gateway Arch museum contains six galleries: French Colonial St. Louis (1764-1804), Jefferson’s Vision (18041838), Manifest Destiny (1840-1860), the St. Louis Riverfront (1840-1860), New Frontiers (1860-1930) and Building the Arch (19301965).

“Whereas the old museum was a lot of generic stories about the westward expansion of the United States, this new museum is very much about St. Louis’ paramount role in that part of American history,” Nagel said.

These galleries have been planned by exhibit designers Haley Sharpe Design, based on the information given by Moore and other historians.

They were in charge of designing many aspects of the museum, and also had to look at the way people use the space.

“We know from the past that most people come to the site to see the Arch and ride to the top. So many people do not know that the Arch stands for anything, and do not expect a museum. So the exhibit designers worked out a way for people to walk through the exhibits to reach the tram load zones to go to the top,” Moore said.

Another aspect of the design was increasing accessibility for people who have disabilities. Designers worked to make it more accessible on the Arch grounds as well

11 | NEWS as in the museum.

“We set out to create the single most accessible museum in the United States, at least for the time being. Most people think only of wheelchair access when they think of accessibility, but we had a committee of people with various abilities in something we called The Universal Design Group who reviewed all of the exhibit ideas and pointed out ways in which we could make them more accessible,” Moore said.

One of these improvements is that models of objects were created so that people who are blind can access the displays as well. There are also American Sign Language videos for the deaf.

The renovations of the Gateway Arch museum required a lot of effort, but the success is evident. While the true economic impact is not yet known, a variety of new features have been designed to attract tourists to the new space.

“The role of the Gateway Arch Park Foundation is really shifting from coordinating this construction project to being a conservator of the park,” Nagel said. “So we’re not just going to build the park, we really want to activate it as well.”

The grounds now hold new biking and running paths, a historical trail through the 90-acre park and a number of public events throughout the year.

“Every day there’s something to do,” Nagel said. “Whether you’re learning about history, enjoying the park as a park or coming down for a special event, there’s always something for you.”

Top and bottom left photos from the New Frontier exhibit Right photo from the Riverfront Era exhibit Photos from the NPS

12 | NEWS

a scooby swamp

Clayton dog park closed for construction due to recurring flooding MAX KELLER | REPORTER

A

nyone who owns a dog loves seeing them have fun off-leash. But soon, the dogs of Clayton will have no place to run free. Starting November 1st, the Clayton dog park will be closing to facilitate construction for new drainage systems. The Anderson Park area, where the dog park is located, has continually been plagued by major flooding. Only now has the construction of new piping begun.

Anderson park has only been in Clayton for a bit more than a decade, but it has been helpful for the dog owners who live here.

“People knew this was happening ever since 2008,” Patty DeForrest, Clayton’s Parks and Recreation director, said. “We probably shouldn’t have built the park until after the construction, but people insisted.”

The dog park takes up a little less than two acres out of the 4.6 acre park. The entry fee is $40 for one dog, and the membership can be bought from the City of Clayton. Dogs can almost always be found playing there during the day. However, these dogs will have to go somewhere else once the construction starts on Nov. 1.

Photo by Michael Melinger

“[The construction] is horrible. It’s absolutely horrible,” one member of the park said.

“I have so many friends that I meet here. It’s a big social community.”

A few members have asked the City of Clayton to find a temporary spot for the dog park, but according to DeForrest, there is not a real option for relocation at the moment.

“I’d appreciate being relocated and would prefer that to nothing,” another member said.

While Clayton possesses a few other parks, no suitable spot could be found for a new dog park. In addition to the lack of space, DeForrest found it unlikely that many citizens would advocate for a new dog park in close proximity to them.

“People don’t usually like it when there’s a dog park near them. You can get annoyed at the barking of your neighbor’s dog. Imagine having hundreds of dogs next door,” DeForrest said.

However, dog owners will still have options. Brentwood, Maplewood and other neighboring counties have dogs parks as well. DeForrest assures that dog parks will be accessible to Clayton residents as long as

they have a membership with the county that owns the park. However, the waiting list for these parks might be too big for the districts to handle. Some districts will not be accepting memberships until 2019, and Clayton members might have to wait even longer to get into the park. “[Other districts] couldn’t guarantee how many spots would be open for 2019, because, as Clayton does, they take residents first.”

Eileen, a current Clayton dog park member, said.

The piping will run under Clayton road and into the park, where an underground structure will be built to stop the flooding.

DeForrest explained that the piping is so deep underground that Clayton road will be unaffected during the construction. The piping has already started at the Des Peres River where workers are drilling into the ground and heading towards Clayton.

The construction will come with benefits other than just flood prevention. The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, or MSD, is paying $300 million for the complete destruction and rebuilding of the park.

The construction is expected to last until February 2021, but it could be pushed back to March, should the project be unexpectedly delayed. Luckily, the City of Clayton was able to cut the construction time in half after some negotiation with MSD. DeForrest stated that no delays are expected and that everything is on schedule. MSD has already begun scouting the area the prepare for construction, but the park is still usable. Also, the dog park itself will be getting an upgrade.

The dog park will be adding an exercise section to the park. It will allow dogs to have a greater number of obstacles to run around and generally be more active than before.

The new section will be expansive, but the dog park will still not take up all of the park.

The rest of the area reserved for the dogs will remain generally the same.

“We really like the fencing and ground of the current dog park, so that’s what we’re going for with the new one,” DeForrest said.

Another addition for the park is the planting of new trees donated by the Anderson family, who the park was named after because of their previous donations.

When the park reopens in 2021, the dogs of Clayton will be happier than ever. In the meantime, they’ll just have to wait.

coca construction

13 | NEWS

COCA facilities are being renovated throughout 2018 and 2019 SASHA KELLER | REPORTER

T

he arts center in University City, COCA, is currently in the process of being renovated and expanded.

COCA is a multidisciplinary center focused in arts education. The programs consist of classes, camps, workshops and a wide variety of shows and performances throughout the year. These programs also serve a wide range of students varying in age from preschoolers to senior citizens.

The building was first renovated in 1986 when it was transformed from the B’nai Amoona synagogue to an arts center by contractor Richard Baron.

“We definitely have been getting a lot of attention, and I think that happens anytime an iconic building is expanded or touched in any way. We tried really hard to compliment the original architects work here, not to copy it, but to compliment it because it’s iconic.” the project lead for expansion of COCA, Catherine Wermert said.

To keep the iconic aspects of the original architecture by Eric Mendelsohn, COCA is trying to add on to the building while tying in the original layout and design of the space to preserve the local landmark.

Photo by Cicely Krutzsch “The plan is to be able to serve more, that’s exactly why we wanted to do it. We wanted to serve more students, we wanted to serve more community,” Wermert said.

Phase one of the construction process, renovation, started in February of 2018 and was completed this summer in order for fall classes to be able to be held in the new studios.

“This past year multiple levels of ballet classes were being held in one studio because there wasn’t enough studio space to have the two classes in different rooms,” CHS freshman and COCA student Sophie Clark said. “I think the renovation will let each class have much more room while dancing, which I am very excited about.”

Wermert also speaks on the issue of space at the arts center.

“We started talking about this four years ago when we realized that we were just running out of space,” she said. “We recognize in our building now, there’s not a whole lot of room to just sit and drink a cup of coffee and relax, it’s very tight so we wanted to create some community space as well.”

COCA raised $45 million through local

donors and community functions. They are aiming for the project to cost around $32 million in total. The entire process should be completed in December of 2019 meaning the two-phase operation will have ideally lasted about two years.

As the fourth arts education center in the nation, COCA wants to be able to support more people and students of its community.

By creating a larger and more open space, the students and faculty will grow in numbers and be able to support the thousands of people in the St. Louis community and the large group of students that are part of COCA’s PPD program. The PPD program consists of students that are part of student companies and perform for the St. Louis community in shows at COCA. Wermert also wanted to make sure COCA considered the community aspect of the building and its location,.

“We were committed, we wanted to be here, we wanted to stay in University City, we wanted to stay in this beautiful iconic building,” she said. “We love it, we love this community.”

14 | FEATURE

i am.

SARAH BAKER and KATIE HE | PAGE EDITORS “I always tell my sons to be proud of themselves,” Glenridge Elementary librarian Jude Hagene said. “They are biracial, and the minute they walk into a room, they are subjected to whatever people think about their skin color. They cannot hide, but I can. I can pass as a straight woman. I decided it was time for me to ‘walk the talk’ and be proud of who I am, regardless of what people think.”

Over 20 states explicitly prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Missouri is not one of these states.

However, in 2011, the School District of Clayton changed their non-discrimination policy to include protection of faculty on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Although many districts in the St. Louis area have enacted similar policies, Clayton is one of the more progressive. This important factor allows staff who identify as LGBT to feel safe and supported in Clayton.

Beverly Nance, former principal of Wydown, made national headlines this summer when she was denied housing with her wife, Mary Walsh, at Friendship Village Sunset

WMS Assistant Principal Doug Wehner.

Photo from the Clayton School District.

Photo of CHS Journalism Teacher Erin Sucher-O’Grady (Center) and her wife, Dr. Lauren Sucher-O’Grady, (Left) and children, Paul Castellano (Center) and Tommy Castellano (Right). Photo by Courtney Meiner.

Hills retirement community.

The women sued the retirement community in federal court on the basis of sex discrimination. If they were a heterosexual couple, they argue, they would have been allowed to live together.

While Dr. Nance was not open about her sexual orientation during her years of employment in Clayton, she is now taking a different path to fight for equality.

In light of Dr. Nance’s current legal plight, the Globe explored some of the current Clayton faculty’s experiences since the passage of the District’s non-discrimination policy in 2011.

“I actually chose to come to Clayton and teach because I thought it was inclusive,” Janet Crews, instructional coordinator at Glenridge, said. “I was teaching in a district in South County and it was not a very inclusive community, and so I came here with that belief. And as a teacher, I have been one hundred percent supported.”

Superintendent Sean Doherty agrees that Clayton has an accepting climate for faculty who identify as LGBT. “Clayton has a very open and welcoming environment and I think that is one of the hallmarks of our district,” Doherty said. “I have been in other districts and I haven’t seen it as open as I see it here. I really admire that we have people who feel comfortable being who they are in our community.”

In schools without anti-discrimination policies, teachers may fear for their job security.

“I lost my job in New Mexico because of my orientation,” Hagene said. “So it does happen.”

Some teachers feel that Clayton’s anti-discrimination policy was overdue.

“I worked with a group of teachers that were trying to get Clayton to change their policy in the late 90’s,” Christina Vodicka, an art teacher at CHS, said. “We gathered a lot of information and it sat on the desk at the

15 | FEATURE

central office for a very long time. And then eventually it changed. So in one sense, it felt like it had taken a long time, but it was also sort of validation. It’s nice to be brought to the table in an official way.”

Vodicka and others understand the power and importance for students to have a diverse staff.

“When people in positions of power are saying that the door is open to you equally, it has a very validating effect on someone who is figuring that out for themselves,” Erin Sucher-O’Grady, journalism teacher at CHS, said. “I think when students can see role models and examples of people in their communities, it can be really powerful for them.”

However, for some members of the community, a teacher’s sexual orientation might be viewed as a political issue.

“If I were straight and I put up a picture of my wife, it is just a statement of my identity,” Wehner said. “But if I were a gay man and I put up a picture of my husband, to some it would be a form of identity, to others, it is a political stance.”

Although the school district provides a generally safe climate for staff members who identify as LGBT, some advocate for further change.

“As a gay parent, I have to fill out forms every single year that still say ‘mother father,’” Crews said. “So I cross them off every single year and write ‘parent parent.’ But it never seems to change anything.”

Clayton faculty also understand the importance of diverse representation in our schools.

“We need to walk through the building with our eyes open as if we are an LGBT student,” Wehner said. “How often do these

students see a reinforcement of a male-female paradigm and how often do they see a reinforcement of a male-male or female-female paradigm? I think it is important for a student’s sense of self that they see themselves represented in school.”

Some teachers feel that there are easy changes to ensure that every student feels respected at school.

“I don't understand why we don't have easily accessible gender-neutral bathrooms,”

Sucher-O’Grady said. “We just need to change a sign on a door. The ones that we have are hidden and awkward for the students who want to use them. This sends the message that we are not supportive.”

There is a lot of divisiveness in the country, and some faculty feel that it is time to speak out.

“The people who came out when I was growing up lost their job, their family, everything,” Wehner said. “Being open about who I am is the least I can do to honor them for what they have done for me. I now need to carry the torch.

Right now, people who are anti-gay feel emboldened and think that it is okay to say anti-gay things. If we can justify discriminating against one group of people, where does that stop?”

At this time when Beverly Nance is carrying her own torch, Clayton faculty are grateful to be in a district that allows them to express themselves.

“I feel a deep appreciation for a district where I can be myself and where I can bring my kids around and feel like they will be welcome,” Sucher-O’Grady said. “I hope that, as students make their journey through the District, they will feel the same embrace that I feel.”

The passage of the policy in 2011 has had a noticeable impact on faculty and administrators who have chosen to make Clayton their professional home.

“We are an environment that hires high-quality people who are working in the best interests of our students, and their sexual orientation is not going to impact that,” Doherty said. “I think our teachers are incredible.

They’re all coming from different stories and have different backgrounds, and I think that’s what makes us stronger.”

16 | FEATURE

robotics rolls into wydown A robotics team is introduced to Wydown LUKA BASSNETT | REPORTER

C

layton is known for its successful FIRST high school robotics team.

However, no similar club exists at Wydown Middle School.

That will change this school year, when The middle school will become home to its own FIRST Tech Challenge robotics club.

The new team will be organized by Brett Kalmes, the middle school’s engineering teacher, and a recent arrival to the District.

Kalmes has had experience with robotics teams before. Prior to his arrival at Wydown last year, he ran the FIRST Tech Challenge and FIRST Lego League robotics teams at McKinley Classical Leadership Academy.

Kalmes believes that having a robotics team at the middle school level is important.

“This is the first time that they’ve had a robotics program at the school,” Kalmes said.

“I just want to make sure that there is a good after-school program for them to start out with.”

He hopes to recruit between 15 and 20

students for the new club. Each of these students will participate in an annual robotics competition.

The middle school competition, the FIRST Tech Challenge, is more relaxed than its high school counterpart, the FIRST Robotics Competition.

Each year, the FIRST organization releases the rules for a specially designed game. This year, the game is based on the Apollo 11 mission.

At the high school level, teams have only six weeks to build and test a robot that can play the game. However, at the middle school, competitors have 10 weeks to build their robot and are allowed to modify it between competitions, an advantage not permitted to the high-schoolers.

In addition to the extended time frame, the middle school club will operate on a much smaller scale. The high school team has a large budget with a business team devoted to getting grants from companies like Boeing

and Monsanto.

These grants can be several thousand dollars each, and annual budgets for high school teams frequently add up to over $15,000, a high sum for an effort that lasts for only six weeks each year. The budget for a middle school team like Wydown’s is much smaller.

The St. Louis branch of FIRST estimates the budget for a first-year team to be around two thousand dollars.

The new Wydown team will be run in a manner similar to that of the high school’s robotics team. The entire organization will be divided into several smaller groups, each devoted to a specific branch of robotics.

“There’s an engineering team, a design team, a build team, a coding team,” Kalmes said, “and they all have to work together and also work independently within their groups to solve different problems. They also have to have a team where they look into raising money, they have to put together somewhat of a business plan, and so there are a lot of

17 | FEATURE

different aspects that mirror the high school team as well.”

In fact, Kalmes envisions significant cooperation with the high school team.

He imagines that high school students will travel to Wydown to act as mentors to the younger students, and hopes that middle school students will still want to remain involved in the club after they finish eighth grade. ¨Hopefully we can have that transition where once [the middle schoolers] leave the middle school they’ll still want to come back down to the middle school and help out, which I think will be really, really good,¨ Kalmes said.

The middle school’s Science Olympi-

ad team has been established for several years and is another popular STEM-based after-school program. Kalmes is not worried that potential roboticists will gravitate there instead. In fact, Kalmes is comfortable with sharing students with the other club. However, he does have some restrictions.

“I will tell the students that if they want to do both, that’s fine,” Kalmes said, “ but if we have a competition coming up I expect them to be with me the whole week, and vice versa, if they have a competition for Science Olympiad coming up, I expect them to be with Science Olympiad for the entire week.¨ Building a successful robot requires a complex set of skills. Students must know how to design the robot in 3D modeling software, build parts to exact dimensions and wire motors together. In addition to this, they must be able to program the robot’s

computer. While these requirements may seem daunting, the students will gain many of the necessary skills at school.

“If they are taking any of my regular classes in the Project Lead the Way pathway, especially the Automation and Robotics pathway, they get a lot of [the necessary skills] from class,” Kalmes said. “They learn about mechanisms and gear ratios, and basic building skills. They get to learn about some of [the] mechanisms that get to go into an actual competition robot, which is kind of cool.”

Many of the members of the robotics team will have taken engineering classes before; however, Kalmes believes that even students who are not taking his engineering classes can find value in the club.

“It’s just a good experience to be on a team, work in a collaborative situation. I think it’s good for everyone, whether you’ve done [engineering] or not,” Kalmes said.

“There’s so many different moving parts to this, and I think that anybody who would like to do it can do it.”

“There’s so many different moving parts to this, and I think that anybody who would like to do it can” - Kalmes

“It’s just a good experience to be on a team, work in a collaborative situation. I think it’s good for everyone, whether you’ve done [engineering] or not”

- Kalmes Photos of the Clayton High School Robotics team. Wydown Middle School is developing their own team this school year. Photos by Sean Kim.

18 | FEATURE

cultivating clayton’s choir Under the direction of its new director, Raynard Brown, the high school choir program anticipates significant growth.

DISHA CHATTERJEE | REPORTER

and the only bass in the CHS choir last year, with the start of the 2018 school year he has already seen the choir’s numbers increase and people flooding into show choir.

“This year we’re bigger than we’ve been in a while,” Thomas said. “While I’m sure Mr. Urvan, the choir teacher at Wydown, has something to do with the renewed interest in choir, I think it’s mostly because of Mr. Brown.”

Brown grew up singing in church and started teaching in 1985 in Lebanon, Missouri. The program ran about 700 to 800 students in a choir. A lot of traveling was involved, especially since the big time show choir traveled a lot during competition season. They even sang for three different presidents. After Brown married, he moved back to St. Louis, where he taught at Parkway for 16 years. Brown also did professorships and taught at UMSL, Ithaca College and Maryville, until finally deciding to retire. When he started getting ready to quit teaching, a friend mentioned a parttime job at Clayton. Brown ended up interviewing and was offered the job.

“He’s there for you, he’s not there for him. He’s there because he loves it,” sophomore choir student Cavan Helmering said.

After examining past records, Brown agreed that choirs at CHS tend to be smaller, which he believes is due to Clayton students being heavily involved in other activities.

Helmering mentioned that numbers are low in comparison to other schools in the area.

“It’s a 16 person choir, other schools have like over 50… they’ll have a huge amount of people.

We don’t really have that much,” she said.

I

n recent years, the CHS choir program has fallen into a rut of obscurity, with minimal presence in the high school and decreasing participation.

However, with the introduction of new parttime teacher Raynard Brown, the potential seems to be growing.

Despite the dramatic drop from 66 requests in the 2016-2017 year to a mere 35 by the next school year, more students are gradually expressing interest: the total number of students participating in the 2018-2019 year have now hit 58.

Currently, 16 members are in the chamber choir class, and around 42 are attending the zero-hour show choir meetings.

Clayton High School sophomore Leo Thomas is excited at the prospect. He found a passion for music when he first joined choir in third grade at Captain with his teacher Mr. Mayer. He has continued to take choir ever since. He has also seen a new choir teacher every year since sixth grade, but with low participation. However, a new future may finally be in store for the program. Although Thomas was one of three boys

“He’s there for you, he’s not there for him.

He’s there because he loves it.”

Cavan Helmering

19 | FEATURE The choir class itself is only offered one period in the day, which creates scheduling conflicts since classes cannot always be moved around to accommodate choir in students’ schedules. Still, Brown is certain that the choir program will grow and is already fascinated with the current progress.

“The students who are in there now are doing phenomenal, and I think that’s why I want to name the show choir Legacy, because I see kids who are going to leave a lasting legacy. I think the program is going to grow… All the choirs sound amazing. I really, really mean that,” Brown said.

Although he is impressed by the number of students coming in, he plans on hosting activities such as an ice cream social to raise awareness and allow others to get to know him. He has assigned the role of executive assistant to some of his students, who are helping in planning these get-togethers.

“Big time goals are to give students great opportunities, kind of just go out and see that the choir world is much bigger than they think, and kind of connect with other schools and other communities… Probably do some events that really speak into the community, whether we can help somewhere, or we can do activities that reach out to a disenfranchised group of people, where choir has a real purpose other than just singing songs,” Brown said in regards to his long term plans for the choir, which speaks to the new future the choir program might have at Clayton.

Not only does he believe that choir has a greater purpose, he believes it cultivates a memorable community.

“I know with my past students they’ve built such a great community that last summer, I went and spent seven days with 24 of my former students down in Nashville. The reason why that is is because they built such a great family, a great

community, and they have purpose and they have function and they build great memories.

When I think you’re along the way trying to get a really solid education… I think you also don’t want to leave out an opportunity to live a solid life. And I think choir will kind of give you that,” he said.

The current students enrolled in choir sing high praises for the new teacher. “Mr. Brown is by far the best choir teacher I have ever had,” freshman Jimmy Landau said. “He can tell us how we’re all doing, and what we need to work on.” Other students share the same sentiment.

“Mr. Brown brings an exciting yet professional atmosphere to the choir room. He pushes us to improve but always lets us know that he knows that we can,” Thomas said. It is widely agreed upon that Brown is both accepting of every voice, regardless of the skill level, but pushes the choir to reach their potential as a whole. .

Photos of Brown (page left) and show choir practice (above) by Michael Melinger.

20 | FEATURE

a roaring victory CHS History Teacher Kathryn Lyons’ quest for the gold medal at the 2010 World Ultimate Club Championship.

JACOB LAGESSE | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF MICHAEL BERNARD | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Lyons (left) dives for the frisbee. Photos from Lyons.

T

o Kathryn Lyons, history teacher at CHS, Ultimate frisbee is more than just a game played by college students in a quad. In 2010, Lyons competed in the World Ultimate Club Championship in the Czech Republic. She has watched the sport grow out of infancy in its struggle to gain athletic legitimacy across the globe.

Lyons began her ultimate career in college.

Throughout high school, she had been very active in athletics, playing soccer, basketball and running track and cross country. How-

ever, she knew that it was unlikely she would be able to continue those sports at the collegiate level. Lyons still wanted to find a way to remain active and compete, so she turned to Ultimate frisbee to fill that void.

Playing on the ultimate team in college required three practices a week, and one weekend each month was spent travelling to tournaments. These tournaments were usually two days long and four to five games were played each day.

After graduating college, Lyons began playing with a team from St. Louis. According

to Lyons, there are four major club teams that play in the city, two of which are co-ed, called “mixed”.

To qualify for the international competition, Lyons’ team had to place in the top four teams in the nation at a qualifying tournament in October. These qualifying tournaments take place every two years. In 2009, her team placed 10th in the United States.

“I really wanted to travel abroad and play frisbee,” Lyons said. “So I switched teams.”

At the time, Lyons was dating was someone who was on a team called the Chad Lar-

son Experience (CLE), named after an Ultimate frisbee player at Iowa State University.

The CLE had placed second overall in the national tournament and had qualified for the world championship. Lyons was accepted onto the team, and during the summer of the following year the CLE travelled to the Czech

“To see it all pay off was an amazing feeling. I was elated, I was thankful I was part of the experience and had the opportunity.”

Republic to compete.

The tournament was hosted in Prague over the course of four days. When she wasn’t competing, Lyons enjoyed exploring the foreign city and was fascinated by the historical architecture.

“It was really interesting to see the impact communism had on just the building of the cities,” Lyons said. “You could definitely see the buildings that were built before communism took over and the buildings that were

built after the communist takeover. You would experience and had the opportunity.” have these gorgeous medieval churches next Despite the variety of nations that competto a dilapidated communist bloc.” ed, the teams from the U.S. remained domiLyons played against teams from a multinant in most divisions. According to Lyons, tude of countries, including teams from Japan, Ultimate frisbee is still considered a primarAustralia and Canada. Because of the diverse ily American sport. However, since the 2010 backgrounds of the competicompetition, as ultimate has tors, she feared that language gained legitimacy as a sport, barriers would make it difficult international teams have beto play. Ultimate frisbee is an come stronger. unofficiated sport, meaning Lyons continued to play for that players are responsible for a few years after her victory calling their own fouls. Howin Prague, but since she had ever, Lyons found that many her second child she has not foreign players did know some been able to play as much as English, and that commushe wanted. She has considnication between teams was ered coming back to the sport manageable. Her team spent and playing in the older Masout of 40 time socializing with the those ters Division or returning as a teams from other nations, and even coach. exchanged jerseys with other Through her Ultimate frisplayers in a gathering on the bee career, Lyons has travelled last night. the world and met new people, including her The CLE played a Canadian team in the future husband. She would become engaged final round for the title of the mixed divito her boyfriend on the CLE one week before sion. After a hard-fought game, Lyons’ team the world championship. emerged victorious.

“It can lead to big things,” Lyons said.

“You work so hard all season to prepare “That’s what I enjoy about Ultimate. Regardphysically and mentally for it, and to see it filess of the level of competition, at the end of nally pay off was an amazing feeling,” Lyons the day you’re all just humans, coming togethsaid. “I was elated, thankful I was part of the er, competing and having a good time.”

1st

a

MORE

perfect

School.

By Zach Fischer, Grace Snelling, Sara Stemmler and Lila Taylor with reporting by Richard Cheng

“A More Perfect School.” What would a school look like if it was designed with human biology and the best learning practices in mind? According to the leading minds in educational and learning research, we would sleep more and move more. We would have more time to process and to think. We would be disconnected from devices and more connected to each other.

Here is the Globe’s deep dive into the pillars that could make “A More Perfect School.”

SLEEP & EXERCISE

On Sept. 7, 2018, California lawmakers enrolled a bill that would mandate most school start times in the state be pushed back to 8:30 a.m.

Currently, the bill is awaiting a signature from California Governor Jerry Brown. If it is approved, it will allow schools a maximum window of three years to adjust their schedules.

The movement follows an influx of newly-recognized research which points to insufficient sleep as a common factor behind issues

such as poor test scores and mental health disorders in students. According to California Senator Anthony J. Portantino, who drafted the bill and was interviewed by The New York Times, “[Earlier start times are] the biological equivalent of waking you or me up at 3:30. Imagine how you would feel if, 187 days a year, you had to get up at 3:30 a.m. You’d be miserable, you’d be depressed — you’d act like a teenager.”

In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics classified school start times before 8:30

HOW MUCH SLEEP DOES CHS GET?

as “a key modifiable contributor to insufficient sleep, as well as circadian rhythm disruption, in [teens],” and additionally identified insufficient sleep as a public health issue. Yet, Portantino’s assertion that teens are biologically predisposed to be repelled by early school start times is backed by research that was conducted over 20 years ago.

“Before the 1990s, we didn’t realize that during the years of puberty, teens experience a later shift in their sleep cycle,” said Stacy Simera, a practicing mental health counselor

and volunteer for the non-profit organization Start School Later.

“We have a hormone called melatonin that we secrete in the evening and that hormone tells us that it’s nighttime. We used to think that everybody secreted melatonin at the same time. In the 90s they found a way that they could measure melatonin by swabbing the inside of your mouth and getting saliva samples. And when they took saliva samples from little kids, teenagers and adults they found out that during the years of puberty, adolescents secrete melatonin almost an hour and a half later than little kids and adults. And then once puberty is over, so around the mid20s, melatonin secretion goes back to earlier.

By the 90s, we’d already created school schedules where buses are coming around five or six in the morning.”

Simera, who has her bachelor’s degree in psychology and her master’s in social work, offers private counseling to teenagers, college students and adults for a range of mental health issues varying from depression to PTSD. She began advocating for later school start times after observing the effects of insufficient sleep on her patients and her two young sons.

As a volunteer staff member for Start School Later, Simera researches the effects of sleep on teen mental health and uses her knowledge to encourage schools in Ohio–– and across the nation––to adjust school start times to sync with teen sleep needs.

Start School Later has chapter leaders around the US that are pediatricians, psychologists, other social workers, counselors, physicians, sleep medicine specialists and other parents. The national non-profit started because it has been hard for local schools to do it all on their own.

“Even though this research has been known since the 90s, it often takes collaboration at a larger level to get the information out and to learn from other schools how they were able to start later,” Simera said. “And so a lot of people realized that we need to team together. Because otherwise, one parent might fight it for like five years until their kids graduate and then they’re like, ‘I’m tired, I’m not gonna fight it anymore if my kids won’t see the benefits,’ so they give up. In fact, I realized several years ago that my two sons will never see the benefit of any changes that occur in my school, but I’m still fighting for the benefit of other people’s kids.”

To most people, it is obvious that lack of sleep has the ability to stunt mental functions and decrease productivity. Yet, according to Simera, those who are not experts in the subject tend to grossly underestimate the potential consequences that come with systematically depriving teens of the appropriate amount of sleep. Especially in terms of mental health, insufficient sleep is a simple factor that

can have detrimental repercussions.

“Early school times don’t just shorten sleep, they disrupt your sleep, because for teenagers, you get your healthiest sleep between 8 a.m and 11 a.m. We used to think that the only side-effect of not getting enough sleep was simply being tired. We used to think, ‘oh, that’s the only thing that goes wrong. You’re just tired,’ so you drink some coffee. Well now we know that when you don’t get enough sleep over and over again, the impacts are much more than fatigue,” Simera said. “Over 60 studies have found links between chronic insufficient sleep and increased risk of suicide.

I’m not saying less sleep is the only factor is suicide, we know that a lot of things feed into that, but from my point of view as a mental health counselor, if I’m sitting down with a high school student that has depression and severe suicidal ideation, I know there’s a lot of things that feed into that. But some of those things I can’t control. I can’t change someone’s past. I probably can’t change their support system all that much. There are variables that I can’t change. But sleep, that’s a low-hanging fruit. That’s a variable that we can influence.”

In addition to suicide, insufficient sleep has been concretely linked to early substance

“Over 60 studies have found links between chronic insufficient sleep and increased risk of suicide.”

- Stacy Simera, Start School Later

abuse, increased risk of car crashes and severe sports-related injuries. Based on a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics, athletes who slept the appropriate eight to 10 hours per night were 68 percent less likely to be injured than their peers who slept less.

Sufficient sleep not only has the ability to prevent harm to students; it can also significantly improve their overall academic performance, a finding which has encouraged many schools across the nation to stagger school schedules in order to accomodate the needs of students of all age brackets. Recently, in response to this research, Duke University banned any classes that would take place before 8:30 a.m.

25 | COVER CHS psychology teacher David Aiello explained that, in an ideal world, changes to the high school schedule would be much more drastic.

“If the school system was set up for students, we should be starting school around noon. And ideally we’d go from noon until 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. with classes, then we’d do all the after school activities until 9:00 or 10:00 p.m., then you guys would be able to do school work from midnight to 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., then you go to sleep around 3:00 a.m.. And then you’d be sleeping until 11:00 a.m.. That seems to be the biological rhythm scale that most late-adolescents are in. Once teens hit puberty, their natural biological schedule changes.

Trying to go to bed at 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. is really difficult because your biological rhythms tell you that you’re still active and ready to do things. And so the schedule is made out for adults in society, it fits with when adults want to be waking up and their working schedules.

If parents have to be up and going to work at 8:00 a.m., then the kids have to be at school at 8:00 a.m., because you can’t leave your 7-yearold at home to get themselves going in the morning. So the school system is set up for the adults, and I don’t see a realistic possibility of that changing, unless the way we do school completely changes,” Aiello said.

Yet, Simera said, high school students could benefit greatly from the start of the school day simply being moved back to 9:00 a.m. or a bit later.

At CHS, it is unrealistic for students to be expected to go to sleep earlier in order to catch up on rest, a fact which can be attributed to Clayton’s focus on academic rigor.

“The amount of stress and the amount of homework and the amount of classes and the amount of extracurriculars and all of those other things that pile on top make it so you can’t just shut it all down and go to bed at 11:00 p.m. and wake up at 7:00 a.m. well-rested,” said Aiello.

There is no question that increased amounts of sleep are overtly beneficial to the health of the teenage mind. It is also wellknown that regular exercise is equally necessary to mental health. And the two are not mutually exclusive. “[Exercise] makes you a better sleeper.

It’s kind of a misconception that exercise will keep you awake, it’ll keep you alert, that you won’t be able to fall asleep, when athletes or people who are physically active during the day sleep better than people who aren’t,” CHS Health and PE instructor Sarah Hartman said.

It is no surprise that exercise has many biological and mental benefits to the human

body, a fact that causes many teachers in various fields to question why more steps aren’t being taken to increase the amount of movement an average student has in a day.

Although CHS and most other high schools across the nation either offer or require at least one form of a 45 minute physical education class, Hartman argues that more steps could be taken to maximize the benefits of physical activity within a school day to satisfy the recommended amount of exercise performed in a day. “[The recommended amount of exercise] is 60 minutes a day for children and teenagers in high school. And so they say 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity, which is sometimes abbreviated as MVPA. That means that your heart is racing, you’re getting into your target heart rate zone, you’re sweating, your breathing rapidly, and so you’re actually getting a really good cardio workout. . . So I would arrange it so that there were active movement breaks during the day. I think there’s a lot of importance to getting that 60 minutes of physical activity, whether that’s done through PE, and then some outside of school, but I think there also needs to be built in breaks during the day, where it’s a teacher creating an activity for their students,” Hartman said.

This short-break system has been implemented in several schools around the U.S. already, with each classroom operating under a specific ratio of work to break time, in which students work for the majority of class time, with short five to 10 minute breaks of movement every 30 to 40 minutes.

The belief is that while consecutive minutes of learning have decreased, the amount of information that students receive in the shorter amount of time will be better retained after a short break, thus maximizing the allotted time in which students are actively learning.

Many schools have shied away from this system because they believe these breaks will merely serve as a time in which the brain will be dormant as students whip out their phones or catch up with friends.

Conversely, research has shown that, especially in the presence of movement, the brain is in reality very active during times when it is not actively focusing on learning because the brain is processing and storing information received during the concentrated period of learning.

“Some people don’t like to call them brain breaks, because they said that your brain actually isn’t taking your break. Your brain is actually firing like crazy. But I would love to see like school wide activity breaks that are in in the school day where no matter what classroom I was visiting, every single student in school is doing something active for five to 10 minutes at that designated time,” Hartman said.

Hartman believes that if this short-break system of movement is implemented, students will experience staggering academic and emotional benefits both during and outside of school.

“There’s a lot of research that shows if you’re physically active right before taking a test, you’ll

typically have a little more focus, and you’ll perform a little bit better as well,” Hartman said.

“And there are long term benefits that will help you out as well. So like with your mental wellness, if you’re physically active, it reduces stress, it makes you feel happier, because you have all of these chemicals that are released in your brain as soon as you’re active. So even if you don’t want to be happy, you’re going to be, and that’s kind of a good thing.”

Hartman echoes the sentiment of many high school students participating in sports that often dread going to practice, but emerge in a much better mood afterwards because of endorphins released during this time of activity.

CHS Junior Sara Litteken participates in varsity basketball and varsity soccer in the winter and spring seasons, and has observed positive changes in her mood as an effect.

“Exercising is a great stress reliever for me because I tune everything out and just do my

“If you’re physically active right before taking a tests, you’ll typically have a little more focus, and you’ll perform a little better as well.”

- Sarah Hartman, P.E.

own thing or work with a team. Also, when I have a really good workout and really push myself I feel like I accomplished something that day and it feels more productive than days I don’t workout,” Littiken said.

Although, unsurprisingly, sports take up large chunk of her available time after school to complete homework, Littiken claims that within this shortened amount of time, she is able to accomplish more due to sharpened focus and drive.

“Sports do make it somewhat difficult to complete my homework just because they take up time and sometimes I get antsy when I sit down to do homework after a game or practice.

But at the same time, I think exercising helps me focus after I sit down for a little bit because my mind has had a good break from studying,” Lit-

tiken said.

CHS Junior Brooke Becker participates in diving, volleyball and soccer during all three seasons, and shares the sentiment of reduced stress as a result of her packed schedule.

“I think that when I am active I am usually in a better mood and I am able to focus better than I would without,” Becker said.

So how could we organize a school day that would positively benefit students’ mental health?

Hartman and Simera have some ideas.

One way to reduce students’ stress would be to implement a system of short breaks during an allotted period of active learning, at which time the brain could process information just received and become better prepared to absorb new information. Such methods have been proven to increase overall retention of material and reduce anxiety associated with prolonged mental strain.

In terms of increased sleep, Simera said, shifting the school schedule is a simple matter of community organization and drive to make a change. From there, creativity and unity of the school board have historically had the ability to facilitate the switch.

“I hear it all the time that it would be too hard to change the school schedule. We’ve lost count of how many schools have actually moved to later starting schedules. It’s in the hundreds, if not now thousands. If other other schools can figure it out, then any school in America can. One of the best things to do is to first form a committee. Have the committee include somebody from athletics, a teacher, some health professionals from the community. You’d want to find pediatricians or psychologists or social workers that know science. And you’d want to have parents, so maybe some people from the PTA,” Simera said. “Schools are more likely to change if they label this as a health issue.”

There are many strategies that American schools have devised in an effort to make room for later high school starting times.

Some districts choose to stagger the schedules of their elementary, middle and high schools, so that the teenagers who require the most sleep begin the latest (preferably around 9:00 a.m. or 10:00 a.m.) while the elementary school students might start an hour or more before. Others organize teacher planning periods so that adults can arrive at school at an appropriate time for their biological predisposition, while students arrive at a later time.

“Clayton kids are amazing. They are sophisticated, compassionate, smart kids. I’ve taught at Clayton for 19 years and I’ve always been so grateful to be able to work with such amazing students and amazing families. But can we do better? Is there an ideal we can shoot for that looks a little different? I think yes,” CHS theatre teacher Kelley Weber, who is leading the District’s intative toward mindfulness practices in the classroom, said. “My wish would be for all our students to be confident no matter their grades, to be resilient no matter their circumstances, and to be kind no matter what.”

27 | COVER

WITH OUR MINDS IN MIND In Houston, a survey of teens showed that the chance of obseity increased by 80% for every hour of sleep lost.

- American Journal of Human Biology

Sleep-deprived people generally preform more poorly on straightforward skills tests.�

- Dr. Stickgold, Beth-Israel Hospital

Teens need about eight to 10 hours of sleep each night to function best.

- National Sleep Foundation

Students who sleep the appropriate 10 hours of sleep are 68% less likely to be injured in sports than their other peers.

- American Academy of Pediatrics

The average teen spends nine hours engaged in media everyday.

- Washington Post

77% of Americans experience physical symptoms due to stress.

- The American Institute of Stress

TECH In today’s society, the advance of technology is associated with the advance of modern education. More and more schools are supplying students with their own devices, such as iPads, laptops or Chromebooks. These one-to-one initiatives allow students to access the internet, digital textbooks and other course materials, both throughout the school day and at home.

This fall, CHS instated a one-to-one program, supplying each student with a Chromebook. The student collects the device at the beginning of each year and returns it after second semester, receiving the same device each year.

Gene Gladstone, CHS educational technologist, explained that the school’s introduction of a one-to-one program was justified by an extensive district-wide study on technology.

“Two-and-a-half years ago, the district started a study K-12 to look at the needs of the schools for technology,” Gladstone said. “It was about what devices support learning, and what are the best devices that support our curriculum.

And other the course of an 18-month study, we decided that the high school needed to become mobile.”

While ome have questioned the introduction of the Chromebooks into daily CHS life, junior Kate Lay appreciates the new tool.

“Chromebooks helped me be more organized this school year,” Lay said. “It’s helpful being able to sort notes and assignments in google drive rather than in a traditional binder. The only thing I would change is the battery life mine dies pretty quickly.”

As Clayton moves in the direction of technology, other schools are doing the opposite.

Waldorf School in Silicon Valley, California, has banned technology. Some of the students that attend this offline school include the children of the chief technology officer of ebay, and children of employees of Google, Apple and Yahoo, according to a 2011 article in the New York Times.

This creative, hands-on school which has a demographic similar to that of CHS has banned all screens in classrooms, and even frowns upon them at home.

Closer to home, St. Louis’ own John Burroughs School has a similar philosophy.

While technology is not banned completely, JBS regulates student use of technology strictly.

Burroughs’ director of academics, Christopher Front, spoke on the private school’s unique policy.

“We use technology when we think it adds to the educational goals of particular situations, but when it doesn’t do so, or detracts from those goals, we do not allow it,” Front said. “For example, on any given day, you’ll find lessons being taught with laptops or iPads, and in many rooms you’ll find lessons centered around group

According to a study done by the Pew Research Center, 95 percent of teens report having or having access to a smartphone. And 45 percent admit to being online almost constantly.

discussions. In the common areas during school hours we do not allow students to use personal devices because we want to encourage face-toface discussions that promote community and empathy.”

Technology was never banned suddenly at JBS; it simply has never been introduced the way other schools have pushed one-to-one programs. They often reevaluate their decision, asking themselves what is best for the learning and social health of students.

“There was never a single moment that we implemented the policy. Instead, we revisit our policies often and ask the question: will this benefit or detract from learning and community? For example, we found that there was a very high need for access to laptops when the 8th and 9th graders were working on their history term papers. For that period of the year, we al-

low students to bring in their personal devices, as it made sense educationally,” Front said. “On the other hand, we have held firm on the no-mobile phone policy because we find that students have more meaningful interactions when they don’t allow smart-phone distractions to get in the way.”

This non-traditional learning method isn’t accepted by everyone, yet JBS insists that their method creates a safer and healthier environment for their students to learn in.

“We often get questions from people in the community about why we do things as we do — we are an outlier in the area for sure,” Front said. “And we used to get more pushback, but increasingly parents are relieved that their kids have built in breaks from screens in their day, as more and more concerns are being raised about the unintended impact of unlimited screen access, particularly on the developing brain.”

One such concern is preparing students for college and their lives after school. Technology is sweeping the country, and being proficient in that area could make or break a career. CHS economics teacher Daniel Glossenger worries that removing technology from curriculum could do more harm than administrators might first realize.

“Over the summer, I looked at a lot of the schools in the basis charter school network in Arizona. And though school rankings should be taken with a grain of salt, some of these were the best ranked schools,” Glossenger said. “And most of these schools have completely removed technology from the classroom. Students don’t have it, and teachers don’t use it. It’s pencil and paper all the way, and I was shocked to learn that this summer ... I just wonder how they do it. But I also wonder if they are doing a disservice to students who did not grow up in a tech-saturated home by denying them that opportunity.

I think schools that are trying to move towards a tech-free environment are doing more of a disservice than they intend. There’s a lot of students who rely on schools to teach them how to use technology. Spreadsheets, document editors, those are things that we have to teach if we want to do our duty as educators.”

To try and combat this concern, JBS teaches computer skills to its students in order to ensure that this will not be an issue.

“Over the years, some adults have been concerned that our students will be unprepared for college tech use, but our surveys of our alums have not revealed that to be the case. To be sure, we have revamped our computer science curriculum, though, so that our students possess the necessary skills to use computers for their educational needs,” Front said.

As the world continues to change, Burroughs stays open to change as well. They continuous-

29 | COVER ly rethink their program, ensuring that proper research is done in order to best help their students.

“The policy will no doubt continue to evolve, but the core values and goals are unlikely to change,” Front said. “There is a growing body of research that shows that one-to-one programs not only do not increase the quality of learning, and actually detract from learning. Many college professors are now forbidding students from using laptops in their classes. We just want to be sure that we balance the advantages and disadvantages of technology, and do so thoughtfully.”

Burroughs junior Sarah Herbster recognizes how learning in a place where laptops and cell phones are regulated has helped her.

“Although technology has definitely made life easier for most students, I appreciate how Burroughs has not allowed students to use computers in the classroom,” Herbster said. “When I talk to my friends from other schools who are able to use a computer in a classroom, I often hear that they can be a distraction.”

When she started her school search back in middle school, she toured schools with both regulated technology and a one-to-one program.

“I remember when I was applying for secondary school, I toured a school with school-issued laptops. During my visit, my guide let me play on it, and I remember thinking ‘I don’t really like this,’” she said. “I looked around the classroom and all the other kids were staring at a screen.”

The learning style at JBS helps Herbster learn in a way that promotes a way of thinking that engages her.

She is motivated by the face-to-face learning taught there.

“At Burroughs, students are always engaged in the discussion and taking notes, instead of looking at a computer. You get a sense that everyone in the classroom actually wants to learn the material because they are so focused. As someone who gets easily distracted, I feel like a computer would stop me from listening to the teacher and my peers,” Herbster said.

Additionally, she doesn’t feel limited by the technology regulations.

“Although Burroughs is tech-free in the classroom, it doesn’t mean we don’t have access to computers on campus. Our library is fully stocked with computers so we are able to access our online syllabus at any point. I do wish JBS would let us use our phones during our free periods though. Having a tech free classroom experience definitely makes me more engaged in the conversation or lecture, and I’m able to listen to my classmates as well.”

Aiello doesn’t think that such regulated technology is a practical and sustainable option for students growing up in 2018.

“We’ve talked about this a little bit, there have been some some pockets of conversations here among the adults,” Aiello said. “I think the Social Studies Department definitely feels like we should maybe be taking a little bit more of the lead. I think that it’s noble of [Burroughs] to try and do that. I think that’s unrealistic.”

Instead of regulating electronic devices, Ai-

“There is a growing body of research that shows that one-to-one programs not only do not increase the quality of learning, they actually detract from learning. Many college professors are now forbidding students from using laptops in their classes. We just want to be sure that we balance the advantages and disadvantages of technology, and do so thoughtfully.”

- Christopher Front

Director of Academics, John Burroughs School

ello believes that students should learn how to respectfully use these devices in a safe way that benefits the education and mental health of students.

“To pretend like this is not the lives that you guys are going to be living is silly,” Aiello said.

“Instead, I think we should be having more intentional curriculum, and even maybe a whole course on responsible use of technology and digital citizenship. And right now we sprinkle it in drops and a particular teacher might be kind of passionate about it.”

In Aiello’s opinion, education is the answer to the problems that technology has the possibility to present.

“I would love for us in the humanities to look at doing some stuff when, whether it’s developing an actual course or having some lessons, whether it be through health classes, social studies, classes, whatever, I think that it’s a little bit silly on our part to pretend like we should not be helping out with this,” Aiello said, “this should be part of the education.”

In addition to the challenges and benefits of technology in an educational sense, social media is emerging as a major aspect of the issue as more and more teenagers sign on every day.

According to a study done by the Pew Research Center, 95 percent of teens report having or having access to a smartphone. And 45 percent admit to being online almost constantly.

“We had a professional development day and we had a couple of speakers come in from a group called West County Psychological Associates,” Aiello said. “And the title of their talk was social media and teenagers, you know, lack of connection in the age of connectedness or something like that. And I reached out to them, because I know that as a parent, as a teacher, I have seen such a change in the last five to 10 years of students. And the one change that I can definitely say has happened for us and them is having phones and having home computers and personal laptops and all that kind of stuff.”

Although 31 percent of U.S. teens reported that social media had a positive effect on their lives, 24 percent said that it had a negative effect, materializing in the form of cyberbullying, lack of personal contact, distractions, addiction and much more.

“We’re trying to find out if there’s correlation, but also causation, but we definitely see that kids who have a lot more electronics have a lot more stress and anxiety and other mental problems.

Does one cause the other...it’s also hard to say, ‘No, they’re not related at all, it’s just a coincidence,’” Aiello said.

Aiello mentions added stress that comes hand-in-hand with social media. Ideas such as the “fear of missing out” and unrealistic life perceptions are expressed with social media.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t know what I was missing out on. For you guys, every second of every day, you’re constantly seeing what everybody else is doing is so much better than what you’re doing, and there’s no way you can possibly compete. There’s no way you can keep up

with that,” Aiello said. “But of course, it’s not the real life that they’re posting. It’s all the best part. And so our perception of what is reality has been changed so much by technology and media. And yet we all feel like we want to live up to this incredibly unrealistic, perfect lifestyle.

So we constantly are setting ourselves up for being unhappy and fearing and feeling a sense of failure.”

Likewise, social media can have negative effects in the interpersonal relationships of teens.

In this day and age, face-to-face interaction is not as much of a necessity.

“The most significant way [that social media has affected students] is the lack of human interaction. The reason why you spend so much time growing up around your family is for you to get practice at having normal interactions,” Aiello said. “If all you ever do is text and Instagram and Snapchat with peers who don’t have much more

“Our perception of what is reality has been changed so much by technology and media. We all feel like we want to live up to this incredibly unrealistic, perfect lifestyle. So we constantly are setting ourselves up for being unhappy and fearing and feeling a sense of failure.”

-David Aiello, History wisdom about those things than you do, you’re rightly then very reluctant to have face-to-face interactions with [people], especially adults. So I have definitely noticed a trend in my students not being as good at actually talking to teachers about questions or issues or anything at all.”

CHS students are not unaware of the problem that social media creates. Although in comparison to JBS, Clayton may seem to have lax technology and WiFi regulations; however, restricted wifi throughout the Clayton school district has been a beneficial decision regarding the social media usage of students.

“I often bury my nose in my phone to avoid talking to anyone in the halls,” Lay said. “However, having limited access with the school WiFi has forced me to come out of my comfort zone. I now look forward to passing periods to say hi to my friends, teachers and peers, it’s always nice to be greeted by someone while walking to class.”

If technology and social media can cause developmental and social roadblocks with high

schoolers, junior high students presented with the same materials may be struggling even more.

Mark Snyder, a guidance counselor at Wydown Middle School spoke on the issue.

“I entered the district 11 years ago and just given the access that students have [to technology], it is becoming earlier and earlier that kids are getting their hands on their phone,” Snyder said. “They are not fully aware of all the nuances of social communication.”

Considering everything that comes hand in hand with entering middle school, social media and technology add another layer of drama to the already dramatic lives of a pre-teen.

“It’s like giving an 11 year old a Harley Davidson after they’ve only known how to ride a bike for three or four years,” Snyder said. “I use that same analogy for cell phone technology because it feels like they don’t have the skills to manage all of the apps, the social media; just given the impulsivity that most people have before they really have well thought out idea, it can wreak havoc. It can cause a lot of issues. As a result of that, there’s been a big increase in the amount of social issues that result from misunderstandings from social media and texting even.”

The chair of the John Burroughs School counseling and wellness department Jennifer Jones agrees with Snyder’s sentiment; thus supporting their schools policy of prohibiting cell phones during the school day, as well as regulating other forms of technology.

“I’ve been here for eight years. And that decision was made prior to that. But we certainly revisit that decision fairly frequently,” Jones said.

“And I think that the sort of philosophical background to that is that we want our students to connect with each other. Our head of school always says we want them looking up and at each other, not down at a device. And so that has been sort of our driving understanding of why we don’t do sort of a one to one program.”

The rules at JBS make it so that any cell phone use during the day, even during a lunch, free or passing period is not allowed.

“And our students are, you know, teenagers growing up in 2018, so they complain about it,” Jones said. “Sometimes they’re also not allowed to be on their cell phones during the school day.

That’s a struggle. So if they have their phones out during the day, the phones are taken from them.”

Laptops can be checked out in the library but they cannot leave the space and the use is monitored. Other computers without internet can be used for printing out papers. It is virtually impossible for a JBS student to access social media during the school day, which can give students a much needed break.

“It’s not going away. We definitely need to figure out how we’re going to balance this because it’s not going anywhere. And there are really, really good things that happened on social media.

Ways for kids to connect, across countries and cities and things through social media,” Jones said. “But I do worry that we’re getting a little unbalanced if kids are also looking at screens all day long at school.”

DATA DROP

A Globe survey was sent electronically to all Clayton students to assess students’ sleep, homework and stress. 301 students responded to the survey.

STRESS “I’ve talked to some of the counselors and they would also say that in their experience it seems like there’s been an increase both in the number of kids having issues and in the depth of the problems that kids are having,” Aiello said.

It often feels that stress is constant in the life of a Clayton student; trying to balance clubs, sports, homework and a social life seems nearly impossible at times.

Despite the fact that sometimes stress is good (often referred to as eustress), there is a growing concern among high schools that students are feeling overworked and are living with excessive amounts of stress.

A recent NYU study on high-performing teens reported that 49 percent of the 128 juniors they surveyed reported feeling a “great deal of stress” on a daily basis and 26 percent reported symptoms of clinical depression.

Being in a stressful or competitive environment can often amplify those effects.

A survey of 300 Clayton High School students found that 85 percent believe that CHS has a competitive environment and that 70 percent feel that the environment was not helpful to the mental health of the students.

When asked to rate Clayton’s environment on a 1-10 scale (with 10 being extremely stressful) around 60 percent of respondents found Clayton to be a 7 or higher.

Metta McGarvey, an adjunct lecturer on education at Harvard University, specializes in integrating mindfulness and meditation to help people manage stress in their lives.

“I think there’s a lot of performance anxiety and stress in high-performing high schools.

There is this sense that you have to check everything on the list in a way that is going to support

your college applications and you where you want to go. So I think there’s a lot of self generated pressure and perfectionism regard.”

Even though an environment like Clayton’s has its benefits in increased graduation rates and more student involvement, the majority of students still believe that it isn’t helpful to their mental health.

Clayton students often feel pressured to take more AP classes or join more clubs merely to keep up with their peers in college admissions.

The short-term effects of living in an environment like CHS can be anything from sleep loss to the development of chronic anxiety, and in the long term, the effects are even more daunting.

Andrew Butler, an associate professor of psychological and brain science at Washington University in St. Louis, who specializes in the

“In an ideal school, teachers have autonomy and kids have choices. This type of school environment provides a nearly perfect model of an internal locus of control. Unfortunately, whether you go public or private this isn’t the direction schools are going.”

- Dr. William Stixrud and Ned Johnson

Authors, “The Self-Driven Child”

33 | COVER

malleability of memory, says that the long term effects of being in a high stress environment and losing sleep are considerable. “[Losing sleep] over a longer period of time. really takes a toll on your larger physical and mental health. It really can get very bad. You see in people with sleeping disorders profound mental and physical health deficits. And [people with sleep disorders] are more likely to get sick they have trouble focusing etc. etc,” Butler said.

“Potentially, that’s more than one factor having an impact on your mental and physical health, it wouldn’t surprise me.”

Having enough sleep every night along with having breaks in the school day is important in the development of students.

“The Self-Driven Child,” a book that focuses on motivation and stress of students, written by William Stixrud, Ph.D. and Ned Johnson, goes in-depth on the reasoning behind the work-restwork cycle that humans thrive on.

“In India’s ancient Vedic tradition it is said that ‘rest is the basis of all activity.’ Rest, activity, rest, activity. Everything we do requires this alternation. We see this in sports and fitness, where interval training has taught us that much of the benefit of exercise comes from the body’s recovery during rest,” write Dr. Stixrud and Johnson.

One issue that is evident with the school system is the structure of rest.

CHS intersperses 47 minutes of learning with four minute breaks to get to class, along with a lunch period, which doesn’t truly follow the work-rest-work period that is suggested by learning psychologists.

The brain, like any other muscle, not only requires a rest period, but this rest period is crucial for development and processing information.

Unfortunately, most school systems, including CHS, don’t entirely support this philosophy.

Counselors have pushed to ensure that every student have at least a lunch period, but in cases such as that of 2018 CHS graduate Owen St. Germain, who is currently studying Engineering at Boston University, that wasn’t tue. St. Germain chose to go against the counselor’s suggestion and not have a lunch, an option allowed at CHS. “It was tough a lot of times when I had to go the whole day without a break and I definitely

agree that a lunch period or a study period had a huge impact on my workload and how I felt going into the school day.”

After-school commitments also contributed to his stress level.

“Senior year wasn’t as bad, but I definitely remember there were times where I’d have a paper or a lab due and all that stuff felt like it was piling up and especially having to be at robotics and it felt like I had to choose between academics or a social life at times, and that wasn’t a decision I really wanted to make, and yes it got to be unhealthy.”

Art teacher and designer Rebecca Hare suggests that one way to improve the academic envirnoment for students is to start with the physical classroom space. After being a designer for 10 years and getting her M.A.T. in teaching, Hare was asked by a friend to help a teacher design a space. After that initial jump into educational space design, Hare was asked by a numbers of districts to help design spaces.

Hare wrote a book to help teachers design spaces on their own.

She suggests that major changes need to happen to the classroom to be truly innovative, “If we look into how the work environment has changed people in the work environment now are doing much more collaboration and the entire work environment looks very different if you go to a Google or an Apple you can see that different spaces support different thinkers,” Hare said. “If our goal is to be successful in helping students integrate into the workforce we need to support more of that work that students are doing and help them take charge with what they’re doing, looking at a teacher lecture for hours isn’t empowering and it’s not going to help them develop their passions. For a traditional classroom there needs to be choices in how they get information, how and where they get the information and how they share what they learn, we have so many different ways to make our thinking visible.”

The element of choice in the classroom is essential to reducing stress. Accommodating for different types of thinkers and having different spaces to learn in can make each learner feel comfortable in their environment.

Studies have also shown that having green space is a crucial way to reduce stress.

“Academic learning has to balance with a kind of spacious release,” Dr. Metta said. “It’s like when you’re training for a marathon your recovery time is a really important part of your training. I think of things such as green space and having beauty in the classroom and taking time out to explore some academic or intellectual concept from the perspective of the art or from your heart it not only harnesses your insights and abilities as a human it also creates a mental recovery time. A lot of people turn towards their screen, but screen activities often require too much mental focus while in a green space you’re expanding and relaxing your attention in a way that helps in the present moment.”

Another element that is essential to reducing stress in the school is homework and class load.

Homework can be useful in the school environment, but giving homework for the sake of giving homework is often unnecessary and creates an additional level of stress on students.

Aiello says that he has disagreements with the way some teachers do homework.

“For a long time I’ve tried to be intentional with my homework and try my best not give out busy work,” Aiello said. “I’m not saying teachers aren’t intentional about homework but as a parent I sometimes scratch my head when my kids tell me what their homework assignments are.

There have been times where I’ve been in conversations with colleges and heard what they’re doing as assignments and I’m just like. Really?!

I’ve heard the kids talk about some of the homework they’ve gotten and a lot of this is second hand or third hand information but all of this made me go ‘wow.’”

In short, stress is a major factor in the daily lives of CHS students, and a reduction in the amount of homework, or the opportunity to chose homework that will help students improve in the subject areas where they need more support would alleviate some of this stress.

Dr. Stixrud and Johnson cement the idea of what a perfect schools should look like, “In an ideal school, teachers have autonomy and kids have choices. This type of school environment provides a nearly perfect model of an internal locus of control. Unfortunately, whether you go public or private this isn’t the direction schools are going.”

34 | SPORTS

dulle dominates CHS senior varsity soccer captain hopes to use his experience to lead the team to a state championship DANIEL COHEN | SPORTS SECTION EDITOR JAMES MALONE | PAGE EDITOR

Photo of Dulle by Lauren Wolff

I

n the quarterfinal game against Panama I went to shoot the ball but a player fell on my leg. I ripped my hamstring away from my pelvis, and I was out the entire summer,” CHS senior varsity soccer captain James Dulle said.

Athletic genes run deep in Dulle’s family.

His uncle, Mark Dulle, played collegiate soccer for Indiana University and played on the United States National Soccer Team. Joey Dulle, James’ brother, was a state-ranked tennis player throughout his childhood and played tennis at the University of Redlands.

From a young age, Dulle showed that he possessed these athletic genes too and played basketball, baseball, tennis, soccer and flag-football. However, he found a passion in soccer and decided to further pursue the sport by playing for a club team.

“I joined Scott Gallagher in third grade. I

moved up playing with the academy program during middle school and I’ve been on the elite program all through high school,” Dulle said.

“In 6th grade I realized that I was able to play soccer at a higher level than I was at most other sports, and I really enjoyed just competing at the highest level possible.”

Dulle said. “So I started training every day at my house. I would be outside for three hours a day working out because I wanted to be the best in St. Louis.”

Dulle’s brother and father have also served as sources of inspiration and motivation for Dulle to become the best he can.

“My dad really pushed me to always train and have the right mindset when going into a game. He raised a culture of success in my family. My brother has motivated me because he won state twice in tennis and made state

every year in high school. My brother was the best at his sport, so I want to be the best in my sport. It’s like this competition in the family,” Dulle said.

Throughout middle school, Dulle saw great improvement in his soccer skills. He began to play in the Arsenal soccer program, which was an elite soccer club for young teens in St. Louis and was connected to a professional soccer team in Europe.

“The coaches for the professional team in Europe would send my coaches the drills and training to do. We even had a nutrition plan to follow. It was basically a youth academy from England in St. Louis,” Dulle said.

The Arsenal program also gave Dulle an opportunity to play with and learn from other highly skilled players, a few of whom now play for the United States National Team.

As he entered high school, Dulle had to

decide whether he wanted to continue playing in the Arsenal program or play for CHS’s soccer team. He decided the latter, and the rest is history.

Dulle caught the eyes of Tom Redmond, the CHS boys’ soccer varsity coach, and as a freshman he was selected to play and be a starter on the varsity squad.

Even as experienced a player as he is, Dulle encountered learning curves with high school soccer compared to club soccer.

“My freshman year I really thought high school soccer was going to be a technical game. I expected there to be more skilled and technical players who knew how to play the ball, but it was actually a more physical game than club soccer,” Dulle said.

Dulle continued to be an important asset

moment of the month

“I love soccer. I love playing it. I love watching it. I live soccer. I breathe soccer.” for the hounds during his sophomore year.

However, since he was recovering from an injury from the off-season, he could not play to his full potential during the 2016 season.

Dulle returned in his junior year healthy and eager to lead the team as an upperclassman. He had a breakout season and recorded 26 goals and 2 assists and was named co-conference player of the year and first team AllState for class 3.

As a senior this year, Dulle hopes to contribute even more to the team than he did last year and has high hopes for the squad.

“I really think that if the guys stick together and continue to work hard in training, we have one of the best chances that the soccer program has had in a long time to win the state title,” Dulle said.

He is the captain of the team along with fellow senior Max Boeger and junior Andrew Matheny.

Dulle hopes that he can use his leadership position to motivate and inspire the other players.

“We have to keep our heads up. If anyone messes up, I will make sure that they move past it. I’m going to try my best to keep the team together on and off the field by leading by example and making sure the guys are staying focused on what’s important,” he said.

After high school, Dulle plans to continue with the sport and play college soccer. He is currently in contact with coaches at University of California at San Diego, Occidental College and the University of Redlands.

“I love soccer,” Dulle said. “I love playing it. I love watching it. I live soccer. I breathe soccer.”

Photo by Cicely Krutzsch

Varsity Football

34 - 32

Double overtime win vs. Jennings Warriors “We all felt broken and battered but were determined to bring a third win back home to Clayton. We are a team of about 25 players constantly switching between defense and offense, often with no subs. Our opponents had what felt like an army and subs to remain fresh,” senior Liam Simckes, defensive end and left tackle on the CHS varsity football team, said.

Under the lights at Jennings High School, the Clayton Greyhounds varsity football team faced off against the Jennings Warriors.

At the end of regulation, the score was tied at 20-20, and the game headed to overtime.

Jennings won the coin toss and opted to start with the ball. The Warriors scored a touchdown, but missed the extra point.

The score was 26-20 in favor of Jennings and the now was the Hounds turn on offense.

Clayton quickly scored a touchdown and decided to try to kick an extra point hoping to win the game. However, Jennings blocked the kick, which sent the game tied

at 26-26, to double overtime.

The Hounds started with possession of the ball in the second overtime and senior Robert Miles scored a touchdown on a pass from junior quarterback Ty Sucher, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Athlete of the Week (week of September 13).

Clayton then decided to go for the twopoint conversion. Sucher threw a pass to senior Reese Barnett, who caught the ball for the two points.

Jennings then had a turn with the ball and scored a touchdown. However, their two-point conversion attempt failed. The game was over.

Although the Hounds were exhausted, they won the football game in double overtime 34-32, and secured their first 3-0 start since 2003.

“We all rejoiced yelling and screaming.

It was a moment filled with relief and happiness,” Simckes said. “We worked really hard all game and reached a record that hasn’t been achieved at Clayton in quite a while.”

36 | REVIEW

Bao

Bao, a Thai fusion restaurant in Clayton, charms with a new take on old favorites MARGERT MOONEY | REPORTER

Photo by Michael Melinger

M

erging the classic American hamburger bun and a Thai tradition, steamed buns, known as bao, The Bao in Clayton has developed a new take on old favorites.

It features dishes such as the Wagyu Bao which contains wagyu beef, havarti, arugula, truffle mayo and a sunny side up egg sandwiched between two fluffy white buns.

Another option is the vegan Truffle Shroom Bao, which has a panko crusted portobello mushroom, gouda, avocado, crispy shallots and truffle mayo also served between buns.

The space at The Bao is trendy, modern and chic. The walls are painted black and a line of marble-top tables extends through the restaurant. 60s surfer music plays in the background.

At lunchtime, diners choose their orders from a checklist and then bring it to the bar to pay.

You seat yourself and your food is brought to you.

For an appetizer, the Taiwanese dumplings ($8) are connected under a thin, crispy layer of dough, and filled with a typical blend of chicken, vegetables and scallions. In my opinion, they are some of the best dumplings in St. Louis.

The inventive structure and just the right ratio of dough to filling made for a perfect dumpling.

For a main dish, I went with the soft shell crab bao ($15). Off the bat, the plating was beautiful.

The bao has an impressive attention to detail - down to the placement of the crab. A panko breaded soft shelled crab, masago, (fish eggs), spicy mayo, and arugula are all sandwiched between two buns. The dish also came with a side of fries, which were delicious.

Though I found the bao to be hard to eat, it was well worth the mess. The crab was crispy

and tender, and the masago added a subtle savory taste. I generally dislike mayo, but the spicy mayo was the ideal accompaniment.

Since the first two dishes were so enjoyable, I had high expectations for the dessert.

Unfortunately, it was a let down. The fried matcha ice cream sandwich ($7) featured ice cream that was too hard and almost impossible to eat with the buns.

Weirdly, it melted very quickly and ended up being messy. The matcha flavor was fine, but didn’t blow me away. I would give this dish a miss.

Overall, The Bao is a nice addition to the Clayton dining scene. The food is incredible, however, it is expensive. The restaurant does offer a limited happy hour menu with reduced prices, but if you are looking for a bargain, the Bao is not your destination. But if you’re looking for something different and delicious in downtown Clayton, The Bao should be at the top of your list.

38 | REVIEW

share sweet new bubble-tea cafe opens on olive boulevard RACHEL LIANG & SIDDHI NARAYAN | REPORTERS

Photo by Lauren Wolff

G

ood news for sweet-toothed individuals and die-hard bubble-tea fans: You can now head over to cafe Share Sweet, located on Olive Boulevard, for an indulging expe-

rience.

Share Sweet opened doors on Aug. 3. It is owned by Jennifer Chen and Horace Tang, a couple that loves traveling, food and trying new things - like opening a cafe.

The minimalist cafe (with amazing drinks) is the second eatery for the couple (Tang Palace is their other operation). However, unlike Tang Palace, a traditional Chinese restaurant,

Share Sweet includes a variety of popular Asian desserts like bubble tea, yet also draws western influence into their food.

“We mix [the cuisines]. We don’t want to make the entire shop western styled, but we don’t want to make it entirely Asian,” Chen said, placing a tray of herb jelly (with handmade taro balls, red bean, and boba) and an outstanding bowl of mango pomelo, both well-known Asian desserts, in front of us.

Chen lived in a few different places before moving to St. Louis with Taong. “I lived in Sydney… there were a lot of students from different places so we could try different foods

like traditional Thai … We come from Shanghai,” Chen said.

Her diverse background influences her food, an example being a popular item on the menu: cheese tea.

“We wanted to bring things like cheese tea here so people wouldn’t need to go to places like Chicago,” Chen said.

Cheese tea is a popular drink from China, now spreading to big cities such as Chicago and L.A. A somewhat salty, frothy layer of ‘cheese’ sits upon a tea of your choice (options being black, green, black/green mango and black/green lemon). It is served with a lid

39 | REVIEW

that at different tilt angles gives you different amounts of tea and cheese.

Although it is an unexpected pair, the saltiness of the cheese actually emphasizes the sweetness of the tea.

However, it is best not to pair the drink with a sweet food because the saltiness becomes overpowering. We would strongly recommend drinking it alone, it is different, and delicious.

Another influence Chen took from Shanghai was honey toast.

“We have honey toast, you never see it here. People say ‘there is never ice cream on toast.’ [The honey toast] is very special - it comes from Shanghai and Taiwan, it is very popular there,” Chen said.

At her recommendation, we knew we had to try it, so we ordered a classic honey toast.

When it arrived, it was a formidable tower of dessert- a stack of bread, topped with vanilla ice cream, bananas, almonds, love letters, a macaron and Pocky sticks, all delicately presented atop syrup and whipped cream.

We dug in, unable to restrain ourselves.

Our forks cut smoothly through the ice cream, but when we reached the toast, there was a definite crispiness to it. We deconstructed the creation, removing the ice cream and placing it to the side, and to our immense pleasure, the honey toast was stuffed with more toast.

The toast inside was sweeter, but less crunchy than the outside bread - giving a nice contrast.

This, in the same spoonful as the ice cream gave an exquisite texture, as well as an amazing taste.

After we chatted with Chen, we checked out the shelves of pudding. One dessert called The Hope caught our eyes. Oreo crumbles resembling soil were held inside of a petite flower pot.

Chen served the unique treat on a tray with an adorable metal beaker filled with milk tea. She placed a sprig of decorative plant on the “soil” to add a lively element to the entire dessert.

We “watered” The Hope with the milk tea and plowed into the treat with our forks.

To our surprise, there was a thick layer of whipped cream underneath the Oreo crumble.

We dug further to reveal a layer of strawberry bits. Digging and engulfing bites of the sweet yet tart layers immediately became a rapidfire routine. After shoveling through another layer of cream, we hit the final layer; an airy sponge cake. The cake’s lightness balanced very well with the cream’s heaviness, and we felt satisfied that the dessert was not too sweet.

The presentation was beautiful and the treat tasted wonderful.

It is this dessert that represents Share Sweet itself: like the leafy green sprout on the Oreo crunch, this cafe is young and growing.

pop culture, Sept. a column

KEILAN MORRISSEY | REPORTER

In addition to all movie and restaurant reviews, we decided to try something new. This pop culture column will inform about anything that happened in the past month relating to pop culture, such as the release of a new video game, a major milestone in comics or news about an upcoming superhero film.

DC’s streaming service, DC Universe, nnounced its official launch date: Sept. 15.

It will contain a vast library of DC shows, movies, and comics. It will also hold weekly original series such as Titans.

Disney released details regarding their own upcoming streaming service. It is said to be titled Disney Play and will include a variety of Disney productions, as well as Disney-owned properties such as Marvel and Star Wars.

Billy Dee Williams has been confirmed to return as his iconic character Lando Calrissian in the yet-to-be-titled ninth episode of Star Wars.

DC’s latest LEGO video game has been advertised quite a lot lately. It is called LEGO DC Super-Villains and it will feature DC’s most iconic bad guys, along with the ability to customize your own villain.

Insomniac Games will be releasing its Spider-Man game for the PlayStation 4 on Sept. 7th. It is a free-roam game where users play as the titular hero in the concrete jungle of New York City.

Hip-Hop artist Travis Scott released the album “Astroworld,” a smash hit in the rap community.

41 | REVIEW

Eighth Grade

Comedian Bo Burnam creates hauntingly realistic portrait of middle school life in his film, “Eighth Grade” MORIAH LOTSOFF | REPORTER

E

ighth Grade, written and directed by YouTuber and comedian Bo Burnham, is a nostalgic and awkward reminder of our middle school days.

The film, which was released on July 13, 2018, focuses on Kayla Day (played by Elsie Fischer), a quiet, shy and insecure teenage girl finishing her last weeks of eighth grade.

Viewers follow Kayla as she experiences uncomfortable moments that many of us can relate to.

As a recent graduate of eighth grade, this movie resonated with me all too well.

The “cringyness” of it was a lot to handle but the way of making me, and viewers, nostalgic of all the uncomfortable moments in our own eighth grade experiences was spot on.

In the beginning of the movie, Kayla is invited to a pool party by one of the popular girls in her grade who, unfortunately, only invited her because her mom made her.

She goes, but is ignored by the other attendees.

Eventually Kayla removes herself from the party and begs her oblivious dad (Josh

Hamilton), to come pick her up, something that I have done countless times.

The theme of being out of place shows up many times throughout the movie.

This accurately and realistically depicts middle school.

Later in the film Kayla and many of her middle school peers participate in a visit to the high school where they are paired up one on one with a senior to follow for the day.

Kayla is paired with Olivia (Emily Robinson), who includes Kayla and makes her feel welcome. Olivia later invites Kayla to go to the mall with her and some friends.

This leads to a sequence of events that ends with one of Olivia’s friends driving Kayla home, then pressuring her to fool around with him.

She says no but feels bad, apologizing countless times. Fast forward a bit, and the film concludes with Kayla realizing she was going to do great in high school and standing up to the people who had ignored her throughout middle school.

I noticed while watching the movie that it is filmed like a documentary. This helps show how impactful each event is to Kayla by not distracting viewers by showing other points of view.

The title of this movie could suggest something light hearted, but in reality the movie hints at some important issues we are discussing today.

Characters in the movie are pressured to fool around with each other and also practice drills in case there is a school shooting.

Burnham wanted to highlight other issues and fears today’s teens face, not just our insecurities and everyday struggles.

The film either had me covering my eyes to block the embarrassing middle school interactions, grabbing tissues to dry my tears caused by knowing what Kayla was going through, or holding back laughter so to not disturb other viewers.

Overall this movie was spot-on, creating the emotional roller coaster of eighth grade all over again.

42 | OPINION

hollywood’s “acceptable” POC Recent movies push thoughts on how Hollywood casts people of color (POC).

DANNY CHOO-KANG | REPORTER

H

ollywood succeeds enormously at making money and garnering society’s attention. One thing Hollywood frequently fails at, however, is including diversity in its films.

While audiences have recently been able to see more diversity on screen, the film industry clearly has a long way to go. In addition to the practice of whitewashing, where white actors are cast as characters that were initially designed to be people of color, another more subtle issue emerges.

The recent romantic comedy-drama film “Crazy Rich Asians” received praise for featuring an all-Asian cast, being the first major Hollywood movie to do so in 25 years.

Along with commendations for inclusion, “Crazy Rich Asians” also received backlash for its casting. Malaysian-British actor Henry Golding and Japanese, Argentinian and British actor Soyona Mizuno both play Chinese characters.

Some critics argued that actors that are not fully Asian should not play Asian characters.

Regarding Golding, one Facebook user commented, “Guess this film will be two steps forward one step back for diversity. We still aren’t at a point where a Hollywood film can have a full Asian male lead. Do Asian males need to be half white to be ‘good looking’ enough for the big screen?” Of course casting directors have several factors they need to take into account, but giving Asian roles to actors that are not fully Asian in order to appeal to audiences is simply a subtle way of whitewashing that perpetuates color erasure in media.

Additionally, despite the fact that “Crazy Rich Asians” is set in Singapore, where a significant part of the population are South or Southeastern Asian, the movie features only light-skinned Eastern Asians. Hollywood holds a specific image of Asians and Asian culture, and those that do not fit into their ideal are ignored. Even if characters of color are becoming more common in the media, if other minority groups continue to be marginalized, Hollywood’s problematic procedure of selecting diversity will continue.

This skewed idea of diversity is not limited to Asians, but applies to other people of color as well.

Light-skinned actors like Amandla Sten-

Photo by Michael Melinger

Official movie poster/Wikimedia Commons berg, Alexandra Shipp and Zendaya are commonly casted for roles of black characters.

Zendaya herself noted, “I am Hollywood’s acceptable version of a black girl and that has to change. We’re vastly too beautiful and too interesting for me to be the only representation of that.” While the heritages of these actors and the work they have done are not to be ignored, we the audience must be aware that representation in media is often colorist.

Amandla Stenberg, who is biracial, admirably dropped out from the role of Shuri in “Black Panther” because she is not dark-

skinned. She explained, “I recognize 100 percent that there are spaces that I should not take up and when I do take up a space it’s because I’ve thought really, really critically about it and I’ve consulted people I really trust and it feels right.”

The increasing diversity in film should be celebrated. Appearances of actors that are East Asian, light-skinned and of less-marginalized minorities are nevertheless important.

However, we should not forget those that rarely or never see themselves represented on the big screen.

43 | OPINION

Love, The Globe a column

ASHLEY CHUNG | OPINION SECTION EDITOR

F

or some, “what is the meaning of life?” may be the hardest question to answer, but for me, for as long as I can remember, it has been, “what’s your favorite food?” When I was younger, my immediate response would be, “Korean food.” The following question would ensue: “What kind of Korean food?” Young Ashley would reply “miyeok-guk!” with gusto. Upon further questioning, I would have to explain that miyeok-guk is Korean seaweed soup.

Miyeok-guk has always held a special place in my heart, as my mom would make it for my birthdays, just as many Koreans traditionally do. Yet, I felt ashamed of my answer after seeing the other person’s slight look of disgust. Seaweed soup does not sound appetizing, especially compared to your typical American favorites: pizza, pasta or burgers.

This self-consciousness pushed me to hide my love for food.

Food has always been an important part of my life. It connects me to everything I love.

Food connects me to my emotions. When I am sad, I turn to food. When I am happy, I turn to food. I associate different foods with different memories, and I associate different memories with different foods. I despise the taste and texture of dry scrambled eggs because I associate them with early mornings and disappointing losses at fencing tournaments. Similarly, soondubu, Korean soft tofu stew, will always cheer me up. For me, eating is not only a physical action, but an emotional experience.

Food also allows me to bond with people, something I have always struggled with due to my timid nature. The first time I talked to my best friend, we had a discussion about how we both really liked jjajangmyun, a Korean-Chinese noodle dish. Though my family is busy, we are fortunate to sit down to dinner together almost everyday. While we eat, we are able to take a short break from our lives and enjoy a meal with loved ones. Similarly, whenever I meet with friends, food is always somehow involved. Whether it is meeting at Corner 17 for noodles and boba, baking (and ultimately failing to make) a cake or even watching food videos together, food brings us together in a way that nothing else could do.

Food has also helped me feel more confi-

Art by Anna Sturmoski dent and less ashamed of myself. I love that Korean food is one of the closest connections I have to my Korean roots, but it wasn’t always that way.

I attended elementary school where the student body was predominantly white, and I was self-conscious of how my looks and the food I ate were different. Unless specifically asked, I never told anyone about the Korean food I enjoyed, out of fear that I would be outcast as a weirdo. For a long time, I held a mentality that I had to hide elements of my culture so that I would fit in. In middle school, when my mom would pack kimbap, Korean “sushi” rolls, I would pretend to look confident while eating, but really, on the inside, I was terrified that someone would

judge me for my food choice.

Thankfully, my embarrassment over food went away after my middle school phase. I began to realize that food is something that everyone has in common. Food is nothing to be ashamed of. Eating is a function that is necessary to live, so why not embrace it?

Now, I am the proud owner of a food account on Instagram and am known to be a “foodie” among my friends. I am able to bring Korean food to lunch and eat it without caring about other people’s opinion. Celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis captured my feelings, saying, “Food brings people together on many different levels. It’s nourishment of the soul and body; it’s truly love.”

44 | OPINION

pro: AP Cap DHEERA RATHIKINI I REPORTER Dheera argues for Clayton High School to cap the number of AP classes students can take.

Photo by Michael Melinger

A

P classes are meant to enrich your learning, but excessive amounts can be harmful. We should limit the number of advanced placement courses a high schooler can take per year. It will reduce students’ stress and allow them to focus on excelling in a few demanding classes.

CHS should have an AP cap. Students that benefit from the cap will have the mental peace that they have done all that they can with their schedule.

This will reduce stress and it will help them focus on other aspects of life such as forming relationships, sports, relaxing and clubs.

Colleges will acknowledge that those students did all they could with their schedule. According to college counselor Carolyn Blair,“It would not affect our admission. We would just tell the colleges here’s what we’re doing and they would respect that and our kids would not be penalized for that.”

One of the reasons many gifted students pile on AP classes and endure a rigorous schedule is so they can prove that they are the best choice for selective colleges.

Other top private schools such as John Burroughs School have an AP cap of 3 honors.

Although most students think taking AP classes may reduce the amount of classes they have to take in college, very few people who take AP classes graduate before four years.

Students also take AP classes so they stand out to colleges. Even if students take an impressive number of advanced placement classes, the lack of other achievements can cause colleges to lose interest.

If we limit the number of advanced placement classes students can take, high schoolers can focus more on service hours, sports, passions, clubs and hobbies.

Some students take many advanced classes to prepare themselves for college and the workload there; however, college students usually only take around four classes per semester.

So taking five to six AP classes a year creates an unrealistic workload for students.

John Tierney, a high school and college professor states,“the high-school AP course didn’t begin to hold a candle to any of my college courses.”

Even if you take an AP class, you may have to take that class again in college.

All of this could be avoided if there was a nationwide cap, but since we cannot control the entire country, we should address an AP cap within CHS.

We should implement a cap of one to four AP classes at Clayton High School per year.

Some students are taking five AP classes this year alone.

One example, is senior Areeba Khan, who is taking five AP classes this year, and took four last year. This cap will allow students to push themselves without causing damage to themselves.

Some students are thriving with loads of AP classes. Some aren’t. Every student is different, so having a AP cap that tolerates the needs of most people is important.

An AP cap lets students follow their passions instead of focusing on getting into the best college all the time. Some students drop classes they like in order to take AP classes, even though there is no guarantee that that class will help them get into the college of their choice or even if the college that they decide to go to accepts AP credit.

Introducing an AP cap will help students manage their stress and focus on other aspects of their life, but as college counselor Carolyn Blair pointed out,“It’s going to take a big shift to make any changes. And it is really going to take really kids and parents saying that this is not okay.”

So, if this is your opinion on AP caps, speak up so we can start to make a change.

45 | OPINION

con: AP Cap JUNYI SU I PAGE EDITOR and LANA XU I REPORTER Junyi and Yiyun argue for CHS to allow students to take as many AP classes as they want.

Stephanie Berg/Dreamstime

M

any schools across the nation are placing a cap on the number of Advanced Placement courses a student can enroll in to decrease the stress and pressure put on the student; however, doing so limits the student’s chance to take the classes they prefer, and might strip away motivation as they are forced to take less challenging courses instead.

At CHS, students are only allowed to enroll in AP courses during their junior and senior years. Other schools, including Ladue High School, not only permit students to take AP courses starting freshman year, but Ladue students can also skip grades in a specific subject to push themselves even more.

By having only two years of time to take AP classes, CHS is already limiting enrollment in AP courses, so there is no need to place a quantitative cap to limit AP enrollment further.

One of the reasons why some people feel the need to limit the amount of APs is because AP classes place high stress on students. AP courses tend to have more homework and require more studying than other courses. However, these workloads

challenge students to be more efficient in doing homework and studying, which serve as preparation for the college years to come.

Also, the amount of homework is different depending on the specific AP class. For example, the homework for AP Music Theory is very different from the homework for AP Physics II. It is also the school’s responsibility to advise and guide students’ choices in course enrollments. Clayton has designed tests to measure student proficiency in a variety of subjects, and the highest level course placement should be based on assessments and teacher recommendations.

If a student wishes to take a more advanced class than recommended, they should request a meeting with their counselor. The fear of overextending the student should not be a reason to limit their choice of courses.

Many students take AP courses to push themselves and to meet others who share the same interests. Since AP courses are designed for college students, their contents are much more rigorous than those offered by College Prep or Honors classes. By not allowing students to take APs freely, the school restricts students’ freedom to pursue subjects and

courses that they are passionate about.

Several students have also reflected that there is not enough time to take the classes they want.

Freshman Jessie Lin said, “There are a lot of classes that I want to take at the high school, but because of schedule problems I can’t take, and I feel like AP caps would cause the same problems.”

In case students do make mistakes and choose a class that is too advanced for them, they always have the option to drop out.

Kellan Duan, a junior currently enrolled in 3 AP classes, said, “I recognized at the end of sophomore year that I would have trouble trying to take AP Calc BC, AP Bio, AP Chem, and Honors American Lit all together. So I decided to drop HAL in favor of CP English III and to not take AP Bio altogether.”

In conclusion, Clayton should not limit the freedom of class enrollment. Doing so might be able to help some students to not overwork themselves because of peer and adult pressure, but after all, that should be up to the student.

All students will face competition and pressure later in life. There is no reason for high schools to limit student achievement.

46 | OPINION

STAFF ED: pursuing pursuit day’s potential Wydown’s Pursuit Days suggest new method of learning

Students at Wydown Middle School engaged in Pursuit Day. Photo by Robin Fultz.

T

he Clayton School District’s purpose in educating students, as described in its vision statement, is to “develop leaders who shape the world through independence, creativity and critical thinking.”

Yet for most students, primary and secondary schooling consist of prescribed, rigorous academic curriculum with little room for the choice and independence that foster this creativity.

Other school districts around the nation have adopted systems that give students more agency to pursue topics that genuinely interest them.

Walter Payton College Prep, a top-ranked high school in Chicago, places a large emphasis on enriching education and granting students opportunities to enhance their schedules with untraditional seminars.

These “choice periods” range from activities such as horseback riding to classes on improv comedy and do little to diminish the academic rigor of the school: Walter Payton College Prep has a college attendance rate of 99 percent and students score around eight points higher than the state average on the ACT. Last year, Wydown adopted a similar sys-

tem. The generally-unproductive early release Fridays were transformed into “Pursuit Days,” where students were given the liberty to choose what they wanted to learn.

At the beginning of the year, teachers compiled a list of potential classes that wouldn’t normally be taught in a school setting, similar to those at Walter Payton College Prep.

After a few days, students picked and ranked their favorites. While the concept behind Pursuit Day was intriguing, the actual implementation was less than ideal.

A survey taken by participating students at the end of the year revealed the common sentiment that Pursuit Day did not reach its potential.

Many students did not receive their first choice of class, weren’t with friends or didn’t like the classes they chose in general.

Some of these classes were located outdoors, and often didn’t work well due to the unpredictability of St. Louis weather. This year, the district decided to stop and re-evaluate the program.

A study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in 2010 found that approximately one in four youth meets the criteria for a “mental disorder with the potential to have a

severe impairment across their lifetime”, with nearly a third of students suffering from an anxiety-related disorder.

These numbers have risen over the past few decades as schools across the country have propagated competitive academic environments.

The District must break the monotony of work and stress embrace the approach successfully implemented in other schools to give students some agency behind their learning.

According to Senior Vice President for Education Pathways Carolyn Booker, having enrichment classes and programs leads to “an increased motivation to learn, improved self confidence, feelings of belonging to a larger community and reduced anxiety” in students.

A re-imagined Pursuit Day could serve as a way for the District to better achieve its holistic educational goal and help students grow in ways beyond the classroom.

Creating a better and successful Pursuit Day could consist of making sure students are put into their desired classes, as well as offering a larger variety of classes, focusing in all areas of interest (music, arts, science, tech, math, etc.).

Also, having the option to have different classes for different semesters could give students a chance to be in classes they want and so the students can be with their friends, and explore other areas of interest.

CHS could take a page from the efforts at WMS and consider adopting a model similar to Pursuit Day and Payton’s Seminar Schedule.

On Early Release PD Days - rather than having a full schedule of shortened class periods - the morning could be dedicated to two longer seminar periods.

Teachers could propose passion classes for students to chose from. This move could energize teachers by providing flexibility and opportunity to teach something that they really love but is outside of their subject area. Additionally, this provides students agency in their learning, since they would get to select which seminar course they want to take.

Seminar day could also serve as an avenue for community members to engage with the student body by volunteering to host a class for students.

The opportunity to break away from the grind is upon us -- we should take it.

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