TALON TIMES
May 13, 2022
VOL. 1, Issue 1, 8 Pages
New history textbooks coming for 2022-2023 Cass Love
NEWS EDITOR
By the summer of 2023 at TPHS, all history classes will have new textbooks, according to Catherine Mintz, chair of the social science department. A textbook adoption year happens when a school or district replaces old textbooks with newer versions, especially if the physical condition of the books is bad or the information contained in the books needs updating. College prep U.S. history classes at TPHS are in need of new textbooks, according to some students. “We use them every class, but they’re so worn out. They’ve been written on, and it’s kind of sad seeing how damaged they are,” Olga Achmatowicz (11) said. The textbooks for AP History classes, however, are in better condition. “The textbooks in APUSH are in perfect condition … it has information from the Trump Administration … so it’s pretty recent,” Keira Hsu (11) said. The same inconsistency is seen in AP World History and college prep World History textbooks. AP World History textbooks are in good condition, whereas college prep World History textbooks are not. There is a reason behind this “We adopted textbooks for AP classes last year, and this year we’re adopting for college
prep,” AP World History and AP Art History teacher Lars Trupe said. Prior to last year when the textbook adoption process started, it had been roughly 18 years since TPHS had last seen textbooks in pristine condition with updated information, according to both Mintz and Trupe. “... [A]lmost 20 years before adopting new textbooks is really not the way to go … because everyday something new is happening,” Trupe said. This year is the first year in over 10 years that Trupe has used a textbook in his AP World History class because the old textbooks were so out of date that he “didn’t see the point.” There are reasons that it has been so long since TPHS purchased new textbooks. For one, it costs a lot to update all the textbooks for the entire district, since all the high schools and middle schools get new textbooks at once. The price tag on that investment, according to Mintz, is “hefty.” Also, the information included in the textbooks can be controversial. “It’s usually pretty contentious -- or can be -- particularly in social sciences because there are always going to be groups of people that are going to argue that the textbook doesn’t cover enough of a particular event or the contributions of a particular population …” Trupe said.
Photo by Srishti Thapar
History textbook content has become particularly scrutinized in some areas of the country in recent years, though textbook challenges in SDUHSD are unusual. It is more common for novels to be challenged
by parents in SDUHSD. Despite those challenges, Mintz promised the textbook adoption process will be finished by the summer of 2023 and all history classes will have up-to-date textbooks.
“Women of Lockerbie” staged in Black Box
Photo by Rasa Nyce
Joy Ma
FEATURE EDITOR
Following “Peter and The Starcatcher” and “Be More Chill,” the TPPlayers introduced a new performance; with a cast of
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seven women and two men, “The Women of Lockerbie” took its final bow on Sat., May 7. Written in 2003 by Deborah Brevvort, “The Women of Lockerbie” is a dramatization of the historical events that took place after
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Pan Am flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland due to a bomb onboard on Dec. 21, 1988. After seven long years of torment and self-affliction, Madeline Livingston journeys with her husband from their New Jersey home to Lockerbie in search of her son’s remains, thinking she cannot properly mourn for him until she finds something to bury. When she meets the Laundry Ladies, four women whose self-appointed mission is to find articles of clothing from the lost, wash them, and then send them back to the families of their owners, she gains new understanding. The performance highlighted thematic topics including dealing with loss, conflict regarding government and its citizens and the validation of internal guilt after traumatic events. At TPHS, “The Women of Lockerbie” was directed by teacher and director of the TPPlayers, Marinee Payne. Student directors Naomi Schneider (12) and Sean Kim (12) collaborated with Payne on the production. TPPlayers is a theater club at TPHS for students of all ages. “[TPPlayers] are an organic, almost therapeutic group of people… [our interests] are similar, and I love communicating with young people and watching them grow…,” Payne said. Kim and Schneider “read the play and collaborated to make [their] vision for the show a reality,” according to Schneider. The show depicted the five stages of grief of denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance through a straightfoward script that required nuanced performances from the
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cast of nine. “[Actors present] only information, raw and with little to no emotion intentionally, so [the audience] can experience their emotion [with their own interpretation],” Schneider said. Additionally, the atmosphere was very different compared to prior productions. Instead of performing in the proscenium theater of the Performing Arts Center, “The Women of Lockerbie” was presented in the Black Box. Enclosed by four black walls, the Black Box in the Performing Arts Center mimics the one that was the sole theater space on campus until 2020. The key factor that prompted the choice of venue was that the space was smaller and more compact, especially conducive to a play with largely compressed emotions. “The Black Box is good in a sense that it condenses the space and creates a sense of intimacy,” Kim said. “[It also conveys] a sense of personal meaning to the audience members.” According to Schneider, “[viewers being able to see] every little expression on the actors’ faces can really help drive home the message.” In addition, if the performers had been in the proscenium theater, they would have had to project their voices significantly for optimal audience comprehension, which might have thrown off the calm undertone of the story. “The Women of Lockerbie” ran April 27 through April 30, and continued May 4 through 7.
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SPORTS