February 2019 | The Evergreen, Greenhill School

february 20, 2019

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volume 54, issue 4

evergreengreenhill.org

Everything Greenhill

Roaming coyotes given chilly welcome on campus; school hires trappers Leah Nutkis Staff Writer

Graphic by Areeba Amer and Sera Tuz

Photo by Jeffrey Harberg

DIGITAL DISTRACTION Campus phone policies range from inconsistent Upper School tolerance to total Middle School ban

Read the stories on page 5

In early January, two furry guests made themselves at home on the Greenhill campus. The reaction to their arrival wasn’t the typical warm Hill welcome.

“With the lack of activity on campus these last two weeks, two coyotes seem to have gotten comfortable on our grounds,” wrote Head of School Lee Hark in a Jan. 3 email to faculty and parents. “We have contacted a trapper and will have them relocated as soon as possible.”

The concerned reaction to the Greenhill coyotes was a reminder that even on a campus that emphasizes ecological coexistence, there are limits to tolerance and harmony.

Greenhill’s 75-acre campus is home to many different types of flora and fauna. Just in the avian family alone, the school hosts birds from the school-staple peacock to the less-renowned yellow-rumped warbler, one of more than two dozen species of birds spotted on campus by Upper School history teacher Matthew Giorgio.

“Last year, I spotted 26 species of birds on campus while walking to and from lunch, the Lower School building and the parking lot,” said Mr. Giorgio. “We have such diversity of our trees. Birds will come and flock to [our trees] because they’re host to different types of insects, so that type of relationship with flora and fauna on campus is amazing.”

With so many different animals and plants, there are always animals that can raise concerns, especially in an area with young students. And that was the case with the New Year’s coyotes.

In the first two emails, Mr. Hark urged members of the Greenhill community to “please be aware of your surroundings. If you see these animals, do not approach them. I will send word when they’ve been removed.” cont’d on page 6

Neutrality is no longer an option: Pulling the veil off the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Harrison Heymann Staff Writer

Amber Syed Staff Writer

On Jan. 8, Brian Zhou spoke to the entire Upper School during his senior speech about the importance of social awareness, dialogue and serving community. As he talked about difficult topics students tend to avoid, he mentioned what he termed “ongoing genocides around the world—in Myanmar, in Yemen, in Palestine.”

“I mentioned Palestine very briefly in my senior speech, referring to the conflict as one example of ongoing yet invisible injustices around the world,” said Brian. “I brought up the [conflict] as an example of many different social issues that tend to go unaddressed at Greenhill.”

Rarely do Greenhill students address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, partly

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because students fear offending their peers or teachers. However, this is beginning to change as the issue’s relevance is growing exponentially. This discussion may become increasingly common at Greenhill and force students to have an opinion on the issue as a political debate over America’s role in the conflict heats up in Congress, on college campuses and throughout the U.S. At the heart of that debate is a movement known as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

The BDS movement was founded by Palestinians in 2005 and describes itself as “a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality.” It accuses Israel of “occupying and colonizing Palestinian land, discriminating against Palestinian citizens of Israel and denying Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes.” It aims to isolate Israel internationally, likening its policies to those of the white-minority

News

Senior Caroline Simpson Head of School Lee Hark responds to changes in se- gives his first State of the nior speech protocol p. 2 School Address p. 4

Informing Greenhill since 1966

apartheid regime in South Africa.

Israeli government officials and their allies in the U.S. and elsewhere have denounced BDS as an antiSemitic movement committed to Israel’s destruction.

The Texas House of Representatives targeted the BDS movement and its supporters in April 2017 legislation. House Bill 89 states that a “government entity may not enter into a contract with a company for goods or services unless the contract contains a written verification from the company that it does not boycott Israel and will not boycott Israel during the term of the contract.”

“Anti-Israel policies are anti-Texas policies, and we will not tolerate such actions against an important ally,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at the time.

In fact, Bahia Amawi, a PalestinianAmerican speech pathologist who lives

Features

Lower and Middle School classes conduct a project to prevent bird strikes p. 8

Arts

in Austin, said she was required to affirm she would not boycott Israel during the term of her job contract; when she refused to comply, she lost her job, the New York Times reported.

Beyond Texas, the BDS movement is creating political conflict across the United States. Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate approved a bill that will grant federal protection to states that ban contracts with individuals and companies who boycott Israel. The bill is currently in the U.S. House of Representatives, where the new Democratic majority includes some ardent supporters of the boycott against Israel.

Dispute over the boycott movement now permeates college campuses.

The University of Michigan is currently pursuing disciplinary action against three instructors whose support for the boycott

Podcasts are becoming increasingly popular on campus p. 15

cont’d on page 6

Sports

Examining Greenhill’s role in the college athletics recruiting process p. 18

4141 Spring Valley Road, Addison, TX 75001

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Rants & Raves the

Evergreen staff editors-in-chief Jeffrey Harberg Hayden Jacobs

executive editor Harrison Heymann

A RAVE to the mini-figurines in the Buzz!

There’s nothing better than seeing your friends in a ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’ situation. For a certain lofty price, a mini version of yourself can be trapped in the Buzz for all the future Greenhill students to remember you by. So, strike a pose!

A RANT to the light at Midway and Hornet Road. It’s already so much effort for us to make it to advisory on time every morning, but it’s even harder when the final stop of the race is plotting against you. Is it so hard to give us an extra 20 seconds to turn in without feeling like we are in Fast and Furious 9: Race to the Hill?

A RAVE to the 2019 Greenhill Charity Fashion Show! Now we can all show off our fantastic modeling skills on the runway where we truly belong. There’s nothing that compares to pretending you’re a member of the Hadid family during Fashion Week! Except these profits go straight to an amazing cause: The Grant Halliburton Foundation!

managing editor Amber Syed

copy editor Leah Nutkis

design editor Riya Rangdal

journalism assistant Ross Rubin

arts editor Sonali Notani

backpage editor Shreya Saxena

features editors A RANT to minimal cookie flavors in the Buzz. If I’m going to spend my entire Buzz account balance on food I definitely don’t need, I should at least be able to choose from a large assortment of cookies. Although we won’t ever walk out of the Buzz empty handed, a snickerdoodle wouldn’t hurt.

A RAVE to the winter pep rally! It’s safe to say JT’s glow in the dark suit didn’t go unnoticed.

We loved the hype cheer performance, hitting our BFFS with those complimentary glow sticks, and that dance competition will become a Greenhill legend. This winter pep rally will defintiely GLOW down in history.

A RANT to AirPods. I know you AirPod users probably can’t hear this rant since you guys can’t hear broke, but there’s nothing worse than having a 10-minute conversation with a friend only to realize that they had their AirPods in the entire time.

Lane Herbert Raag Venkat

news editor

Mira Jungerman

sports editor Jake Middleman

views editors

Natalie Gonchar Caroline Simpson

asst. arts editor Alyssa Miller

asst. news editor Brent Ladin

asst. sports editors Davis Gutow Victor Le

A RAVE to the new 4141 Podcast! A little self shoutout, but Davis and Hayden are on top of the game with their new Greenhill sports podcast to keep the student body updated on athletics. With the rise of podcast popularity, there’s no better way to feed your inner sports fan than with the 4141!

A RANT to all the pod shutdowns. Seriously, how hard can it be for teenagers to not yell and throw food at each other? There’s nothing worse than seeing the pushed up chairs and the great migration of all the students into the narrow hallway where we get yelled at once again for blocking passage through.

A RAVE to the funny “Reply All” emails. We all love scrolling through our Outlook during class and nothing makes it better than seeing all our peers’ replies blow up the chat once again.

Thank you for always reminding us to look both ways before we cross the street. Although a bit excessive, we all need an F to get us through the day.

Content and photos courtesy of Caroline Simpson and Natalie Gonchar

Op-Ed: Views editor Caroline Simpson reflects on changes to senior speeches in recent years I was sitting on the Elliot Center’s hard carpet floor with my back against my best friend’s legs. People around me were shouting across the room about lunch, work and who was about to give a senior speech. Laughter was an undertone of the constant chatter and an eagerness to begin the F-day assembly was present. I was surrounded by the entire smelly and pushy Upper School, so close, so together. It was in these moments this school felt most like home, and the people surrounding me felt like my family.

A senior then stood in front of us and poured their hearts out. Whether it was through sarcasm, sincerity, or stories from their past, the authenticity was refreshing and had a lasting impact on me as a freshman. I remember more senior speeches from my freshman year, crammed into the sweaty Elliot Center, than any other year of high school.

Each speech felt more like a conversation rather than a premeditated performance.

The proximity of the speech combined with the genuine emotion behind the words and the way the speaker sat back on the floor with their

peers after talking created a sense of intimacy.

This intimacy has been lost in the Marshall Performing Arts Center (MPAC).

The MPAC is a theater meant for performances. Prior to its existence, senior speeches were comparable to conversations spoken around a campfire, natural and transparent. Now, they’re ridden with stiff procedure.

The requirement that senior speeches must be written two weeks prior to the day they’re given takes away from their realness. Before the advanced turn in process, a large percentage of speeches began with I wrote this last night or I was thinking of what to write last night when…

These first sentences marked the beginning of raw speeches, representing a student’s final thoughts in their final hour.

Not only does the deadline prevent peak authenticity but also a looming shadow of censorship. Knowing the message someone wants to pass onto younger peers could be rejected by administration transforms the dynamic of senior speeches as a whole. The critiquing speeches of

2018 were harmful to the reputation of Greenhill, I agree. The influx of negativity toward the school was overwhelming but unusual, the outlier of previous years.

Senior speeches were the sole purpose of Fday assemblies my freshman year and they were worthy of the spotlight. This made them extra special, and I looked forward to them each week.

Of course I love to hear what my classmates want to say, but the stiff procedure of current speeches has transformed the specialness of Elliot Center senior speeches, and it saddens me that those experiences cannot be replicated.

I’ll be giving my speech on May 14, following the new procedure. Perhaps after experiencing the new rules myself, my outlook on the intense structure will change. I’ll stand behind the podium in the MPAC with the bright lights illuminating my face and try to speak to them as if they were my family, as if we were just sitting on the floor of the Elliot Center.

online editor-in-chief Sonia Dhingra

online executive editor Mila Nguyen

online broadcast editor Tej Dhingra

social media editor Emma Light

staff writers Lola Frenkel Sarah Luan

business manager Ryan Wimberly

adviser

Gregg Jones

asst. adviser Dr. Amy Bresie

Have a response?

Opinion?

Original idea?

Email us at: evergreen@greenhill.org For the editorial policy visit our website at evergreengreenhill.org

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The NAIS Student Diversity Leadership Conference is a multiracial, multicultural gathering of upper school student leaders (grades 9-12) from across the U.S. and abroad. SDLC focuses on self-reflecting, forming allies, and building community. Led by a diverse team of trained adult and peer facilitators, participating students develop cross-cultural communication skills, design effective strategies for social justice practice through dialogue and the arts and learn the foundations of allyship and networking principles. In addition to large group sessions, SDLC “family groups” and “home groups” allow for dialogue and sharing in smaller units.

Content coutesy of The National Assosiation of Independent Schools

For minorities such as myself, Student Diversity Leadership Conference was an experience of a lifetime. For the majority of my years I will live life as the “diversity in the room.” The person who is there to show that an institution is diverse or that they are culturally aware. The feeling of being different became normalized to me. I was used to all the eyes in the room staring in my direction whenever black history was brought up. I got comfortable with being asked how my hair curled, who Frederick Douglass was or how to perfect some new dance move that was trending. But there was a problem: I had to be the sole advocate for my entire culture and race. That should not be any one person’s burden.

At SDLC it wasn’t. Everybody knew why my hair curled the way it did, who Frederick Douglass was and when slavery was mentioned everyone continued to listen to the speaker because we were all quite familiar with the deep pains of our past. The sense of belonging in those three days are ones that I know and understand will never be replicated. Yet, now

It’s easy to be pessimistic. It’s too easy to succumb to activism fatigue and feel discouraged and cynical as if the world will never change. But negativity sanctions inaction and hopelessness in the face of injustice. For too long, I’d felt like my voice never mattered and believed that it’s impossible to radically change our status quo oriented world.

I’d been afraid to speak up about social issues, and assumed others would think my words to be a waste of time. However, at the Student Diversity Leadership Conference, I was given renewed hope and the conference exuded youthful exuberance and potency. Our generation will not be quiet.

We will speak up, and there’ll be an audience waiting to hear our words.

The conference brought together like-minded people who all want our society to be more equitable and conscious of the ways our core cultural identifiers shape our interactions. SDLC gave me a community, and it also gave me a voice. Strangers often assume that I’m relatively quiet just based on my appearance as an Asian-American female, but anyone who’s engaged with me at all during class knows I enjoy talking. Prior to SDLC, I’d never ever been explicitly told that my voice could be loud; SDLC was the first time I felt like my voice was truly heard or that it even mattered, and that meant a lot to me. SDLC gave me the opportunity to give a rallying speech in front of my Asian Affinity group, the privilege to interview Christian Picciolini, a former leader of America’s white power movement, and the chance

This November, I attended the annual Student Diversity Leadership Conference, and to say that it was the best experience of my life is an understatement. I have attended Greenhill for the past 10 years of my life so the predominantly white environment became normalized for me. I didn’t know what it was like to be around people that looked like me and felt the same pain that I did. We came together from all around the nation to gather the tools that we need to impact today’s society. We made unbreakable bonds and are still in contact to this day. I am the type of person who is very particular about the words that I use, and I think love is a very powerful word that shouldn’t be used so meaninglessly. However, I can firmly say that I not only love SDLC, but I am in love with SDLC. My two biggest takeaways from SDLC are the follow-

Photo courtesy of Christine Wu

there is a social accountability system, one that consists of a council that deals with social and racial issues in our community and holds students accountable for their actions. Not only would this give minority students a sense of comfort should something ever happen to them, but also promote students to think more before they say something that could offend another student. This is only a small step to making the Greenhill community for everyone, but nevertheless is an important step. However, for those who want make a change individually, might I ask that you are not scared to stand up for yourself or a friend when the time comes. When we all come together as one change is inevitable. “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

that I know what is right I cannot help but to act on what I learned at SDLC. Going forward our community cannot be one that applauds itself on diversity but ignores the cries of those who make up the diverse community. Just because you put a lot of diversity into one school does not mean they will all get along or always perform perfectly. I propose that

to talk comfortably in front of a crowd of around 1,600 peers. As an aside, I also learned that public speaking is incredibly addicting, especially in a crowd where you know the words will be well received. No longer did I need to censor my words to comfort the fragility of people who aren’t ready to hear radical ideas, and coming back to Greenhill made me realize just how much I hold back from speaking my true feelings in order to protect the egos of others. We understood the necessity of discomfort in creating change, and I hope our peers at Greenhill can recognize that as well.

We were all at the conference because we believed that our voices could make a difference and our thoughts could be transported back to our individual schools to press for institutional change from the ground up like a grassroots movement. The power of ‘ground up’ stories of lived experience cannot be understated; prior to the conference, I’d interacted with many cultural issues only through the lens of academia (which is a massive privilege I have) and didn’t get to engage with the real-life implications and communities affected by issues. Lived experiences can tie people together, and viewing issues only through academia can never provide a full enough picture. Hearing my peers’ stories renewed me with a desire to reform how society views its most vulnerable members, and the conference taught me that it’s incredibly crucial to continue the fight and not let activism fatigue destroy our willpower to fight against unjust barriers for progress.

SDLC’s energy has transferred over to our school, and the six Greenhill kids who attended the conference

ing: systematic oppression and internalized discrimination.

Systematic oppression being the way the government and society paints certain people in a negative light. As a result, certain groups of people are self-consciously discriminated against by others which leads to internalized discrimination. My Latinx affinity group orchestrated a very powerful representation of internalized discrimination. Every student wrote down a discriminatory comment towards Latinx people on a sticky note and placed it on a large piece of construction paper. The sea of colored post-its and oppressive messages overwhelmed the room. Afterwards, we wrote down something we had previously thought about Latinx people that was also discriminatory and put it on a separate piece of construction paper. A facilitator mentioned how the wall that we are fighting against in modern day politics is not the only thing holding us back. He pointed to the post-its and said, “this within itself is another wall that we need to stop.” Our own comments reinforce that

Photo courtesy of Christine Wu

this year have all continued to talk with administration as well as other groups like the sixth grade to share the energy that we felt at the conference. I hope that after we graduate, there still will be SDLC attendees who continue to make Greenhill as an institution a more welcoming place. We can be better, and I know we can get there so long as the students express their thoughts repeatedly (of course, in an eloquent enough manner) to those who have the power to create change in our institution.

wall, so it became evident that we ourselves were a reason behind our own oppression. Even if you didn’t put a post-it down, you allowed one of those comments to slide in your daily conversations. It made me ask myself if I wanted to be someone that reinforced that wall or chipped away at it. I also related it to other groups of people that are affected by the same problem. Whether or not I am personally affected by other’s comments, I know what it’s like to be affected by ill comments. Thus, I now defend my core cultural identifiers and others. I challenge you to do the same. Don’t reinforce the wall, help me tear it down. Every day is a fight for equality. What side do you want to be on?

News the

Lee Hark delivers his first state of the school address

Photo by Brent Ladin

STATE OF GREENHILL: Head of School Lee Hark offered two opportunities for community members to attend a “State of the Union”-style speech and covered a variety of topics regarding the current state of Greenhill. Students, parents and faculty attended. The address received positive feedback as attendees appreciated the direct and goal-driven speech.

Hayden Jacobs Staff Writer

By declaring #TheLongGame as Greenhill’s guiding theme, Head of School Lee Hark on Feb. 7 cast an expansive vision for the school’s success in his first State of the School address.

A central idea of Mr. Hark’s vision is creating an environment that will have a life-long impact on students.

“I wanted to make sure that parents understand that my focus is not solely on the academic success and college matriculation of our students but also on the long game,” said Mr. Hark. “The Greenhill experience doesn’t stop when you’re 18 and walk across the stage at graduation. Greenhill is helping to create the person you’re going to be, and that matters to me, too.”

Mr. Hark gave the speech in the morning and in the afternoon to audiences of about 150 people. He highlighted the school’s strength financially, in academics, college matriculation, arts and athletics.

He spoke in detail about his desire for greater curricular alignment through all grade levels, clearer and more consistent policy through all divisions and his belief in Greenhill’s effect on students’ years after they graduate.

“I wanted to give this speech to give the community a snapshot of where we are in Greenhill’s history,” said Mr. Hark.

The speech started with Mr. Hark discussing Greenhill’s growing size.

“Dallas has a fever, and the only prescription is ‘More Greenhill,’” said Mr. Hark. “We received almost 950 applications for admission for the 2019-2020 school year, more than ever in our history.”

Mr. Hark spent some time going through the academic successes of Greenhill students on Advanced Placement exams and other standardized tests. He capped that by posing the question: “Where do our core values of honor, respect and compassion fit in with SAT and ACT scores and college acceptances?” These two things are not mutually exclusive, he said, and their combination is what makes Greenhill unique.

Greenhill parent Ksenia Gonchar said she appreciated the focus on character.

“I thought this was a much-needed breath of fresh air for Greenhill,” said Ms. Gonchar. “I feel like this is necessary for any academic environment.”

Another priority Mr. Hark stressed was the importance of aligning Greenhill’s curriculum through all 15 grade levels. This will help eliminate gaps and repetitiveness through all divisions.

“From now on, all teachers at this school need to have ‘curriculum writer’ as part their job descriptions,” Mr. Hark said.

Midway through the speech, Mr. Hark introduced Chief Operating and Chief Financial Officer Kendra Grace to speak about the school’s current finances.

She stressed Greenhill’s strong financial standing especially compared to other schools with similar sized endowments.

She also announced that Greenhill remains debt free this school year.

“I wanted to make sure people understand what the financial picture of the school is in terms of our enrollment, endowment and faculty salaries and benefits,” Mr. Hark said in a later interview.

“These are major indicators of the health and well-being of the school.”

Later, Mr. Hark discussed the importance of Greenhill’s facilities.

He highlighted the recent successful completions of the Marshall Family Performing Arts Center, the Crossman Dining Hall and the new Makers Lab in the Lower School. He continued by saying that Greenhill needs to continuously work to improve the buildings, specifically identifying future priorities as a new science building, a renovated football stadium and a turf field.

“Another important part of education, one that supports the academics, arts and athletics, is the quality of the facilities our students, faculty and coaches have to use,” Mr. Hark said.

Clearer policies and procedures can help the school avoid future problems, Mr. Hark said. This will come through the first all-school handbook, which will be introduced for the 2019-2020 school year.

Mr. Hark said he does not want this new focus to change the school’s “relaxed environment.”

“This clarity makes it easier for

teachers to do their jobs consistently, and it makes the experience more predictable for our students and families,” Mr. Hark said.

The speech concluded with Mr. Hark announcing the timeline for Greenhill’s new strategic plan. He intends to start

discussions about the plan this fall and put it into place for the 2020-2021 school year. “[The new strategic plan] will be a whole-community effort,” said Mr. Hark. “[Everyone] will be involved in some way.”

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Upper School phone policies vary by teacher, but should that change?

Davis Gutow Staff Writer

Whether walking between buildings, at lunch with friends or in the middle of class, Upper School students glance down at their phones constantly.

In the Student Center, an abundance of students can be found sitting next to each other, spending their free period playing video games on their phones.

“The minute [students] walk out of class they put their headphones on,” said Dean of Students Jack Oros. “I wish they would just connect with the world.”

Greenhill has restricted areas on campus where cell phone usage is prohibited.

For example, the Upper School Learning Commons, Academic Resource Center and Rose Hall during Community Time are places where students are not allowed to use devices. A rule also requires students to take all phone calls outside any building.

After or in-between classes, students may use their phones as they wish. However, Greenhill gives each teacher the freedom to conduct classes with their own rules.

That includes the power to decide whether students can use their phones in the classroom.

Upper School math teacher Darryn Sandler requires each student to place their phone in a basket at the beginning of his class. Mr. Sandler has been collecting phones for the past few years. He said that it has helped to decrease distractions in his class.

“If I don’t make [students] put them away, people put them in their laps and try to be sneaky about using them or they will

Photo illustration by Brent Ladin

DEFINING THE POLICY: Students (left to right) Jessica Thompson, Lucas Henry and Zoe Purdy on their phones in a classroom. Phone policies are dependent on the teacher and class.

take 15-minute bathroom breaks and take their phones with them,” Mr. Sandler said.

English teacher Abby Seeskin does not confiscate students’ cell phones during her class. She allows students to keep their cell phones in their backpacks or pockets.

In class, there are times when students will be asked to pull out their phones to google a concept, image or word that is being discussed. Dr. Seeskin encourages the responsible usage of cell phones.

“I encourage students to use their phones as a tool when pertinent to class discussions, like looking up images related to what we’re discussing,” Dr. Seeskin said.

Aside from the teachers’ individual regulations on cell phones, Greenhill as a whole tends to be on the liberal side of phone limitations and boundaries during the day. Some schools in the area do not allow phones to be accessed at all during the school day. In the Dallas Independent School District (DISD), cell phones are prohibited during any instructional class time. If a phone is confiscated at a DISD school, a five-dollar fee must be paid for the student to reclaim their phone.

“I think we are a more lenient school [regarding phone policy] compared to most schools,” said Mr. Oros.

Upper School students are ultimately granted a substantial amount of phone freedom, especially during free periods.

The complications begin when students abuse their freedom. Teachers have explicit expectations, which are sometimes not followed.

“I do not permit free usage of phones, and I will and do speak up when I see students using phones not for class purposes,” said Dr. Seeskin.

Some Upper School students admitted using their cell phones in classes when they are not supposed to.

“Every time I have the opportunity, I look at my phone,” said a sophomore who requested to remain anonymous to avoid getting in trouble with the teachers.

A second student who didn’t want to be identified speaking about the Greenhill phone policy said he uses his phone in some classes to further his understanding of a topic. He also admitted using his phone when he is not permitted.

“I use my phone a lot during class,” said the second student. “Some teachers notice but others do not.”

Greenhill’s Middle School implemented a cell phone ban last August. The new policy does not permit any students to bring their phones on campus. Communication with parents is more challenging in Middle School, but teachers say there are fewer classroom distractions. [See “A Middle School Unplugged” below.]

“I am looking forward to having that freedom in high school and I think it will be helpful to communicate with parents,” seventh-grader Alex Ladin said.

A Middle School unplugged

Avery Franks Staff Writer

Jothi Gupta Staff Writer

Last August, Greenhill’s Middle School joined a growing trend across the country by banning smartphones and smartwatches on campus for the 2018-2019 school year.

Six months into the new policy, teachers are finding drastic improvements in mindfulness and productivity of students.

“Most students would say how their phones are a distraction but still wish they had them,” said Head of Middle School Susan Palmer. “It’s the same as saying that I hate the way that antibiotic tastes, but I know I have to take it so I’ll get well.”

The ban is designed to promote education and decrease distractions.

“The research [shows] life skills are diminishing in students who spend six to nine hours on devices a day,” said Ms. Palmer. “Greenhill administration was concerned about research involving the excessive use of technology and its negative impact on a student’s ability to focus.”

The policy came out of summer meetings held by a group of faculty members that included Middle School Computer Science and Engineering Coordinator Don Myers. The faculty discussed parental comments they had received about students substituting face-to-face interactions with their devices and how some students had abused the usage devices in the past. They used research to craft a new policy that promoted the use of technology for strictly academic purposes.

Students can now only open their laptops if invited, and phones and smart watches found on campus will be confiscated for 24 hours.

“Technology is super useful and beneficial, but I also want the students to understand that certain technologies have

their time and their place,” said Mr. Myers.

“One of the things that we try to teach Middle School kids is that there is no such thing as dividing their attention.”

Teachers said classes seem to get started more quickly with the new policy.

“I feel like the students are more focused and more engaged and not just in class, but at lunchtime and in passing periods,” said history teacher Kara Smith. “I have seen a lot less usage of laptops and technology in general for non-educational purposes so far this year.”

The ban has caused changes in parents’ communication with their kids after school and during pickup. The Middle School administration has asked parents to rely heavily on Office Coordinator Carrie Smith to communicate with their students.

“Usually I use my phone to ask if my mom is here or if there are any last-minute changes,” said eighth-grade student Emily Kim. “Now if your mom or parent needs to tell you something, they’ll put a note in your locker.”

Aside from momentary inconveniences, the transition to a device-free Middle School has been smooth.

“At the beginning of the [school] year they wanted to know ‘why has it been changed,’” said Ms. Kara Smith. “But that was really just the first week of the year, and since then they’ve stopped talking about it.”

Some Upper School students view the policy change favorably.

“A lot of people don’t focus on their studies at school, and they’re on their phone in the bathrooms or in the hallways, and so I feel like it is an important step for Greenhill to make,” said ninth-grader Aarian Dhanani.

Emily sees the ban as an important component of a broader effort to teach responsible digital citizenship.

“I think it’s good for younger grades using technology, since they may not know

Graphic by Sarah Luan

PHONES BANNED: Middle School administration made the decision to ban phones and smartwatches on campus in order to improve students’ productivity in an out of class.

all of the things that they need to know [to use technology properly],” she said.

The Middle School is redesigning its Wellness course to include lessons on how to maintain a healthy online presence. This is aimed at teaching younger students how to stay safe in an increasingly digitized culture.

Overall, faculty, administration and students feel like these changes could benefit the Middle School in the long-term.

“We ask people to suspend the convenience of cell phones in favor of the good we are doing the kids by limiting its use” Ms. Palmer said.

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wednesday, february 20, 2019

A coyote conundrum

Multiple coyotes spotted around campus cont’d from page 1 Three days later, Mr. Hark followed up on his previous email.

“The trapper is coming on Monday at 1:00 p.m. to set traps down by the creek,” he wrote. “The coyotes don’t represent an imminent danger, but we are removing them to err on the side of student safety.

It’s worth some extra vigilance from adults when moving our younger students around campus or during recess until they are removed.”

The pair of e-mails sent out by Mr. Hark frame two opposing views on how an urban campus coexists with nature: is Greenhill’s response unnecessarily removing coyotes and supporting the removal of other wildlife? Or is it trapping and relocating possibly hostile animals as a means of keeping students safe?

Greenhill has its own “Green Team,” a team described as an “all-community program that is made up of Greenhill parent volunteers, faculty, staff and students,” according to Greenhill’s website.

The Green Team has goals that align with Greenhill’s institutional priorities.

“The goal of the Green Team is to make the school a more sustainable place where we place focus on conservation of resources, green buildings and educating others about eco-friendly habits,” reads Greenhill’s website. The page is dedicated to detailing the program’s initiatives that this group has pushed.

“

They’re wild animals, and it’s unfortunate that we can’t share the space, but in terms of the safety and wellbeing of the students, that was the sort of calculus I used to decide that we just need to have them removed for safety’s sake.”

Mr. Hark said he is supportive of a nature-friendly campus but can’t risk the safety of students by allowing coyotes to roam on campus.

“I can’t let the limited possibility of something happening influence my decision about what to do about these animals,” he said. “Do I think that it is likely a coyote will attack someone on this campus? No, it’s not. Is it a possibility? It is. It happens.”

While coyotes can appear as aggressive, rabies-infected animals, there has only been one recorded death from a coyote in the United States, in California in 1981.

Mr. Hark contends that trapping strikes the proper balance of safety and environmental concerns, but Greenhill’s New Year’s coyotes have proved wily so far.

“As of [Jan. 11], the coyotes haven’t been trapped yet,” said Kendra Grace, Greenhill’s chief operating and chief financial officer, in an email response.

“The traps were moved closer to field 10 because that is where we thought they were entering campus. We are monitoring their movements, but they haven’t been seen in over a week. We will continue to keep track of them, but we are hopeful that they have decided to stay away for a while.”

Relocation can be environmentally problematic as well. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has warned that “moving animals may result in diseases being introduced” into animal populations. It also warns that “translocated animals may be exposed to unfamiliar diseases at their releases sites, resulting in illness or death.”

At the same time, there is research in support of the wariness with which Greenhill administrators have viewed the coyotes.

A study conducted by the Urban Coyote Research Project found that 37 percent of coyote attacks were classified as “predatory,” meaning “the coyote directly and aggressively pursued and bit the victim.”

“There have been reports in the paper about coyotes attacking joggers,” said Mr. Hark. “They’re wild animals, and it’s unfortunate that we can’t share the space, but in terms of the safety and wellbeing of the students, that was the sort of calculus I used to decide that we just need to have them removed for safety’s sake.”

Greenhill’s three fulltime security team members have also been monitoring the coyote sightings around campus. They are advising students to stay away from the animals.

“It’s not that [coyotes] are passive, it’s that they’ve adapted to being surrounded by humans and living in an urban environment,” said security team member Josh Gonzalez. “They’re still wild creatures. The Texas Department of Wildlife has issued a state-wide advisory

that coyotes are carrying rabies. They look like dogs, and people will try to approach it and see that they’re not really that bad.

If they start sensing that something is wrong, they’ll turn and starting biting and attacking.”

Especially problematic is the fact that the coyotes have been sighted along the creek near Greenhill’s Pre-kindergarten and Kindergarten playgrounds.

“With Upper School, [the coyotes are] not a big deal,” said Mr. Giorgio. “But with the younger kids off at recess, and with the Kindergarten classes and their playground backing up right into the creek, it is a real concern.”

There is also a legal concern, as the school is liable should any student, especially in the younger grades, be attacked or harmed by a coyote. Mr. Hark said his concern is broader. “[Legal liability] is part of the concern, but it’s not the motivation,” said Mr. Hark.

“Protecting the school from liability is part of my job, so I don’t apologize for that. But it really is about keeping the community safe first and foremost.”

Graphic by Sarah Luan and photo courtesy of Lee Hark

COYOTE CONCERN: Head of School Lee Hark said he has attempted to balance student safety with environmental coexistence.

Features the

From the history pod to the shelves

Alumna writes mythical novel encompassing her Chinese culture Sarah Luan Staff Writer

Creating a fantasy set in 20th-century China, Greenhill alumna Rebecca Kuang '13 introduced a world where a young, orphaned woman named Rin must face the horrors of war.

"The Poppy War", released in April 2018, is Ms. Kuang’s debut novel and the first of a forming trilogy.

Since her time at Greenhill, writing was a hobby and a creative outlet for Ms. Kuang, who is currently studying at Cambridge University in England. However, she didn’t always know she wanted to become an author.

“It wasn’t until I took a gap year and decided to try my hand at writing a fullfledged manuscript that I ever seriously considered having a career in it,” Ms. Kuang said.

Besides writing, Ms. Kuang took many history classes at Greenhill. One of her favorites was Upper School history teacher Scott Cotton’s 9/11 elective. For her final project in that class, she wrote a George Orwell-like novella about the security state after 9/11.

“That was the first time I really melded my academic interests in history with writing fiction,” said Ms. Kuang. “Mr. Cotton encouraged me and said I should pursue writing, so that kept me going after I left Greenhill and I owe a lot to him.”

In addition to Mr. Cotton’s elective, she also enjoyed Upper School history teacher Genie Burke’s class on the Cold War. “[Her] class was important for shaping my understanding of communist states and the new world order post-World War II,” said Ms. Kuang. “I could go on about the teachers at Greenhill that I loved, but the History Department was really influential to me.”

As a part of the Greenhill debate team, Ms. Kuang valued the skills she learned from Middle and Upper School debate teacher Aaron Timmons. These skills helped her with critical thinking and research. “[Debate] was huge for me in taking things at face value and also being able to question what power relations are at play and things that we assume are standard,” said Ms. Kuang. “You start thinking about

Photo Courtesy of Rebecca F. Kuang

FAME AND FORTUNE: Author Rebecca F. Kuang explores gender roles, socio-economic class and race inequality in her new book "The Poppy War." Set in a mythical version of China during the second Sino-Japanese War, the book uncovers the dark side of Chinese elites.

who holds the power and why things are constructed [a certain] way. I wouldn’t have learned how to think like that if it weren’t for debating and Mr. Timmons.”

After Greenhill, her gap year abroad in Beijing sparked the inspiration behind The Poppy War. Her grandparents’ stories of their experiences in World War II got her interested in 20th-century Chinese history.

As a current masters student at Cambridge University, she is taking three classes in her field of Chinese history: China During World War II Asia in Theory and Chinese Literature.

“Probably my favorite class is modern Chinese literature,” said Ms. Kuang. “It’s just been a ton of fun because reading Chinese

fiction in the original Chinese is a huge inspiration to the writing I do.”

Because of her Chinese background, Ms. Kuang felt it was important to have a fiction book that other Chinese women could connect to, especially because there weren’t many books like that when she was growing up.

“People deserve to have themselves represented in fiction in ways that defy the stereotypes about them, so I wanted to add a book to the shelves that ChineseAmerican girls could read and see a little bit of themselves in,” Ms. Kuang said.

Sophomore Ria Subramanian, who has read The Poppy War, feels that part of what makes the book so interesting is because it is

set in China.

“The author pulls from her heritage, which I think is a refreshing experience,” said Ria. “It’s nice to have something that’s not so Eurocentric because you get more surprising parts of the story.”

Ms. Kuang does not know whether she will continue to write about China, but as of right now it is a subject she is passionate about.

“Writers always end up writing about things that they’re passionate about and things they spend a lot of time thinking about, so right now it’s China,” said Ms. Kuang. “I would like to do future projects that would expand my historical study and I think this was a good starting place.”

Creating communities of culture Students attend the Dallas-based DADYO program

Natalie Gonchar Staff Writer

The DADYO subject title is one that many students have seen come across their Greenhill Outlook webmail account, but only a few know what this acronym actually means.

DADYO stands for the Dallas Area Diversity Youth Organization and is made up of faculty and students from different independent schools in the Dallas area. The organization has been meeting since the early 2000’s.

“It truly is a diverse level of students and of school, but most importantly it is a diversity of thought that sometimes some of our students wish that they had at their own schools,” said Upper School history teacher and Equity and Inclusion Coordinator Monsie Muñoz.

Ms. Muñoz has not only been encouraging current Upper School students to join the organization, but she also went to DADYO meetings when she was a Greenhill student from 2002-2005.

Abe Wehmiller, a former Greenhill history teacher, helped create this group several years ago when there was limited diversity of students throughout independent schools in the Dallas area. The founders hoped to create a place for students to go and voice the difficulties that they face as members of a minority.

Even with more students of color and different races and ethnicities across independent schools in the Dallas area, the club has the same goal.

“Our schools have evolved in the amount of diversity, but every school is in a different stage of diversity,” Ms. Muñoz said.

“It offers students from other schools to hear ‘what’s Greenhill doing,’ ‘what’s Parish done,’ like what are all these schools doing with their diversity at the student level.”

DADYO meets monthly on the campus of a school involved in the program. To join the organization, all a student needs to do is show up. Senior Scott Wang did just that.

Scott became a member of DADYO this year, due to its “regional replication” of the Student Diversity Leadership Conference.

According to Ms. Muñoz, this “regional replication” is also a common reason for student interest in DADYO as well as meeting up with their peers.

An average DADYO meeting runs about two and a half hours and includes dinner and group discussions. At each meeting, members are broken into groups of 10 to 15 students from various participating schools and are posed a broad question from an adult facilitator. These topics range from school dress codes to economic and racial class systems. “[DADYO] makes me attain closure every time because the safe space allows us to discuss sensitive topics that people may not feel comfortable talking about otherwise,” said Scott.

However, DADYO isn’t only a learning opportunity for the students. Ms. Muñoz and other adults involved in the meetings hold their own group discussions in order to hear what different schools are doing at the faculty level.

Even though this organization has been around for years, recognition of DADYO

across Greenhill’s campus has faltered since the graduation of Sloan Touchet, Sudeep Bhargava, Emma Wheeler, Austin Manzi and Karis Thomas. “[Recognition of DADYO] used to be by word of mouth, said Ms. Muñoz. “We had a core group of seniors last year that went to every single meeting, but, since they have graduated, we have to build it up again.”

Although the diversity in independent schools has increased in recent years and many schools now have their own diversity groups on campus, DADYO offers a sense of community and diversity of ideas for the participating schools. In other words, Greenhill students may not experience the same issues as students attending Prestonwood Christian Academy or Bishop Lynch.

“It’s a great opportunity and place for people to feel the affinity for each other’s identities, especially ones that are minoritized in their own institutions,” said Scott. “[DADYO] is truly a community of support.”

8 features

the

Evergreen

wednesday, february 20, 2019

Crash course: A study on birds

Photos courtesy of Regina Yunker

WINGS OF CHANGE: (top left) Nick Kanakis of the Trinity River Audubon Center points to a birdhouse to teach second-grade students how birds adapt. (right) Second-grade students observe various bird species using ­­their binoculars. (bottom left) Lower School science teacher Regina Yunker carefully holds up a bird to show to her fifth-grade class for their project.

Alyssa Miller Staff Writer

Upper School history teacher Matthew Giorgio was proctoring a test four years ago when students in the classroom became distracted by a bird repeatedly flying into the window.

This disturbing incident highlighted a baffling phenomenon that has plagued Greenhill’s campus in recent years: birds crashing into campus windows.

The number of bird strikes has sparked an initiative involving the Trinity River Audubon Center to figure out why these incidents are occurring and how to stop them.

“We have this beautiful campus with all of these wonderful buildings and windows,” said Mr. Giorgio. “But from a bird’s perspective, that’s an open sky, which results in the bird strikes. Due to these strikes, we have kids not only distracted but also sickened, wondering why there are so many dead birds on the ground.”

Mr. Giorgio and Lower School science teacher Regina Yunker designed a plan last year for second and fifth graders to come up with ways to preserve Greenhill’s natural landscape as a safe home and habitat for bird populations.

“Second-grade and fifth-grade science

students are designing bird-safe windows and feeding stations in some exterior areas around the Lower and Middle School buildings,” said Ms. Yunker. “The hope is that, by creating aesthetically pleasing window designs for exterior-facing glass and by using a simple variety of native plant species to create bird-friendly feeding areas, we can decrease the number of bird strikes around our areas and inspire others to do the same.”

With help from the Trinity River Audubon Center, the students are being taught how to observe birds and how to collect data that will help them come up with solutions to resolve bird strikes. Information sessions are conducted by staff at the Dallas-based Audubon Center. In the sessions, students are encouraged to present their plans for taking action.

The bird study began in the fall and will last until the end of the school year. Students are working on their observation, information-gathering and problem-solving skills.

They will also design a solution for the problem based on the knowledge they have accrued. Lastly, they will implement their solution and record the changes in the number of bird strikes.

Second grader Colton Ambrose is in Ms. Yunker’s class and really enjoys the nature walks the students have gone on.

“My favorite part about the bird studies is identifying the birds,” Colton said.

One of the ideas that students and teachers have come up with to prevent the strikes is to put reflective decals on the windows around campus.

Greenhill’s campus houses many migratory birds that relocate in large flocks every spring, the peak period of bird-strike cases.

In addition to protecting birds around Greenhill, the desire to prevent incidents stemmed from a need to ensure that students experience limited distractions in class.

Nick Kanakis, a Bird-Friendly Communities educator from the Trinity River Audubon Center, has been working with students to help them improve their bird identification skills. He visited campus once at the beginning of the school year and led a nature walk. He helped the students identify bird species based on their call and appearance.

Mr. Kanakis will return to campus two more times this year to follow up with the students and their progress on reaching a solution to the bird strike problem.

During his visit, he introduced students to two programs: Ebird, a website used worldwide for students and professional bird conservationists alike to log their data; and the Merlin Bird App, which helps students identify the birds they observe.

Ms. Yunker and Middle School science teacher Gretchen Pollom are the main advocates, aside from Mr. Giorgio, for this year-long project. They have implemented student partnerships across second grade and fifth grade.

Specifically, the two grades will be in collaboration by sharing the observations and data they gather during the steps of the project.

The bird study reaches beyond just fixing the problem of strikes on campus though.

The goal is to teach the students about the importance of being aware and inspire them to take the skills they learn throughout the project into the future.

Ms. Yunker has taken this idea and expanded it to connect with the social and emotional learning that Greenhill is emphasizing in the curriculum.

“Incorporating social and emotional learning into the bird studies has been important for the students, because in order for them to attend to bird behaviors and to notice the different variations of species, they have to be really mindful and patient,” Ms. Yunker said.

The bird study has received good feedback from the students, and the science team is preparing to move on to phase two of the project.

wednesday, february 20, 2019

the

Evergreen

features

Greenhill’s historic transition

9

Holland Gary ‘93 to serve as first Board of Trustees Chair of color Sonia Dhingra Staff Writer

Holland Gary ‘93 will chair the Greenhill Board of Trustees for the 2019-2020 school year, becoming the first person of color to serve in this capacity in the school’s 69-year history.

“I haven’t thought heavily about it,” said Mr. Gary. “I’m humbled I was asked and I am honored to take on the position.”

Mr. Gary began attending Greenhill in 1983, when he was in the third grade. He currently has two children at Greenhill, a fifth grader and a kindergartener. He reconnected with Greenhill alumni when he moved back to Dallas in 2005 and worked on the alumni board until he joined the Board of Trustees in 2011.

Mr. Gary’s service as a Greenhill trustee began with a finance committee assignment, a role used to expose new members to school priorities and operations. Mr. Gary is currently assistant chair of the Board of Trustees.

“The board is a nice group of folks,” said Mr. Gary. “It’s all volunteers who care deeply about the school. We all work very hard to support the Head of School and the administration in pursuit of the school’s mission.”

The responsibility of the Board of Trustees includes oversight and guidance with regard to school functions, said Bruce Sostek, current board chair. The chair, as well as the board, is involved in over arching policy decisions but not the day-to-day operation of Greenhill.

Each board chair should have a vision regarding both long-term and short-term issues that the school faces, Mr. Sostek said. Mr. Gary possesses attributes that speak to these requirements, he said.

“In addition to being thoughtful, deeply concerned about the well-being of the school and having great strategic vision, [Mr. Gary] is an alum who is deeply rooted in and fiercely loyal to the school,” Mr. Sostek said.

Many changes at Greenhill can be traced to board decisions and priorities. Among the highlights of Mr. Sostek’s time on the board have been construction of the Marshall Family Performing Arts Center and the hiring of new Head of School Lee Hark.

Assistant Head of School Tom Perryman said students may not be aware of the importance of the Board of Trustees, but it’s one of the most vital bodies in the life of the school.

“There isn’t a natural awareness, but I think [the Board of Trustees] is important because these people do shape students’ lives,” Mr. Perryman said.

Mr. Perryman is also enthusiastic about Mr. Gary being an alumnus, which he said is an asset that gives insight into the school’s mission.

“Now this leader in the school has had this experience [being a Greenhill student] 25 years ago, it just gives a degree of understanding, empathy and intensity to his leadership,” Mr. Perryman said.

Mr. Perryman said it is vital for a Greenhill board chair to have a deep understanding of the school and what it stands for. He recalled that in the 1970s, many parents were pushing for students to have uniforms.

“A couple of board chairs in a row understood that it wasn’t part of our DNA, so they stood up to that and said, ‘No we’re not going to do that,’” said Mr. Perryman. “Sometimes a board chair’s legacy is a building, sometimes it’s a big policy decision.

It depends on the conditions at the time you’re board chair that determine what your impact will be.”

Mr. Gary embodies all the qualities a Greenhill alumnus—and a board chair--should have, he said. “[Mr. Gary] is wise beyond his years,” said Mr. Perryman. “I taught him when he was in sixth grade, and he’s been that way since he was ten years old. He’s chill and yet there is an intensity about him, a deep curiosity, an insatiable hunger

for learning.”

Mr. Perryman also recalled how Mr. Gary distinguished himself early in his board tenure when he reported to fellow members and Greenhill administrators on financial issues.

“When he would give his reports at board

meetings, they were so organized and accessible to non-money people,” said Mr. Perryman.

“His ability to make very complex issues understandable, relatable and relevant is a very handy gift for him to have.”

Photo Courtesy of Carlton Residential Properties

A NEW LEGACY: Holland Gary ’93 will join the Greenhill Board of Trustees for the upcoming 2019-2020 school year, continuing his Greenhill legacy that started in back in 1983.

the

10

A Conflict L

With all of the political chatter about Greenhill talk about the Is

cont’d from page 1 led them to refuse to write letters of recommendation for students applying to study in Israeli universities.

But the boycott enjoys strong support among left-leaning academics. The American Studies Association, which represents 5,000 academics who study U.S. culture and history, voted in 2013 to endorse the boycott. That vote has been the subject of legal challenges by pro-Israel forces.

The conflict has begun to trickle down from the national scene and college campuses to Greenhill. Many Greenhill students say they have strong opinions on this conflict, but the debate is muted on campus because of a fear of offending peers or fracturing friendships.

In a recent survey of 100 Upper School students, The Evergreen found that only 29 percent of respondents consider themselves “very educated” on the topic, while 49 percent feel “somewhat educated.” More striking is the fact that one-third of respondents said they felt uncomfortable sharing their opinions on this conflict at school.

“I have seen this political conflict get in the way of friendships and don’t want that happening to me, so I try to keep to myself when voicing opinions,” one student wrote in the anonymous survey.

History teacher Scott Cotton teaches some of the few classes at Greenhill that discuss the conflict: Understanding 9/11, which is offered every year; and, for the past two years, the one-trimester senior seminar course he has titled Modern Middle East. The senior seminar specifically dedicates part of the class to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We focus on three main topics [in Modern Middle East]: Israeli-Palestinian, the Arab Spring, and Iran-Saudi Arabia,” said Mr. Cotton. “[The class] gives a deep history of the region and conflict. Then we try to take the peace treaty from 1979 and see how it could apply to future negotiations between Israel and Palestinians. The unit [on Israeli-Palestinian] was great because students with preconceived notions were open to other ideas.”

One student in Modern Middle East, senior Megan Olomu, said she didn’t know anything about the conflict before taking this class. She was initially more pro-Palestine, but as she learned more about the complexities of the issue, she said her opinions have become more evenly balanced between both sides.

“I interviewed a man who is a ‘Modern Zionist,’ and who had lived in Israel, during the class,” said Megan. “This shifted my opinion to be more central. There have been significant breaches of liberty in Palestine, but Israel has also had to endure a lot.”

How many of your classes have covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during your time in the Upper School?

Another student, junior Sophia Hurst, said she has never taken a class addressing this conflict, and has been educated on this topic primarily by her family and her own research. But the place where she has discussed the matter the most is in her debate classroom.

“Since debate is such a liberal space, people tend to be very pro-Palestine, because in debate we talk a lot about settler-colonialism,” said Sophia. “[Settler-colonialism] is a critique generally about American colonialism, but can also apply to places like Canada, Israel and Australia.

When people tend to run this argument, they tend to be very critical of Israeli settlements.”

The Israeli settlements in question were built on land seized during wars Israel fought against its Arab neighbors in 1967 and 1973.

Brian Zhou, whose brief reference in his senior speech depicted Palestinians as the victim of genocide, is also a debater and he said debate is really only good for learning the basics of the issue.

“Debate does not go in depth on the topic all that frequently but has helped immensely in going beyond just basics like the ‘two-state/one-state’ discussion and into the nuances and history of settler colonialism within Israel,” said Brian.

Sophia feels that this conflict is not discussed often on campus between Greenhill students.

“It’s sort of the elephant in the room in some places, especially between people of different religions that support one-side or the other, because they’ve been raised to believe [one side],” she said. “I don’t think anyone wants to say anything that could offend the religion of other Greenhill students. Especially because I don’t know if we’re informed enough to make complete judgments about what has happened and what is right, because a lot of it is subjective.”

Senior Anna Myers agreed with Brian, saying most of the knowledge she has accrued on the topic has come from her own outside research. Several of Anna’s fellow debaters said they consider Anna to be one of the most educated people they know on the issue because of the time she has put into it.

“Debate has taught me about people’s unwillingness and hesitancy to talk about the conflict,” said Anna. “It’s very common for [debaters] to record rounds and post them on the internet. But people we debate do not want this on the internet. There is a tension between what is acceptable inside and outside of debate. Only when we talk about Israel do people get concerned. It’s the only subject people view as [something that could be] controversial or damaging to their reputation.”

Israel’s Declaration of Independence was officially revealed and read out to the public. The state of Israel was established as the Jewish state in Palestine and promised to give its Arab inhabitants equal rights.

Hitler and Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews and persecuted millions more across Europe, forcing Jews to flee to Palestine and causing a territorial dispute between Jews and Palestinians.

-2

After the U.N. Special Committee on Palestine sent a partition plan to the General Assembly, a 33 to 13 vote partitioned western Palestine into two states: one for the Jews and one for the Palestinian Arabs.

Israel launche against Egypt, the Egyptian dul Nasser de annihilate the lasted only 6 d Egypt’s Sinai P Heights and

wednesday, february 20, 2019

11

Left Behind

t domestic issues, why does no one at sraeli-Palestinian conflict?

When asked about her opinion on why the conflict is so unique in students’ unwillingness to discuss it, Anna said she believes the religious aspect of the conflict and potential anti-Semitic label that can come with a pro-Palestine opinion are the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s defining characteristics.

“The way we are taught as Jewish people to recognize Israel as a divine extension of what it means to be Jewish makes it above criticism,” said Anna. “Because of the Holocaust and rising global anti-Semitism, people view Israel as above criticism and untouchable. Criticism of Israel turns into criticism of your classmates’ fundamental and core beliefs. There are rights abuses all over the planet, but Jews are taught to protect and instinctively relate to Israel.”

A few alumni have been directly impacted by this conflict and continue to be outspoken on the subject after their days at Greenhill. Carmel Abuzaid ’14, a Palestinian-American, said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was rarely talked about when she was at school, outside of Mr. Cotton’s Understanding 9/11 class. It was more frequently brought up among her peers after major tensions between Israel and Palestine, when students would post on social media in support of Israel.

“A lot of pro-Israel students posted statuses defending the state of Israel and Israeli policy during the 2014 bombardment of Gaza, and a lot of students were showing up to school wearing IDF [Israel Defense Forces] shirts,” she said.

Ms. Abuzaid said she spent all of her summers visiting family members in the West Bank, the 2,183-square-mile area along the west bank of the Jordan River that Israel captured from neighboring Jordan in the Six-Day War in 1967. The West Bank is home to about 3 million Palestinians, even though it is controlled by Israel. The “two-state solution” to the conflict envisions the creation of an independent Palestinian state coexisting with Israel, and the West Bank would make up the heart of the new Palestinian state.

“Life under military occupation is difficult in all senses,” said Ms. Abuzaid, recalling her summer stays with family in the West Bank. “It has material impact, like what you can acquire, where you can live, where you can move. It has a lot of psychological impacts. You are constantly being monitored, someone is watching you.”

Egypt and Syria launched coordinated attacks against Israeli forces on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal and in the Golan Heights. The USA and USSR forced a ceasefire to be adopted by the UN Security Council 19 days later after both countries showed they would not allow Israel or Egypt and Syria to be defeated.

ed a preemptive strike , Syria and Jordan after President Gamel Abeclared his intention to e Jewish state. The war days after Israel took over Peninsula, Syria’s Golan d Jordan’s West Bank.

Since this conflict is very personal to her, she often found it difficult to talk about at Greenhill. While she spent her summers in the West Bank, she found that many of her peers spent their summers in Israel.

“I would see my peers at the beach in Israel,” she said. “They had no family there, at least most of them didn’t. They were going on youth trips, probably fully-funded, to go hang out in Tel Aviv, while my family was living under military occupation a few miles away. Why is that okay?

How can someone explain that to me?”

Another alumnus, Josh Rudner ’17, is currently serving as a corporal in the Israel Defense Forces. Josh said this issue has also always been close to his heart.

“Being Jewish, and being raised in a Jewish household, the Israeli conflict was always there in my life,” he said.

Mr. Rudner said he only learned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a few classes, but that he was okay with that.

“I think we learned a perfect amount in class and outside of class,” he said.

As one of the founders of the Jewish Studies Club, which is still active at Greenhill today, Mr. Rudner said he loved talking about Israel. However, he, unlike most, felt there was an obsession with the topic at Greenhill.

“You can have whatever opinion you want, but I feel like people feel the need to talk about this, and that is not me,” said Mr. Rudner. “I have an opinion about it because this is my life.”

Similar to Ms. Abuzaid, Mr. Rudner saw that many of his peers also posted about the conflict on social media in 2014 during the Israeli military operation into Gaza.

“That was a really hard summer for me. There was a lot of war and a lot of rockets,” said Mr. Rudner. “A lot of my friends at school were really upset about it and were posting about it and I got into some arguments over it.”

As Mr. Rudner reached his senior year at Greenhill, he gained a deeper understanding of how best to approach this issue at school and with friends.

“I still have close friends from Greenhill who don’t have the same opinion as me,” said Mr. Rudner. “But what I’ve learned from them, and what I’ve hoped they’ve learned from me, is that we’ve allowed both sides to be humanized to the other.”

The BDS movement is a Palestinian-led movement that encourages the boycott of Israel and likens it to the apartheid state of South Africa in the late 20th century. It is highly controversial and at the heart of the modern conflict.

Hamas, a nationalist-Islamic spinoff of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, was founded as its political branch. It spoke out against Israeli control of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. It called for the destruction of Israel and the establishment of an Islamic state in what was formerly Palestine.

President Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. He ordered the US Embassy to move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, making the US the only nation with an embassy in Jerusalem.

Special Report the

A homeroom hassle

Upper School advisories have experienced a decline in value and attendance

Photo illustrations by Jeffrey Harberg and Raag Venkat

STARTING SCHOOL RIGHT: (left) A view of an advisory that depicts its advisor and her students engaged in their planned advisory activity for the day, which was scheduling. (right) Another advisory shows its advisor and most students are not present. Many Upper School students do not understand the purpose or intention of having advisory before school begins.

Jeffrey Harberg Staff Writer

At promptly 8:40 a.m. on most letter days, students are supposed to join their advisories for a time of activity, reflection and conversation.

The only problem: Many students don’t show up, and many others don’t understand advisories’ purpose.

A schedule change in 2016 that moved the time of advisories to before first period has called into question the significance of the 15-minute period.

Upper School advisories have always been taken seriously by faculty and administration on campus; the process of picking advisories even starts in Middle School.

In order to place students in advisories, students and parents both fill out a questionnaire at the end of eighth grade asking about the student’s personality and interests. Freshman dean Genie Burke, Head of Middle School Susan Palmer, Assistant Head of Middle School Michael Jenks and eighth-grade team leader Susan Bauman use those surveys and their own relationships with each student to determine the best match for each student.

“

Doing connective activities can be much harder to do at 8:40 in the morning because advisory is now considered ‘before school.’”

Two to three spots in each freshman advisory are left vacant for new students entering Greenhill and for the rare student opting to switching advisories.

Dean of Students and current freshman advisor Jack Oros said the process of matching advisors to students is not perfect, but it is an attempt for students and their advisor to find more opportunities to bond and work cohesively. “[The process] works better than throwing balls up in the air and seeing where they land,” he said.

All advisors have the flexibility to spend advisory time however they prefer

By the numbers: Advisories

when there isn’t anything urgent on the agenda. Some play games with their students, some read current events and some simply converse for the 15 minutes.

Upper School English teacher and current senior advisor Andrew Mercurio said that while he sometimes must work with his advisees on particular pressing matters, his students enjoy spending advisory time in a relaxed manner.

“The group really enjoys talking to each other,” he said. “This year, especially as seniors, I try to give them space for that.”

Advisories go a little differently for Upper School history teacher and current freshman advisor Amy Bresie ’96. Her advisory competes with other freshman advisories in an ongoing trivia competition every E day. The freshmen do this every year to help initiate bonding in the advisory, since the group has only been together for less than a year.

“The Legacy/Garcia-Machado advisory has thus far eluded us, but the Bresie advisory is hoping to forge ahead,” said Dr. Bresie. “I take advisory trivia very seriously.”

More importantly than anything else, advisories are a place where students are supposed to feel like they have guidance in the Upper School. Mr. Mercurio tries to keep that on the top of his priority list.

“I want [advisory] to be a place where people feel good, comfortable, valued and supported,” he said. “Advisory serves like a shelter from the storm.”

While advisors often allow their students to spend their time relaxing, they also have important responsibilities regarding their students.

Mr. Oros said that he has many roles as an advisor, including being his students’ advocate, guiding his students’ academic paths and checking on their progress throughout Upper School. If there is a concern with a student in his advisory, the concern goes through him.

“I am here for guidance across the board, in all different factors of life,” he said.

“There are always many ‘fires’ to put out.”

Sophomore Zachary Kennedy says his advisor, Upper School history teacher Matthew Giorgio, has been very helpful in

40 Total number of advisories in the Upper School

addressing any issues he has. “[Mr. Giorgio] is really good at helping our advisory,” said Zach. “He is always asking ‘What do I need to do to help you make your experience better?’”

While advisors’ jobs are to provide guidance for students, Zach thinks that sometimes advisors should allow students to try and solve problems on their own and simply serve as a backup if needed.

“Advisors should have a balance between the passive and the want to help,” Zach said.

Greenhill advisories stick together for all four years barring a teacher’s departure or student’s request to switch advisories, so the students and teacher often have plenty of time to form close bonds and relationships.

“It’s sort of a forced, 15-minute hangout with people,” said senior and Funkhouser advisee Leah Fradkin. “If there is someone who is really struggling with having friends, then advisory can be great, but otherwise it’s a little unnecessary if all we do is sit on our phones.”

While all advisories form mutual friendships, some create bonds that are stronger than others.

“In our advisory group chat, we don’t just say, ‘Hey, I’m going to be late.’ We actually talk about deep stuff,” said senior Scottie Pearson-Thompson, a member of the Woolley advisory.

It is not particularly easy for advisors, however, to transition back to freshmen following the graduation of their senior advisories. The process can be difficult to handle and it takes a little while to get used to new students, according to Mr. Mercurio.

“You have to completely recalibrate,” he said. “Everything you took for granted that the kids knew is out the window.”

The four-year length of individual advisories has been around since the institution was created in the Upper School. However, some parts of advisories have changed recently.

At the beginning of the 2015-16 school year, a major schedule shift occurred; the starting time for classes changed from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., and 15-minute advisories moved from after second period at 10:00

12

Minutes that hold Average number of Stephen studentscan in each a plank advisory

a.m. to 8:40 a.m., before the start of first period.

The reason for the time change for advisory was simple: In order for classes to start an hour later, something in the middle of the day had to be moved. So, administration turned to advisory and the time allotted specifically for Upper School clubs, which was from 10:15-10:45 a.m.

Faculty members agree that the shift in advisory’s slot has turned the time into more of an expendable experience than a positive one from a student’s perspective.

“There is a difference in the mindset of students before school starts than at 10 o’clock,” said Mr. Mercurio. “Doing connective activities can be much harder to do at 8:40 in the morning because advisory is now considered ‘before school.’”

Since advisory is thought of by many students as ‘before school,’ being on time to advisory is not considered important by many, especially upperclassmen. And those that come aren’t as attentive before school, multiple faculty members agreed.

“Not many people are at their best when they’ve just rolled out of bed and hauled across town in a car,” said Dr. Bresie.

“If we say we value advisory, then why aren’t we giving it a position in the day that is valuable?”

Dr. Bresie said that advisory time can be very important and that if it is going to have the greatest possible impact on students, it must keep evolving.

“Advisory, when done well, is extremely important, and I think that Greenhill can and needs to continue to make it more and more meaningful,” Dr. Bresie said.

Mr. Oros wants advisories to go back to the way they used to be, and he even worked out a schedule that starts school at 8:30 and moves advisories to 10, but the change wouldn’t be implemented, if it is approved, until the 2020-21 school year.

Some students also believe that a midday advisory would be more effective.

“If we did advisories in the middle of the school day, people would get more out of them,” said Zach. “[The system] works now, but I think it could work better if we moved it to around lunch.”

50

Average number of minutes spent in advisory each week

Arts the

Nationwide recognition: Greenhill debaters soar higher with national rankings

Photos courtesy of Samar Ahmad, Anna Myers and Aaron Timmons

COMPETING FOR VICTORY: Seniors Anna Myers and Mihir Rai have received awards for placing nationally in the Lincoln-Douglas debate format (top right). Seniors Chris Eckert and Samar Ahmad are partners in Policy debate (bottom right). They have also received awards from competitions (top left).

Sonali Notani Staff Writer

Continuing its long run of success, the Greenhill debate team has multiple members who have achieved national recognition this school year.

As of Jan. 16, seniors Samar Ahmad and Chris Eckert were ranked No. 1 in the National Coaches Poll in Policy debate. Senior Anna Myers is ranked first nationally in the one-on-one Lincoln-Douglas debate format by accumulating the most points in her top five tournaments, with senior Mihir Rai ranked second.

“The first- and second-place LincolnDouglas debaters in the country are both from our school, which is extraordinary,” said Director of Debate Aaron Timmons.

The ranking for Lincoln-Douglas debate is determined by the Dukes and Bailey system, which values tournaments based on how many students are competing, how many states are represented in the tournament and how each student places.

Scholastic debate at the national level is intensely competitive. Chris said that losing a competition does not bring him down but drives him to do better next time.

“I live for competition,” said Chris. “I love the rush when you hear your name called and the feeling of victory.”

Policy debate and Lincoln-Douglas debate are vastly different in terms of their format and structure. Policy debate is in teams of two with four constructive speeches of eight minutes as well as three minutes of cross examination and four fiveminute rebuttal speeches. Samar and Chris have been partners for about a year.

“I think [Samar and me] being friends external to debate really helps the way we

work together at tournaments,” said Chris.

“We know just how far to push each other without ever getting too lost in the competition.”

On the other hand, Lincoln-Douglas debate, named after the 16th U.S. president and his Illinois political rival, Sen. Stephen Douglas, is an individual debate over moral and philosophical issues. Each debate consists of five speeches. This form of debate is much shorter, and the topic changes every two months. The current topic focuses on whether the United States should provide military assistance to authoritarian regimes.

“I think the reason I like [LincolnDouglas debate] is because you don’t have a partner, so you have more of an opportunity to explore and come up with your own arguments,” Anna said.

Even though Lincoln-Douglas debate is individual, the students still work together to develop ideas and research.

“You have to work together in both formats of debate,” said Mr. Timmons.

“The difference is that in Lincoln-Douglas debate when you go into a room it’s just you. But Anna, Mihir, Anais, Brian and the others still work together closely and prepare as a team.”

To achieve their high level, these debaters have undergone rigorous training and dedicated countless hours to competitions, research and practice. Many of them have even attended challenging weeks-long debate camps over the summer.

“Debate is notorious for its time commitment, but I recognize that this is the level of commitment necessary for any activity that someone chooses to dedicate themselves to,” said Samar. “In debate, it accelerated the learning curve very rapidly.”

Even with this time commitment, many Greenhill debaters are driven by their love and dedication to the activity.

“I think the big thing for me was, even when I wasn’t working on debate I found myself thinking about debate,” said Chris.

“Debate has affected the way I think about everything I do and everything I do seems to tie back to it.”

At the time Anna joined debate, she was involved in many other activities. As time went by she found herself dedicating more of her time and effort to the team.

Soon it became her biggest passion.

“When I was a little kid I always imagined myself as part of the debate team,” said Anna. “But I think the real reason I ended up staying in debate is because it is an academic experience that is intense and unparalleled to any other academic environment even at Greenhill.”

Samar and Chris were both motivated to join debate because of their older brothers. Samar remembers feeling compelled after seeing her brother fly to competitions every other weekend and bring back trophies. She realized that, just like her brother, debate might be the right fit for her.

“I’ve always been a super competitive person but was never really into sports, so debate was a place I could channel some of that energy in an intellectual way,” she said.

The partners both believe that Greenhill has provided them with ample funding and coaching.

“We have been taught to engage in and read all sorts of perspectives to almost know the cases of our opponents better than they do,” Samar said.

Chris transferred to Greenhill in eighth grade because of its debate program so that he could get the guidance and men-

torship he desired.

“I believe Greenhill provides almost infinitely more support than any school in the nation for their debate team,” Chris said.

Over the years, Mr. Timmons has observed these debaters grow and improve their speaking and argument skills. “[The debaters] are successful because they have focused on working on their weaknesses,” said Mr. Timmons. “It’s one thing to continue to practice what you do well, and it’s something very different to pinpoint your weaknesses and work on those.”

In the future, all three of these debaters plan to carry the skills they have developed beyond high school.

Chris has received a debate scholarship to University of Kentucky, where he plans to major in communications. He believes a big part of communications is determining what is persuasive to people as well as learning how to utilize language, two skills he has acquired from debate. After college, he plans to be a debate coach.

“Debate has been a huge aspect of my life for five years and I can’t imagine doing anything else,” Chris said.

Although Anna and Samar are not completely sure what they would like to pursue in college, they both agree that no matter what they do, their debate skills will be beneficial.

“Debate has taught me not to shy away from disagreement,” said Anna. “Disagreement is an opportunity to mature both people’s understandings of any subject.

Only when you embrace disagreement is when you can truly have difficult conversation.”

14 arts

the

Evergreen

wednesday, february 20, 2019

DINNER & A MOVIE Mila Nguyen and Emma Light review “A Dog’s Way Home”

Emma Light Staff Writer

Mila Nguyen Staff Writer

After a long day at school on Mila’s 16th birthday, we were so ready to get out of class and finally see “A Dog’s Way Home.”

We drove down to Look Cinemas and were eager to get into our comfortable reclining seats with plenty of snacks to share.

We both consider ourselves puppy fanatics and could not wait to watch another dog movie together. We had already seen a ton, our favorites including “Marley and Me,” “Hotel for Dogs,” and “A Secret Life of Pets.” We were now both wondering, would “A Dog’s Way Home” join the list? After seeing the moviewe think yes.

While sitting through the previews, we enjoyed a medium popcorn and a bag of Sour Patch Kids.

“I love sour patches!” said Emma. “The blue ones are my favorite.”

Bella, the main character, is an adorable dog whose mother is taken away from her as

a puppy. She is then raised with a litter of cats under a construction site where she discovers a young man named Lucas. Lucas lives across the street in a house with his veteran mother who is struggling with depression. Bella feels an automatic connection to Lucas, despite being very wary of humans. He rescues her from the construction site and takes her home to shower her with love and affection.

“Mila, I really want a puppy now,” sighed Emma.

“Emma, you can’t take care of anything,” replied Mila.

After about a year, animal control discovers Bella and tells Lucas that she is an illegal dog in Denver, Colorado because of her breed. She is taken away from her home and the life she fell in love with.

Bella’s way home took us on a completely unexpected journey, we definitely left the theater appreciating our homes and friends much more because of Bella’s journey.

The movie took us on an emotional rollercoaster with many laughs and cries. It is guaranteed to make you smile with its feelgood attitude.

“Emma, remember that time my dog ran away and came back?” asked Mila.

“That was ruff,” exclaimed Emma.

“Not funny,” laughed Mila.

After sharing a few more laughs and shedding some tears, Mila was ready to make her way home to pick up her dog Roscoe to bring to dinner. We decided that it would be perfect to go to a dog park and be surrounded by more puppies.

We packed a picnic basket with some fruit and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and drove down to a dog park near Mila’s house. We enjoyed our simple homemade dinner under a mediocre lit table in a park full of dogs doing their business.

We saw and played with a few other dogs, and watched as Roscoe said hi, then barked at us, begging for food. This took us back to one of our favorite scenes from the movie when Lucas fed Bella as a puppy to show his affection. Mila remembered how happy the food made Bella feel and slipped Roscoe a piece of her crust.

After seeing the movie and reflecting on it at dinner, we both decided that this movie

Graphic by Kaethe Thomas

should go down as a classic for dog movies, as it has all the perfect qualities. It is cute, sweet, tear jerking and an amazing story line.

Capturing a Capstone

Senior produces a 35-minute-long capstone film

Photo courtesy of Jaclyn Goldstein

LIGHTS CAMERA ACTION: After four years of video production and three years of AVP, senior Jaclyn Goldstein is producing a video production film for her capstone project. She has created a crew of her fellow Video Production students, Video Production alumni, outside friends, and local actors to help her in the process.

Tej Dhingra Staff Writer

Senior Jaclyn Goldstein has decided to use the majority of her time left at Greenhill doing what she loves most – creating a film.

After four years of regular video production classes and three years of being in Advanced Video Production (AVP), Jaclyn is currently putting her years of experience and talent together to produce a 35-minute-long capstone film.

Middle and Upper School Filmmaking & Digital Art teacher Corbin Doyle said that producing a capstone film is an extremely difficult job.

“I think [Jaclyn producing a capstone film] is a testament to Jaclyn having the moxie, drive and smarts,” he said.

Jaclyn decided to produce a capstone film because she wanted the opportunity to devote all of her energy into one large project, which she had never done before. She

said that producing such a long film would do just that.

However, the capstone film is not the only video-production work she has on her plate. In addition to this year-long project, she has had to produce smaller films to send to film schools in addition to keeping up with her regular AVP film requirements.

Mr. Doyle said that the plot of Jaclyn’s capstone film is wacky while still intricate by incorporating multiple elements that make sense. “[Jaclyn] built a world and she’s going to make the rules,” said Mr. Doyle. “And if she’s going to make the rules, then she can be wacky, but she just has to make whatever gravity she uses work.”

While Jaclyn says that she doesn’t usually like having a specific moral for her films, she still thinks that there is a lesson to be learned after watching her capstone film.

“I guess [the moral] is to stop other people from controlling your life and learn-

ing how to stand up for yourself…even if you take it too far sometimes,” said Jaclyn.

Although she is the leading voice in her project, Jaclyn is not alone in creating the film. She has built a crew made up of AVP students, video production alumni and friends to work behind the scenes, as well as local actors to play the characters for her film.

Mr. Doyle thinks that the reason so many of his AVP students willingly agreed to spend a lot of their free time working on the film is because of Jaclyn’s helpful and positive behavior in class.

“She is a tremendous giver in the [AVP] room,” he said. “When you have a person like that and she wants help, you get a lot of helpers.”

Junior Kai Hashimoto, who agreed to be the assistant director for Jaclyn’s capstone film, said he has learned tremendously from watching her work and feels that this experience will help him in his own future films.

“It speaks a lot to not only [Jaclyn’s]

work ethic but also the work ethic that I would have to have since [getting into film school] is the path I want to go down,” said Kai. “It’s a daunting task but at least I know what level I would have to be at.”

Mr. Doyle said that there has been a decline in the amount of people who produce capstone films, mainly because the workload is overwhelming. However, that hasn’t stopped Jaclyn.

Jaclyn said that as a result of her capstone project, she wants to earn more respect as a filmmaker, even if a lot of her ideas don’t make sense to those watching.

“I make stuff that’s weird and a lot of the time people don’t take me seriously,” said Jaclyn. “So, I want [the film] to be so technically sound that people would have to take me seriously as a filmmaker.”

wednesday, february 20, 2019

the

Evergreen

arts

Composing and conducting

15

Jordan Wartell and Kati Gibson write their own pieces in orchestra Brent Ladin Staff Writer

For senior Jordan Wartell and sophomore Kati Gibson, simply playing in the orchestra wasn’t enough to satisfy their love of music. Jordan and Kati have taken their skills to the next level by writing and composing their own music for the band and orchestra to play in concert.

“All of the student composers show a true passion to express their music and to compose their own music,” said Middle and Upper School orchestra teacher Nick Paraskevas.

Jordan began playing the violin in fifth grade at the age of 10, when Greenhill Middle School students are required to play an instrument for a minimum of two years.

His passion for music has only grown since then. Composing has served as an outlet for Jordan to express his musical ideas.

“Even after learning music on the violin for a few weeks, I always had my own ideas and feelings I wanted to express through music, and I was able to express these through composing,” he said.

Jordan said that his favorite part of composing is the creative process and the transformation that a composition goes through. The most difficult part of composing is putting in the long hours it takes to get a piece where he wants it.

“It is extremely gratifying to transform a blank canvas into a piece of music full of harmonies and emotions,” Jordan said. “It takes a ton of work, but you have to keep failing until you are satisfied with the musical story you have told.”

Jordan’s latest piece, titled “Beginnings,” is an eight-and-a-half-minute work that he wrote for the string orchestra and concert band. From beginning to end, the piece took Jordan around a thousand hours to complete. Jordan’s finished piece will be performed in mid-May for the composers’ concert.

“I am really fortunate to be at a place like Greenhill,” said Jordan. “I cannot think of any other high school that would allow me to compose for both the band and orchestra together.”

Sophomore Kati Gibson began playing the violin at age three and the piano at age five. In eighth grade, she was given an assignment to write and compose a piece of music. Because of the assignment, Kati first viewed composing as just an obligation, but as her experience in composing increased, she began to appreciate it more.

“My favorite part about composing is hearing all of the different sounds of the instruments and having all those sounds mold together in one finished project,” Kati said.

Kati wrote a one-minute classical composition that was performed by the orches-

Photo courtesy of Jordan Wartell

CONDUCTING THE CLASS: Jordan Wartell (center) stands in front of the Greenhill orchestra and conducts his piece “Beginnings,” and eight-and-a-half minute long piece.

tra last spring. The piece took her around four months to complete.

Currently, there is no class at Greenhill that teaches students how to write their own compositions. The student composers are completely self-taught and driven to learn by their passion for music.

“The most important aspect of teaching a student how to compose is to give them opportunities to write music and hear their music be played by other people,” Mr. Para-

skevas said.

In order to create their music, student composers have to put countless hours of work and preparation into their compositions. They often work during summers or on weekends to complete these projects.

“The most difficult obstacle that a student has to overcome while composing is adversity,” said Mr. Paraskevas. “Composing just takes time. You have to find out what works and what does not.”

Now podcasting

Podcasts have become a new trend at Greenhill Riya Rangdal Staff Writer

Victor Le Staff Writer

Jake Middleman

Staff Writer

Students and teachers alike are turning up the volume on their Spotify playlists while they drive, study or work. But it is not music that is pumping out of their Airpods, but the soothing sound of a free, educational podcast.

Podcasts provide a medium for people of all ages to listen to news, learn new information on specialized topics or just listen for entertainment. According to a survey conducted by The Evergreen, around two-thirds of the Upper School listen to podcasts. Many students listen for fun, while others listen for classes. Whatever the reason, podcasts have taken Greenhill by storm.

Upper School history teacher Scott Cotton has been listening to podcasts for over 10 years. To him, podcasts have one big advantage over conventional media.

Podcasts do not require full attention to enjoy, enabling listeners to do other productive tasks.

“I listen because they allow me to multitask,” Mr. Cotton said. “You can’t really do many things while reading a newspaper, but I find myself listening to podcasts while driving, working out, or doing yard work.”

He also listens because podcasts allow for a more analytical, dynamic way of understanding events and topics.

“When you are just reading you are typically reading someone’s views, but when

Graphic by Sarah Luan

listening to a podcast, it’s almost as if you are eavesdropping on their conversation or listening to a debate,” Mr. Cotton said.

Senior Phoebe Metzger-Levitt listens to podcasts every morning on her way to school to keep up with current events.

Podcasts don’t require visual attention, so Phoebe does not have to worry about distractions while she drives.

“I live pretty far away [from Greenhill], so the time that I spend driving, I also spend listening to a podcast which provides me my news for the day,” she said.

Phoebe also listens to podcasts for the emotion that can come out of hearing another person’s voice.

“When you are listening to an interview, you can hear the inflections in the voices of the interviewers and interviewees,” said Phoebe. “Listening to podcasts feels more personal than reading an article. I can’t watch it, like I would the news, which helps me focus on the content. It’s a happy medium between print journalism and television broadcast journalism. “ Junior Elli Dassopoulos is an avid lis-

tener of podcasts and uses them to diversify her knowledge in a wide range of subjects.

She wants to break away from podcast’s reputation of only being monotonal newscasters muttering the day’s news.

“I think that a lot of young people assume that the only type of podcasts that exist are news-based, like National Public Radio (NPR), but there’s a lot more out there in the world of podcasts that people aren’t aware of,” she said.

Instead of traditional news, Elli prefers to listen to podcasts that pertain to comedy and political organization because of what they can do with the audio medium.

“My favorite type of podcast is one that I think a lot of people ignore: comedy,” said Elli. “Podcasts like ‘Yeah But Still’ and ‘Episode 1’ have been really innovative in using the medium in a new way, and the result has been amazing.”

Elli said that the type of comedy the aforementioned podcasters engage in has been formative in creating her own sense of humor. She also enjoys the reputation she has listening to podcasts.

“It makes you sound really smart if you listen to podcasts all the time,” said Elli, “Even if they’re just people recording their comedy bits with their friends.”

Getting into podcasts is simple. The business model that supports podcasts allows listeners to enjoy the medium completely free. Downloading it to take anywhere is encouraged and all you need is something that can play audio files. After that it is a matter of finding a good podcast.

Sports the

Return to the sideline

Alumni come back to train the next generation of hornet athletics

Photos courtesy of Brittany Johnson, Nate Griggs and Jimmy Webb

FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION: (left) Former Greenhill goalie returns to the Hill as an assistant coach of the boys varsity soccer team, in pursuit of chasing more SPC titles. (middle) Nate Griggs hopes to provide the same quality coaching he recieved during his time at Greenhill. Brittany Johnson returns to make a career out of her passion for field hockey as head coach of the sport.

Ross Rubin Staff Writer

After spending their high school athletic careers wearing green and gold, three former Greenhill student-athletes have found fulfillment coaching the sports they once played on the Hill.

Each of the three—Head Field Hockey Coach Brittany Johnson ’09; Assistant Volleyball and Basketball Coach Nate Griggs ’09 and Assistant Soccer Coach Jimmy Webb ’05— cites different motivations behind their Greenhill homecoming.

Coach Johnson said she came back to Greenhill because she could not get enough of the sport and the people at Greenhill.

“I’m a huge believer in the saying, ‘Greenhill is people not buildings’ so it was definitely the community that brought me back,” said Coach Johnson. “One thing that hasn’t changed is the extremely strong, caring and passionate faculty and the incredible students, both of which were big reasons I came back to the Hill.”

Coach Griggs had a different reason for returning to Addison. He wanted to keep alive the traditions he remembered from his high school years. His current players say he

often brings this up while coaching.

“He always talks about how things were like when he was an athlete here,” said senior Jack Shuman, who has played volleyball and basketball under Coach Griggs. “He mentions how close the teams were and he always talks about keeping up the tradition of keeping the sports team like a family, especially in volleyball.”

Coach Webb wanted to give back to the program that shaped him as a player and as a person when he was a student. He played soccer under Greenhill’s legendary coach, Richard “Dick” Hall, who led the soccer team for 39 years.

“Coach Hall was definitely a mentor to me, and I understand the culture here as a student-athlete, so it really was a perfect fit for me,” said Coach Webb.

Returning to coach at their alma mater has added a level of familiarity for these coaches.

“The field has always stayed the same, even though other things have changed a little bit since I was a student-athlete here,” said Coach Webb. “I still feel like I know the culture of Greenhill students.”

Coach Griggs understands the pressures that Greenhill student-athletes face from first-hand experience a decade ago. Jack said that this understanding has allowed Coach Griggs to provide support for his team in more places than

just on the field.

“I feel like [Coach Griggs] gets us and can relate to us more than other coaches can,” Jack said. “His knowledge of how stressful Greenhill is and how students are being challenged all the time helps us feel understood.”

Coach Johnson also tries to relate to her players and recalls her time at Greenhill when inspiring the athletes. “[Coach Johnson] was able to connect with me and give me tips of how to be a good leader because of her experience as a senior captain at Greenhill,” said senior varsity field hockey captain Bailey Bowman. “I know everyone felt like they could relate to her a lot because she lived through the ups and downs of high school while balancing a varsity sport.”

Coach Griggs and Coach Webb both won Southwest Preparatory Conference (SPC) championships with their respective teams. This also influenced their decision to come back and play, since they wanted other Greenhill students playing their sports to have the same positive experience they had.

“I wanted to keep the tradition [of winning] alive and bring the program back to chasing titles again,” said Coach Webb.

Lifting for Success

Coaches weigh in on their athelete’s participation in HPC Lola Frenkel Staff Writer

Greenhill’s High Performance Center (HPC) is specifically designed for pre-season, in-season and off-season training for athletes. Upper School sports teams are required to train in the HPC each week, but coaches have differing opinions about the effectiveness of the system.

Director of Sports Performance Jessen Houston believes that extra activities and workouts held in the HPC are beneficial to a student’s functioning.

“Educating, assessing, cultivating and improving the whole student is central to our comprehensive goals,” said Coach Houston. “It affords us the opportunity to educate our students about the physical, social, cognitive and psychological benefits exercise has to our health, academics and athletic performance.”

Each Upper School team visits the HPC approximately twice a week. Head Girls Volleyball Coach Tatiane Deibert considers HPC workouts as an essential use of time for teams.

“More than half of our success is because of what [the team] does in the HPC,” said Coach Deibert. “With the combination of nutrition, sleep and directed HPC workouts, our players get better each week and

are able to perform at their highest on the court.”

Football, soccer and lacrosse player William Coben also feels that HPC sessionsshould be a priority, and are essential to leading a healthy lifestyle and beneficial to a player’s strength.

“I think people that complain about morning workouts are honestly quite lazy because everyone has to do it,” said William.

“If you are a student-athlete, you are committed to whatever you are doing and you signed up for it. Therefore, you are obligated to anything the sport requires you to do.”

However, Head Cross Country Coach Jason Yaffe believes that many workouts are unnecessary when students are asked to lift just prior to or just after a competition.

“I think that [with] so much activity for a body, there might not be as much return on that time after a certain point,” said Coach Yaffe. “For a team that competes, to come back the next morning to train, I wonder about the value of that.”

HPC workouts take place either at 7:30 a.m. before school or during practice in the afternoon. For student-athletes, these workouts can sometimes conflict with their busy school schedule, either taking away sleeptime in the morning, or for a portion of their two-hour afternoon practice. “[The responsibilities] add up,” said

Coach Yaffe. “Student-athletes have a lot on their plate already.”

Coaches sometimes go with their teams to the HPC. This provides oversight on what goes on during additional training. Coach Yaffe believes attending HPC is an important duty for a coach.

“There will always be a [cross country] coach there. I might be leading a cool down stretch and another coach will be in the HPC, or vice versa,” said Coach Yaffe. “It’s another adult in there that can check in with them as they do their exercises.”

HPC observation can also lend ideas to coaches about new workouts to lead during practice.

“Out of curiosity, I need to expand my own toolbox when it comes to non-running activity,” said Coach Yaffe.

For unmotivated student-athletes, the coach sometimes has the responsibility of teaching the students the purpose and significance of workouts in the HPC. “Some girls don’t like being up there. It’s part of my job to emphasize to how important lifting is,” said Coach Deibert. “We don’t want the athletes to be huge; we want them to be stronger, feel better about themselves and not have any injury if we can prevent it.”

Head Boys Soccer Coach Greg Krauss feels that the extra lifts and training are necessary for athletes to improve their play and

team functioning.

“We share so many athletes between sports that we need all of our students to be better athletes,” said Coach Krauss. “They need to be more capable of withstanding two or three seasons in a school year while staying injury free. I think it’s critical to our success overall.”

Coach Krauss said that time spent in the HPC is highly advantageous to an athlete’s maturing body and mind, and that all teams can experience benefits.

“Physical development is as important for competing in any of the sports as the technical or the tactical aspects or anything else,” said Coach Krauss.

The HPC can be accessed by any Greenhill Upper Schooler throughout the school day, not just student-athletes. William said that students’ presence in the HPC, whether it is for a specific sport or not, produces positive results.

“Being strong and fit helps you in life but being good at a certain sport most likely doesn’t,” said William. “So, wake up, go workout and feel better about yourself at the end of the day.”

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Best in the Southwest

The Southwest Preparatory Conference stays focused on the athlete, not the trophy Jake Middleman Staff Writer

When most students hear “SPC,” the weekend-long tournament in which private high schools across the region compete for a championship comes to mind; however, the Southwest Preparatory Conference (SPC) is a much more complex institution than that.

Greenhill athletics have been part of SPC for 61 years, joining the conference in 1958. Not just any school can join SPC; there are a variety of requirements that a school must fulfill before they are considered.

One requirement is that schools becoming a member of SPC must be accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest (ISAS), a nonprofit association of 90 independent schools from Arizona, Kansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, according to its website. Although there is no requirement for the size of SPC schools, each school has to offer, barring a lack of willing participants, a similar number of sports as the other schools.

“We want [SPC] schools to be like-minded and run in a similar nature,” said Greenhill Head of Athletics and Phys-

ical Education Chad Wabrek.

SPC employs a commissioner, who is appointed by all of the heads of schools, as well as an athletic director representative of the North Division and another for the South Division.

The current commissioner of SPC is Bob Windham, former head of school at Saint Mary’s Hall in San Antonio. The representative of the SPC Southern Division is Jeff McCrary, athletic director at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Houston. Mr. McCrary’s counterpart in the north division is Mark Sullivan, athletic director for St. Mark’s School of Texas.

Mr. Windham believes that SPC has a very unique characteristic that is not shown in other leagues or conferences: a priority on the development and maturity of individual athletes rather than a sole focus on winning games.

“I think SPC really puts a lot of effort into what is best for the student-athlete, rather than just trying to find a champion,” he said.

Mr. Windham said that SPC tournaments are a great opportunity for student-athletes from all over the conference to mingle and build relationships since many schools travel to a single campus for the games.

For the past five years the SPC championships have been held at the same schools each season due to weather, but in the future Mr. Windham hopes to vary the locations so student-athletes can see other schools’ campuses.

As athletics director and representative of Greenhill in SPC, Coach Wabrek has many responsibilities to keep Greenhill qualified for SPC play. He works with the SPC Operations Committee to make sure everything at Greenhill is running smoothly and up to the conference’s standards.

Coach Wabrek also has to execute SPC’s regulations and bylaws throughout the Athletics Department. Every season he must fill out a New Student Report Form, which asks for the names of new student-athletes who are playing on varsity sports teams.

Coach Wabrek said that SPC is the best conference he has worked in as an administrator, due to the opportunities it provides the students. “[SPC] is set up to allow kids to play multiple sports and the overlap is [only] 10 days between each season,” said Coach Wabrek. “That is just simply unheard of in a lot of other conferences.”

Super math-lete

Upper School math teacher completes his fourth marathon Raag Venkat Staff Writer

Upper School math and computer science teacher Mike Bak completed his fourth marathon on Jan. 22, completing the Houston Marathon with a time of 3 hours 46 minutes 6 seconds.

His time breaks down to an 8:38-mile pace.

It was an especially satisfying achievement for Mr. Bak after he was unable to run last year’s Houston Marathon due to illness.

“The last couple months are very hard and tiring so mentally and physically you have to put in a lot of work,” he said.

Coached by a former U.S. Olympic team distance runner, Mr. Bak prepared extensively for the 26.2-mile race. He logged 50 miles a week for six months, including five training runs over 20 miles.

Mr. Bak viewed this time commitment a positive thing.

Running helps him grow physically, mentally and emotionally, he said.

This year’s Houston Marathon was a particular challenging race because of a sharp cold snap. The sun was out but the temperature was around freezing when the race began.

Mr. Bak said that at the beginning of the race, he felt discomfort in his thighs because of the cold. He settled into the race but around mile 16 began slowing down, only to regain his pace for seven miles before grinding through the final 3-plus miles.

It is common for marathon runners to exhaust their body’s fuel and struggle physically around mile 20, a phenomenon known as “hitting the wall.”

For Mr. Bak, mile 23 to the end were the most difficult.

“It was a special kind of pain because it was memorable,” said Mr. Bak. “I told myself to not walk and to keep putting one leg in front of the other and eventually I made it to the end…I actually teared up when I saw the finish line.”

Mr. Bak has been running on and off for most of his life.

He ran track throughout high school and for one semester at Harvey Mudd College in Southern California.

“I had the highest grades even though it was such a time commitment and from that point on, it was clear to me that I could never say that there was no time for running,” Mr. Bak said.

Right after college, Mr. Bak ran his first marathon in Los Angeles with no training. It was very painful and an overall negative experience. His body hit “the wall” at around mile 20 as he depleted the glycogen stored in the liver and muscles.

“I can still remember…that my shin and whole body were just in so much pain during this time,” he said about the final stretch of the Los Angeles Marathon.

He ran his second marathon in Silicon Valley and his third in Austin.

Director of Academics and Head Cross Country Coach Jason Yaffe was impressed with Mr. Bak’s recent marathon.

“Running requires a long-term commitment with a balance of longer sustained efforts and shorter training,” said Mr. Yaffe. “Mr. Bak trained for the marathon for quite a long time, had a plan and the race went pretty well.”

Mr. Bak believes that running makes an impact on his life larger than just finishing a race. His passion for running affects him in a variety of ways, including the balancing of his work and personal life.

“Running always gives you back more than you give it,” said Mr. Bak. “Running gives me a balance between my work life at school, with my personal and emotional life, staying healthy and pursuing my passion.”

Over the years, Mr. Bak’s passion for running has also helped him see growth in himself. During the long and strenuous training process for a marathon, Mr. Bak said that he sees himself getting faster and stronger every time.

“It changes you in a way when you cross that finish line as the whole process of training for 27 weeks makes you stronger physically, emotionally and mentally,” he said.

In the future, Mr. Bak is looking at a set marathon schedule. He wants to start consistently running at least two

Photo courtesy of Mike Bak

ADDING UP THE MILES: Mike Bak recently finished the Houston Marathon. He said that marathon training “makes you stronger physically, emotionally and mentally.”

marathons a year. Mr. Bak said he remembers each individual marathon he has run and they each give him a strong sense of pride and accomplishment.

“You can’t fake [running marathons],” he said. “You have to train for it, prepare for it and put in the work.”

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wednesday, february 20, 2019

The road to Signing Day

Student athletes take a personalized path to the next level Cameron Kettles Staff Writer

Caroline Greenstone Staff Writer

Greenhill senior Max Motlagh always knew he wanted to play college tennis for a good program, but he was open-minded about the size and the division of the school.

In the end, he chose Boston College, a school that competes at the top collegiate level.

“I have been playing tennis since I was five years old,” said Max. “I always tried to compete at the highest level. Once you get to a certain level, you either have to quit or take it all the way because otherwise it’s a waste of your time.”

Greenhill student-athletes face a decision when choosing colleges: Is their high school sport their potential career?

Coaches, college counselors and athletic administrators are all heavily involved in the process of college recruitment and commitment for student-athletes. Faculty work with students to find the best colleges for their sport and academics.

“We support them and represent their interests to different colleges,” said Director of College Counseling Jenny Fisher. “We help them understand the timeline, provide transcripts that the college coaches are interested in and we provide context for what our academic record means compared to other schools.”

High school athletes who want to play a college sport decide between three levels in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA): Division I and II schools offer athletic scholarship, while Division III schools do not.

“Whether you go to Division I or Division III, one of the biggest surprises is that everyone is as good if not better than you,” said Chad Wabrek, Head of Athletics & Physical Education. “Each year, they keep looking to recruit better. In Division I, every single day you are competing for your spot.”

Division I schools have the largest sports budgets. Division I and Division II schools combined provide more than $2.9 billion in athletic scholarships annually to their student-athletes, according to the NCAA. “If you are [going] to play a Division I sport in college, you have to love what you are doing,” said Tatiane Deibert, head coach of varsity girls volleyball. “It is not a sport that you are playing for two or maybe three months. It is something that you will be playing probably year-round. There is a much bigger commitment.”

Division III competition demands less of a student’s time and the schools place a greater emphasis on academics. Approximately 40 percent of NCAA athletes compete in Division III, according to the organization’s website.

Student-athletes often decide on a college based on their level of competition in the sport and how academically focused they want their college education to be.

“My main criteria when searching for what division I wanted to play in was good academics and good sports,” said Kevin Hoare, a senior committed to play football at Occidental College, which competes in Division III athletics. “To me, it really didn’t matter whether or not it was Division I or Division III as long as I got the great education that I was looking for while continuing to play football.”

The difference between the divisions has decreased in recent years as a rising number of top athletes with high grades and test scores choose elite Division III schools, such as those in the New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC).

For example, Nate Eazor ’16 was one of the top scholastic tennis players in the country when he graduated from Greenhill yet

Photo courtesy of Joe Monaco

SIGNING DAY: Students and families gather in Rose Hall to watch Brennan Brown and Bailey Bowman sign their national Letter of Intent.

The letter reserves a spot for an athletic scholarship after the student graduates from high school.

chose Middlebury College in Vermont, a top academic school that also is a perennial contender for the NCAA Division III tennis championship.

Top Division I teams have greater depth of talent than Division III schools while offering competition that is often only a step removed from professional-caliber.

“In a Division III school, you just aren’t going to see as much competition as you would in Division 1 or Division II,” said Max. Greenhill’s academic emphasis more closely correlates with the philosophy of top Division III schools.

“Because Greenhill is so strong academically, Division III schools that are most likely more academically focused are a better match for the type of students we have,” said Coach Deibert.

Greenhill’s College Counseling Department provides athletes with a guide that outlines how the recruitment process works.

It lists helpful resources and supplies a sample letter that students can send to college coaches.

The Athletic Recruitment Guide urges students to consider their “market value” as a potential collegiate athlete. It also reminds students that college coaches do not have the final say in the admissions process.

“In any recruiting process, you have three different constituencies: the college admissions office, the student, and the college coach,” said Ms. Fisher. “For recruiting to work, the interests of all of those three need to overlap. The student could want the coach, the coach could want the student, but if the college admissions office isn’t interested, it’s never going to happen.”

College Counseling works with the Greenhill Athletics Department to ensure a successful outcome for the student, said Randy Mills, another director of college counseling.

“The relationship that we have with the Athletics Department is incredibly strong,” said Mr. Mills. “We work closely with Chad Wabrek and the coaches so students are supported throughout the process.”

At the team level, Greenhill coaches try to prepare athletes for a future in their sport by promoting physical and mental growth.

“Greenhill athletics were the main driving force in my success,” said Kevin. “Being at such a small school, it gave me the opportunity to make an impact and play as a freshman. This reinforced my drive and my desire to play college football.”

In addition to training students for col-

lege athletics, the Athletics Department also helps students identify colleges that fit their aims. The Greenhill Athletics Department advertises their students’ skills with coaches, frequently sharing video from games and practices with interested colleges.

“I want the players I coach to feel comfortable where they are at and [to feel] that they are making the right decision,” said Joey Sims Jr., head coach of varsity boys basketball. “I want them to utilize every resource before deciding on a college, so they can really see themselves there.”

For high school athletes, recruitment

is often a multi-year process that involves school coaches, club teams, college counselors and administrators. For coaches and counselors, the goal is the same: the student must feel comfortable with their final decision.

“We encourage students, regardless of their interests, to never think about going to a college simply for one reason,” said Ms. Fisher. “That one reason could change. Students should be happy enough with their college that if they get injured and can’t play, they will still love where they are.”

wednesday, february 20, 2019

Cards for Ross’ humanity ? rossboss ross rubin journalism assistant

I have a strict routine that is very important for me. Some people have tried to break me off of the routine, but I am proud of how strictly I have kept it.

Most people, like me, have a set routine and do not like it to be disrupted. It can be after they wake up in the morning or

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right before they go to bed. Most routines include the basics: brushing teeth, taking a shower, getting your outfit ready for the next day. While my strict routine includes these things as well, I have another step that I have to follow before I can doze off.

I reach into the second cabinet underneath the TV and pull out my ‘Don’t Mess with Texas’ deck of cards and call my family to come play with me.

Playing cards has been a Rubin tradition as long as I can remember. We would always play all different kinds of games, but one thing remained constant; right before bed we would play a full game. This means even at 12:30 when I know I have to be at school at 7:00 the next morning for improv. I would rather

choose to get less sleep and play cards than go to bed at that moment because I know I sleep better once all 52 cards have been dealt. While card-playing tactics are discussed, most conversations revolve around reflecting on our days. We talk about things that made us smile and other things that made us upset. This calming digression from my day keeps me and my family sane.

While I miss my two siblings in college greatly, especially around cardstime, my parents and I have carried the routine along. Over the past two years I have even started to play with my friends here at school. One hand after another, I have added new players and friends. I have found that it doesn’t matter with whom I

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am playing with, playing cards have this special ability to unite people and create a tranquil atmosphere.

While I understand how silly four teenagers look sitting around a table playing cards instead of playing on their phones or gossiping, playing cards with my friends is actually my favorite part of the day. Some may call it pointless and a waste of time, but it is my routine and I am not going to let anyone talk me out of it or try to change it. Those four suits, 52 cards and two jokers really have given me countless memories and countless friends.

I’ll come up with a headline later....

hey mann, what’s up? harrison heymann executive editor

Ever feel bored with school? Need a solution to spice things up? Here’s my recommendation to add a bit more spice to your everyday life: Procrastinate!

In all seriousness, procrastination has been one of the biggest blessings and curses of my academic life up to this point. It has its downfalls, but the benefits of procrastinating are worth the sacrifices.

Let’s look at some of the advantages.

First, if you push things to the last minute, it takes you less overall time to do them. Instead of working on a paper for 1.5 hours every day for three days, you can spend roughly 3.5-4 hours of one night writing that paper, and 3.75 < 4.5.

Your first thought might be “How does that make any sense? A paper takes the same amount of time to write regardless of whether you write it in one day or three days.”

Getting started on an assignment is the hardest part. Think about how much time you’ll save by not having to convince yourself to start an assignment on three different occasions. You only have to begin once and then you’re off and running until you finish. Plus, when you’re working right before a deadline, you know you have to produce.

You get that huge adrenaline surge that pushes you to your peak level of efficiency.

If you spread out an assignment, you have to go back through the work you’ve already done and remember what you’re

talking about, so you can get back your flow from the previous day. But if you write the entire paper in one day, that time you would have spent getting back to your point from the previous day is no longer wasted because you’re writing from the same continuous stream of thought.

Lastly, as much as this contradicts everything that most people will tell you, procrastination is less stressful than spacing out work on something every day (most of the time). If you have to work on something every day, you have to stress about it every day. It’s another thing on your to-do list for the day and if you don’t get done the amount of work you think you should get done each day, you feel worried inside because it seems like you’re getting behind. Having something to do every day is stressful.

But, if you plan to do an entire project/ paper in one night, you don’t have to worry about being behind. You know you’re on schedule because the schedule says not to

start until the day before the due date. You can think about the direction you want to take in the days leading up to the big night and then just knock the whole assignment out in one shot.

I still remember the day in eighth grade when William Shi laid out all of these points to me and convinced me to switch from planning work out to procrastinating. There have been plenty of stressful 11:59 submissions since then, but that kind of time pressure is something I thrive on. If what I’ve said makes sense to you and you feel like you can produce when you’re up against a deadline, then procrastination may be just what you need.

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Roll out the red carpet for our winners, voted for by the Upper School!