Issue 8, 3/18/16

PALO ALTO UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT PALO ALTO HIGH SCHOOL 50 EMBARCADERO RD. PALO ALTO, CA 94301 NON-PROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE

PAI D PALO ALTO PERMIT #44

The Campanile

Vol. XCVIII, No. 8

Palo Alto High School • 50 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, CA 94301 • www.thecampanile.org

Friday, March 18, 2016

Students begin campaigning for ASB office Candidates aim to showcase qualifications and appeal to students ahead of election ETHAN TEO

SPORTS EDITOR

ANNA MORAGNE

KAI ODA

STAFF WRITER

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SPORTS EDITOR

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lections for Palo Alto High School’s Associated Student Body (ASB) will take place from March 22 to March 25, with many passionate students running for various positions. Elected officers represent Paly’s vast student body and make key decisions regarding important events such as Prom and Spirit Week.

Juniors Anmol Nagar and Brian Tracy are the two candidates for ASB President, whose responsibility includes overseeing all activities that ASB plans.

“The ASB President has many roles, but the main ones include running the student government class, overseeing the planning for all ASB events and acting as a liaison between admin and the student body,” current ASB President William Zhou said. “I think being a genuinely caring person is essential for being a successful ASB President.”

Nagar, who was ASB Vice President for the 2015-2016 school year, believes that she has appropriate leadership experience and strong existing connections to Paly administration, clubs and staff to be successful as ASB President.

“Through holding different [ASB] positions, I have been able to develop connections and bonds with the staff members at Paly, over 80 different clubs, my own class and the overall student body,” Nagar said. “As ASB President, I will bring the experience I have gained over my last six years in student government.”

Tracy, on the other hand, is a newcomer to student government who

Counseling system to be updated

projects, and believes that she can do an equally good job serving the Paly community.

Junior Kevin Chen is running for ASB Secretary uncontested, and is looking to getting more involved in the planning of school events.

There is nobody running for ASB Treasurer and Junior Class Vice President positions this year — a rare occurence. The last time that ASB had unfilled offices come election time was in 2013. To resolve this issue, ASB will postpone elections for the two positions by one week upon which a secondary election will be held.

he Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Board of Education is currently in the process of creating a Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Curriculum with a designated committee that will create a counseling system for all students in PAUSD. The committee aims to support students socially, emotionally, mentally and physically. The Board believes that the whole support system in PAUSD schools needs to be revised in order to adequately provide for all students.

The counseling system reformation instigated by the results of multiple student surveys, such as the Strategic Plan Survey, in which many students expressed the need for a system that would provide a variety of effective support for students on multiple levels. Such multifaceted support will include helping students with academic stress as well as personal conflicts, inside and outside the classroom.

“Social and emotional learning can serve as an organizing principle for coordinating all of a school’s academic, youth development and prevention activities,” the March 8 Board report stated.

According to the 2015 Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning Guide, research has shown that SEL can provide a strong support for students in many aspects and teach beneficial skills that students will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

“Social-emotional learning provides the foundation for maintaining

ASB

COUNSELING

DAMI BOLARINWA/THE CAMPANILE

Current members of ASB take turns answering questions from students during a panel discussion held in the Media Arts Center.

offers his hard work and passion for leadership to students. He enjoys helping others, and believes his devotion and dedication to the school and its students will make him a successful ASB President.

ASB has been one of the most influential and best experiences I’ve had in high school. I would encourage everyone to consider running for ASB in the future.

William Zhou ASB President “I love the idea of leading and working with groups of motivated people to overcome challenges,” Tra-

cy said. “I couldn’t be more excited at the chance to fill the role of ASB President.”

The three candidates running for ASB Vice President are sophomore Noga Hurwitz and juniors Candace Wang and Maya Lathi.

Drawing on her previous year’s experience with ASB, Hurwitz believes that ASB’s importance lies in its ability to represent the student population and hopes to see ASB run even more cohesively than it did this year. Similarly, Wang hopes to ensure that ASB truly reflects the voices of the student body, not just an outgoing few. Lathi drew her motivation to run for Vice President from her past experiences in various service

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Nonprofit accepting financial Annual TEDx conference to be held at Paly aid, mentorship applications Program to present a variety of student and community speakers Rise Together Education to aid students with college application process and various costs JEREMY FU

ONLINE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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ise Together Education, a newly formed nonprofit that aims to support low-income students through the college process, has begun to accept mentorship and scholarship applications from Palo Alto High School students.

Started by Special Education Instructional Supervisor Laura Marcus-Bricca, the nonprofit, which is associated with Paly, is reaching out to community members who wish to get involved and help make a difference in the lives of students who cannot afford college tuition.

Marcus-Bricca was inspired to create the scholarship and mentorship program after helping Stephanie Estrada, a Paly senior who graduated in 2015, through her financial aid struggle last year.

“I wanted to go to San Francisco State [University], but I did not receive my financial aid award until much later,” Estrada said. “Ms. Marcus-Bricca is the most amazing person I ever met. She has been at my side the entire time and I know she will be there for me whenever I need help.”

Through a GoFundMe campaign, Marcus-Bricca was able to raise $10,000 to help cover Estrada’s

educational expenses. Empowered by the positive results, Marcus-Bricca then moved forward to create Rise Together Education, in order to support over 30 Paly graduates with an estimated $300,000 financial aid gap. “[Estrada] felt like every message that she received since kindergarten was ‘go to college, go to college,’ but now that she had gotten in, it was not a viable option,” Marcus-Bricca said, referencing her family’s lack of exposure to the extremely bothersome U.S. college application process. “After learning about all of the students in similar situations, I realized that I can’t really GoFundMe for hundreds of thousands of dollars, so I decided to create a foundation.”

Marcus-Bricca envisions a multiyear mentorship program that would help guide low-income students through the sometimes unclear college application process, something that Estrada continues to struggle with in college.

“I’m first generation and I have no idea what I’m doing half the time,” Estrada said. “Even now, I still come to Ms. Marcus-Bricca with questions that I have. By spreading awareness for programs that help first generation, low-income students, we can help more students.”

RISE TOGETHER

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MAGGIE ROSENTHAL

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

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alo Alto High School will be hosting its third annual TEDx program ­— an independent offshoot of the official Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) talks — on Saturday, March 26 in the Haymarket Theater. The conference will include a variety of speakers, including Paly students, staff and community members, who will be discussing a wide range of topics.

The program is being coordinated by Paly’s TEDx club. For the first time since its creation, the event will take place on the weekend instead of during school hours.

Being around a group of people all watching the same thing, all exploring the same ideas, is a really great experience that I would definitely recommend.

Adele Bloch Paly TEDx Curator In previous years, teachers could sign their classes up to attend a talk, and students had the option to attend talks at their own leisure as well.

This year, in order to accommodate for students with different schedules, there is an online site to sign up for free tickets; registration will be open up to one week before the event.

“The reason why [the date switched] is because a lot of teach-

COURTESY OF TEDXPALOALTOHIGHSCHOOL

This year’s event will take place on Saturday, March 26, in the Media Arts Center.

ers would often complain, saying they wanted to bring their students to see the event, but they often couldn’t because it would interfere with their class schedule,” senior and Paly TEDx curator Adele Bloch said.

“So we moved it to Saturday just so that more community members could come, as well as teachers and students.”

The conference is divided into two sessions: the first from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. and the second from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Students can choose to attend one or both sessions.

This year’s theme is “Think Again,” chosen because of the diverse variety of topics that fall under this category, according to Bloch. The student speakers at the conference will be freshman Nicholas Padmanabhan, sophomores Alex Dinu and Darrow Hornick, junior Claire Eber-

hart and senior Tiffany Liang. Adult speakers will include Paly librarian Rachel Kellerman, entrepreneur David Landau, hair stylist Wendy Spencer, health educator Donnovan Yisrael and Google employee Alicia Chang. Additionally, the emcee will be senior William Dougall. Talks will cover everything from mental health awareness and poetry to reading and discrimination in STEM. “It’s a great lineup,” Bloch said.

“We have really interesting talks, from a person finding out her grandfather was a part of the Ku Klux Klan to a student speaker who is a classical guitar player and will talk about bring music outside of concert halls.”

The TEDx club added several new events from previous years’ conferences, including performances from TEDX

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Check us out at www.thecampanile.org

NEWS

COURTESY OF ADRIENNE KWOK

Service Day

Paly’s annual day of community service will include a variety of new locations.

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COURTESY OF MARTIN MANASHEROB

COURTESY OF CAMP MAC

LIFESTYLE

SPOTLIGHT

Three Paly rap musicians discuss their work, influencers and visions.

PAGE B1

Exploring effectiveness of progressive learning measures in PAUSD. PAGES B4-B5

Student Rappers

Alternative Learning

SPORTS

March Madness

COURTESY OF PBS

Build your bracket and predict this year’s basketball college champion.

PAGES C4-C5

Friday, March 18, 2016

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NEWS TO KNOW

The Campanile

NEWS

Paly students participate in theater festival Thespians from around the state will travel to Southern California to perform and showcase skills AVI TACHNA-FRAM

STAFF WRITER

COURTESY OF BLEACHER REPORT

@NCAAMarchMadness March Madness begins on Mar. 17 with 64 teams vying for a national championship.

@realDonaldTrump I have brought millions of people into the Republican Party, while the Dems are going down. Establishment wants to kill this movement!

@SeanLowe09 What kind of idiot makes a decision of this magnitude on a reality TV show? #TheBachelor @DisneyZootopia Thank you to the fanz for making #Zootopia the #1 movie in the world for 2 weekz in a row!

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alo Alto High School theater is preparing for the California State Thespian Festival, and making plans for The One Act Showcase, the Youth Speaks Out exhibition will also open soon.

The California State Thespian Festival, hosted by Uplands High School in Southern California, which Paly theater participates in, will start on April 1 and continue through April 3. At the festival, students will perform in events such as duet scenes, monologues, group scenes, musical theater and even events for stage tech.

“Every year about 15 of us go to [The California State Thespian Festival] and compete,” president of Thespian club and senior Sophie Swezey said. “Some here have done really well in the past. There are also ways to compete for tech so we have a lot of technicians that go and they do really well competing in stage management and lighting design.”

The festival concludes with a show that students work on for all three days of the festival, called allstate.

“Students put [allstate] together the three days they’re at festival,” Theater Program Director Kathleen

Woods said. “They audition they choose tech they put the whole show together in that period of time, it’s an honor to be selected to participate in allstate.”

This year, junior Joelle Dong Heller serves on the board for the festival, and Swezey serves as president of the state board.

Paly theater is also preparing for auditions for the One Act Showcase, which is a short one act play prepared and performed by Paly students.

One Acts are meant to be more inclusive of the greater Paly population as they are shorter and easier to produce.

“The One Act Showcase is student produced and student directed, and usually there are about six short plays that are presented,” Woods said.

“This is an opportunity for students that don’t have the time for a big production to get involved. It’s also a great time for new students to get involved and get their feet wet.”

One Acts can be original creations or scenes from full length plays. They are generally between 10 and 20 minutes long, and each play has one or two student directors. Auditions for the One Acts will begin on March 21 and continue through March 23. All students who want to participate are

COURTESY OF PALY THEATRE

Paly theatre closed out Haymarket Theatre in February with a Macbeth production.

encouraged to take part in the auditions. The final product will be performed in May. Another upcoming event is Youth Speaks Out. This event allows students from Paly and Gunn to get their artwork displayed at the Palo Alto Art Center. The exhibition’s goal is to help students convey to adults the experience of being young is.

“The premise of youth speaks out is a show curated by young people, and the idea is to give young people a platform to say what you want your community to know,” photography teacher Margo Wixsom said.

The artwork will be displayed anonymously so that students may expresses themselves freely.

“You can speak very authentically, you can criticize, you can critique, you can really tell people the kind of things that would be hard to say if you put your name to it,” Wixsom said.

The exhibition will be held from March 18 through April 11. On March 25 the exhibition will host student artists who will perform pieces such as music, spoken word poetry and dance. Food will also be provided.

ASB and Gunn collaborate to increase school spirit

Gunn and Paly to hold interschool rally following success of “Highlight the Night” dance

COURTESY OF ESPN

@warriors Golden State is now 31-0 at home this season, extending a franchise-best home start.

@flintjournal Sanders: “We’re going to invest a lot of money in mental health. And when you watch the Republican debates, you know why.’’

@FastCompany The 4-inch iPhone will be reborn at Apple’s March 21 event.

@kanyewest What do you mean by @JustinBieber was my favorite song of 2015.

COURTESY OF CREATIVE COMMONS

@BillMaher Hasta la vista, Marco Rubio, nice try. Just remember, if you were ugly and your name was Mark Rube, you wouldn’t have gotten to do even this.

GREG EUM

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

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s the fourth quarter starts, Palo Alto High School’s Associated Student Body (ASB) has lined up many events to finish out the school year, including the Paly and Henry M. Gunn High School interschool night rally.

The rally will take place at the Gunn gymnasium on March 24 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Following the success of the PalyGunn “Highlight the Night” dance, which was attended by around 600 students, along with the success of Paly’s night rally that occurred during Spirit Week, ASB thought that it would be beneficial for both schools to organize the first ever joint rally.

“We heard a lot of positive feedback after the Spirit Week night rally, so we wanted to do another event, and the Paly-Gunn dance went great, I think it’s a good kickoff for more interschool events to come,” ASB President William Zhou said.

“Students can expect double the spirit and even more hype for these events.”

At the rally, there will be many activities, including Paly versus Gunn competitions and an extremely exciting staff versus student volleyball game.

COURTESY OF PALY ASB

Several students arrived at the Paly-Gunn dance, “Highlight the Night,” which was a huge success with over 600 students attending.

“I’m excited for the rally,” senior Aidan Van Vleck said. “I think that it’s a good way to promote interschool unity. And also, if there are any Paly vs. Gunn competitions, I’m absolutely positive that Paly will win.”

Coordinating with Gunn’s Student Executive Council (SEC), Zhou is optimistic that this night

rally will spur more interschool events in the future.

“Working with Gunn’s SEC has been really fun and exciting,” Zhou said. ”By working together we can to spend more money on our events, reach more people and get more ideas, so it’s a win-win for everyone.”

Furthermore, as ASB elections are currently underway, ASB has

Board to form learning committees New courses intended to target variety of students to be proposed SAMUEL YUN

STAFF WRITER

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he Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Board of Education has been introduced to the plan to paint the exterior of Henry M. Gunn High School’s buildings. In December 2015, the District hired Architarian Design to evaluate the exterior color scheme of Gunn.

Based on input from surveys conducted with parents, staff and students, Architarian Design has offered two color schemes: “Golden State” and “wildflowers” to liven the school atmosphere. The “wildflower” color scheme won with a 72 percent vote and was proposed to the Board for approval.

“We felt very strongly about the power of color to improve environments… it can provide an opportunity to inspire and connect people together and to build community,” Elaine Wang, owner of Architarian Design said.

Buildings in Gunn will also be color coded to help students easily navigate around the campus. The color of specific buildings will be based on the subject that is generally taught

in that structure. The overall atmosphere is intended to create a warm and welcoming feel.

Funding for this work will come from the Planned Maintenance fund and is expected to cost $1 million dollars. If the Board approves the project, repainting is scheduled to begin this summer.

“We felt very strongly about the power of color to improve environments … it can provide an opportunity to inspire and connect people together and to build community,”

Elaine Wang Owner of Architarian Design The board was also recommended to approve two new courses: Principles of Biomedical Science at Paly and AP Physics I at Gunn. These two courses were suggested due to input from teachers, the Site Council (representing the student body) and Educational/Instructional Councils.

Principles of Biomedical Science will be a project and problem-based learning course which teaches students how to apply their knowledge from the classroom to real-world

situations. The goal of this course is to increase interest in the science field among lesser represented ethnic groups and women though its more interactive curriculum.

The AP Physics I course has a redesigned curriculum meant to “increase access to Advanced Placement for all students, especially … historically underrepresented students.”

This will be in addition to the existing physics classes that are currently being offered at Gunn.

The second interim financial report, which was first discussed in the Feb. 26 meeting, was revisited once again. Revenues and expenses have seen an overall increase of $530,000 due to increased tax revenues, savings in legal costs and a decrease in personel costs. However, there was also a decrease in special education revenue and an increase in payments to school districts for inter-district transfers.

The Board was asked to consider approving the report which requests “give a positive certification to the County Superintendent that the District can meet its financial obligations through the end of the fiscal year and for the subsequent two years” and to “approve the budget revisions listed in the projected year totals.”

planned a debate featuring all of the candidates running for office for the 2016-17 school year. This debate will happen during tutorial on March 22 in the MAC. Along with the Paly-Gunn rally and ASB elections, ASB is currently planning and organizing Prom on April 16 at the San Francisco Design Galleria.

UPCOMING EVENTS MAR

ASB ELECTIONS BEGIN

MAR

SERVICE DAY

MAR

TEDX @ PALY

APR

SPRING BREAK BEGINS

APR

PROM

21

24

26 4

16

“Vote for me and I promise no homework on weekends”

The most rewarding form of truancy.

Learn something at school for once.

Seniors, have fun. Juniors, study for the ACT.

Afterparty in the Cabana lobby. Everyone’s invited.

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

NEWS A3 ASB candidates begin PAUSD will implement new class election process counseling system for students CONTINUED FROM A1

The special elections will have the same process as previous ASB elections. They’ll have a due date for applications, need to submit a statement, film a speech and then voting school wide will commence one week later.”

The remaining ASB roles consist of president and vice president positions for each class. Noa Ben-Efraim, Isabel Black, Cezanne Lane and Yusuf Rizk are running for Senior Class President while Natalie Maloney is running uncontested for Senior Class Vice President. Current Sophomore Class President Jaiveer Sandhu is running uncontested for Junior Class President.

Lastly, the candidates for Sophomore Class President are Vivian Feng and Caroline Furrier, while Riya Kumar, Gigi Tierney and Shannon Zhao are competing for Sophomore Class Vice President.

Candidates will be participating in a live debate on March 22 during tutorial to increase awareness of their goals and to engage students in the voting process. This will serve as an addition to past years’ campaigning.

“The debate will be [an opportunity] for the executive officers to help

students get to know more about what each of the candidates are all about and give students an opportunity to ask questions and get involved,” Lane said.

Each debate will feature two ASB candidates running for a position.

After giving a brief opening statement, the candidates will be asked to respond to a question regarding their policies on certain school related topics.

Moderating the debate will be The Campanile’s own Alice Zhao and Peter Maroulis. After the debate on March 22 an online link will be released so students can vote for next year’s ASB officers.

ASB members serve as the bridge between students and the administration, and take on part of the burden for organization of the school and the happiness of the students.

Candidates feel that it is important that the student body contribute their voice and vote for the person they believe can best communicate their needs as they serve to represent the student body.

“ASB has been one of the most influential and best experiences I’ve had in high school,” Zhou said. “I would encourage everyone to consider running for ASB in the future and help out the school.”

Paly TEDx Conference CONTINUED FROM A1

two of Paly’s acapella groups, the Heartbeats and Vikapella, as well as a conversation with journalism advisor and TED speaker Esther Wojcicki.

“This year we have lot more freedom, because in previous years speakers were limited to a 50-minute block of time, but now we have two hours,” Bloch said. “We figured instead of showing six talks in a row, we can kind of scatter it with fun things in the middle, so we’re having performances by acapella groups and [Wojcicki], who spoke at the TED

conference this year in February. We thought it would be interesting to show her TED video and then have a conversation with her about the TED conference that she went to.”

Bloch encourages students to come to the event to take away valuable lessons and experiences.

“You can find so many TED videos online, but I feel like coming to the actual conference is so much different,” Bloch said. “Being around a group of people all watching the same thing, all exploring the same ideas is a really great experience that I would definitely recommend.”

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a healthy balance between the many physical and psychological pursuits a person will encounter over the course of their life,” Superintendent Max McGee wrote in his executive summary on the March 8 Board meeting.

“Therefore, a unified approach to addressing the social-emotional learning needs of students to ensure the development of a common language, learning targets, and grade level competencies is proposed.”

SEL will create an aligned program between all PAUSD schools and will help students starting in kindergarten all the way through the end of high school. The curriculum for middle schoolers will align with both the PAUSD School Counseling Logic Model that is already in place and the curriculum recommended for elementary schoolers. As of now, there is no counseling model set up in the elementary schools within PAUSD. The Logic Model, which is the current system for middle and high schoolers, is based on principles recommended by the American School Counselor Association. The

Logic Model offers comprehensive planning and guidance services addressing student academic, diverse career and college goals, as well as personal and social development.

This model is currently instated in both high schools, in the PAUSD School district, through the advisor program and guidance counselors.

One of the SEL committee’s goals is to include a dedicated time within the daily schedule for students to access counseling services rather than it being up to students to use their free time to visit counselors. The SEL committee will also decide on a set curriculum for each grade, ensuring that students properly learn about social and emotional guidelines as well as ensuring that they all get support.

Even though the system includes primary and secondary schools, the main focus of the SEL committee will be to come up with a new, aligned system for the high schools.

District staff who are involved in the SEL program have been working closely with the Board of Education in order to come to an agreement as to the exact role of the SEL counseling program. They settled on an SEL

approach rather than the previouslydiscussed distributed counseling.

“Staff strongly endorses the concepts and plan [of SEL] presented, as it would ideally lead to identical, or at least closely similar, models at each school,” McGee wrote in his executive summary.

An SEL counseling committee has been put together and made up of students, staff and parents. The committee will start their work later this month and will be in charge of investigating, analyzing and recommending a comprehensive, effective and innovative counseling system for the high schools. They will work to determine social emotional learning goals for every grade, connect every student with a caring adult, identify which current counseling models need revision and more.

The committee will not make their recommendation to the Board until December, and there will be multiple meetings prior to the recommendation in order to ensure that parents, staff, and student voices are heard.

The SEL counseling program will not go into effect until the 2017-2018 school year.

Nonprofit helps low-income students CONTINUED FROM A1

In addition, Rise Together has two open board member positions for students passionate about contributing to Paly and representing the lowincome student population.

“We are looking for students who are excited by fundraising and event planning, to promote and create events here on campus,” Bricca said.

As Rise Together Education is still in its infancy, Bricca is unsure if the nonprofit will be able to provide scholarships for students this school year. However, it is already rolling out its mentorship program to certain students. Current juniors and seniors

can apply to become mentors, and seniors who qualify for reduced or free lunch can apply for scholarships from the nonprofit. Applications for both programs are due by March 31.

“We have been meeting as a board to develop the program and we are now in the process of connecting juniors with mentors,” Bricca said. “We want every single junior who is low income to be guided through these processes, to help supplement and fill in the gaps from teacher advisors and the College and Career Center.”

Currently, the Rise Together is holding another round of fundraising following the success of its GoFundMe campaign. Those interested in

helping add to the nonprofit’s scholarship fund can either send a contribution by check or through Paypal.

Ultimately, Bricca hopes that the program’s scholarship and mentorship programs will help increase the college graduation rates of disadvantaged students at Paly.

“Many times the students in the population feel forgotten because they are a minority,” Bricca said.

“Just going out and getting a student loan is a big deal and something that would set them back in this revolving door of poverty. I hope our student body to know and be empathetic for the various experiences that our students have here.”

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

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NEWS

Junipero Serra namesakes Service Day adds new moved earlier considered for renaming sites, Event promotes volunteering among youth Controversy arises over Serra’s treatment of American Indians

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

GILLIAN ROBINS

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STAFF WRITER

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tanford University will create a committee in April to rename buildings and streets on campus named after Junipero Serra, a patron saint of the Catholic Church.

This push to rename came after an American Indian student, Leo John Bird, began questioning Serra’s past and his troubled history which is unbeknownst to most students.

Bird collaborated with the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) President John Finley to produce a resolution to rename several conspicuous features around campus.

Bird feels something must be done because of the ignorance manifested towards him and his culture.

“It makes me feel like nobody knows about, or cares about, my history,” Bird said in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News. “The prominence of Serra’s name on campus perpetuates the history of abuse.”

Serra was the founder of the California mission system and his policies forced indigenous peoples to convert to Catholicism and killed thousands. Because of the injustices inflicted upon the indigenous people, there was an uproar when it was announced that Pope Francis was going to declare Junipero Serra a saint.

The Chairman of the Amah Mutsun tribal band of Costanoan and Ohlone Indians, Valentin Lopez, wrote a letter to Pope arguing to not canonize Serra. “[Serra] developed the brutal, inhumane policies that had no regard for our ancestors ... This terror included the violent capture, enslavement, torture and rape of natives, as well as an unhealthy diet and squalid living quarters that resulted in the death of an estimated 150,000 California Indians in the missions,” Lopez said.

Stanford is located on grounds that historically belonged to the Muwekma-Ohlone tribe. Bird and Finley and ASSU Vice President believe that bringing this issue to light and

SARAH WANG

DAMI BOLARINWA/THE CAMPANILE

Serra Street is one of many examples of Junipero Serra’s legacy on Stanford campus.

taking action will honor the Muwekma-Ohlone people that once lived on the grounds.

Stanford has a troubled past surrounding the treatment of American Indians. Before the tree became the school’s official, the University’s mascot was the Indian until 1972 when activists spoke out against the symbol as an insult to the culture and heritage of American Indians.

David Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford University, along with Jane and Leland Stanford, chose to name places on campus after Serra as they considered him an honorable individual that contributed positively to the shaping of California.

TheprominenceofSerra’sname on campus perpetuates the history of abuse.

Leo John Bird

Stanford student This resolution to rename comes just months after disruption in the Palo Alto Unified School District over the misguided legacy of David Starr Jordan, the man Jordan Middle School is named after. Jordan was a notable spokesperson of eugenics, writing two books and advocating for

the forced sterilization of those considered feeble-minded. Junior Nadia Leinhos believes that the verdict to rename entities at Stanford is more explicit than that surrounding the renaming of Jordan Middle School.

“I think it’s less of a slippery slope than other questions of renaming in Palo Alto like Jordan Middle School because the legacy of Serra is much farther in the past, and the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior is much clearer with physical violence and death,” Leinhos said.

“With Jordan and Terman, we’re weighing their accomplishments against their beliefs. With Serra, we’re looking at how his beliefs and accomplishments resulted in thousands of deaths.”

Leinhos wishes that institutions around the nation reevaluated the landmarks around campus named after people with damaging legacies.

“I certainly hope that other universities will begin to consider the renaming of parts of campus if they find the ideas that those they are honoring stood for are outdated and wrong by our standards,” Leinhos said. “With Serra, it’s clear, at least to me, that the creation of a new, Godfearing, ‘civilized’ society is not an excuse for excessive violence.”

alo Alto High School’s seventh annual Service Day is set to take place with the help of over 50 nonprofit organizations on March 24 and will feature a variety of on and off campus community service activities for Paly students.

As in previous years, the campuswide event focuses on students getting involved and making a difference in the Palo Alto community. This year, however, Service Day will introduce several new off-campus sites and activities.

Of the 227 spots available for offcampus field trips, many are new locations which have not been offered in the past for students participating in Paly’s Service Day. Such locations include Full Circle Farm, a corporation dedicated to local, sustainable food systems and Blossom Birth, a service for new and expecting families.

Other sites for this year’s event have been available in previous years, such as Acterra and the Second Harvest Food Bank.

For the most part, each organization that comes to our school does its own activity to allow students to learn a little moreabouttheorganizationand what it does.

Candace Wang

StudentandServiceDayCoordinator As a whole, Service Day organizers focused on choosing sites at organizations related to the youth or the environment.

According to junior Ibby Day, one of the event’s organizers and co-president of YCS-Interact club, a club helping with the planning of Service Day, these organizations usually tend to allow for more volunteers to help out.

Noticeably missing from this year’s Service Day is Habitat for Humanity, an organization that hosts a popular activity during which participants build playhouses for others.

According to Day, several favorite sites are missing this year due to timing issues.

“There are fewer sites because some [sites] unfortunately had other groups booked the same day as [Paly’s] Service Day due to the fact that it is earlier this year,” Day said. “But we picked up a couple new [sites] in the process.”

In previous years, Service Day was held during Not In Our Schools (NIOS) Week in April. However, Service Day planners made the decision to hold the event separately this year in order to make planning for the event easier.

“YCS-Interact usually works to have Service Day during one of the days of [NIOS] week, but we found that last year there was a lack of communication and it made planning for Service Day harder than needed,” Day said.

In addition to off-campus activities, Service Day will include a host of on-campus projects on the quad during lunch.

These projects stem from different organizations around the Bay Area that are trying to spread their cause and get people involved, according to junior and Service Day Coordinator Candace Wang.

“For the most part, each organization that comes to our school does its own activity to allow students to learn a little more about the organization and what it does, [and students will] perhaps even sign up to volunteer [in the future] if they’re interested,” Wang said.

The on-campus projects include making cards for senior citizens and making bracelets for patients at Lucile Packard Children’s hospital, along with other activities from other organizations.

As in previous years, there will also be a kick-off breakfast in the morning on campus for those who will be attending off-campus community service field trips.

With a change in timing and broad collection of new and favorite service activities, Paly’s 2016 Service Day is already set up to be one to remember.

Stanford University Water pipeline repair continues raises student tuition Costs of reconstruction fall to taxpayers, reach up to $20 million Financial aid expands to help cover costs UMA CHOUDHURY

STAFF WRITER

S

tanford University has modified their tuition policy for the upcoming 2016-2017 school year. The Stanford University Board of Trustees confirmed a 3.5 percent hike in undergraduate tuition for incoming freshmen.

In 2014, the standard charge per year for an undergraduate was a total of $58,388, with tuition costing $44,184.

For the 2016-17 and later years, the Board of Trustees has raised the total price to $66,696, which includes: tuition ($47,331), room and board ($14,601), and a mandatory health fee ($609). The new change in tuition adds up to a difference of $32,232 for four years.

In their February meeting, the Board of Trustees additionally agreed on raising a 3.9 percent tuition raise for first year MBA students, at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

However, with scholarships and two-thirds of students getting financial aid, many will not be paying the total price. The expansion of the Stanford financial aid program covers the full cost of tuition for students whose parents earn less than $125,00 in combined annual income. On the other hand, students who have parents earning a combined annual income of $65,000 a year do not have to pay for tuition, room and board or mandatory fees.

The Stanford financial aid program, created in 2008, not only helps lower-income families, but also aids families with high incomes. The program has reduced the amount of money expected from the university

in donations from parents, which results in the higher tuition cost. Since the program’s creation, the net price, which is the price students pay after grants and scholarships, has gone down.

Recently, the Board of Trustees Chairman Steven Denning acknowledged this fact in a university press release.

The university is doing everything it can to keep a Stanford education affordable.

Steven Dunning

StanfordBoardofTrusteesChairman “Since we instituted the financial aid program in 2008, the net price of a Stanford education, adjusted for inflation, has been flat,” Denning said in the release.

While Stanford offers need-blind admissions, where financial status is not taken into consideration in admissions, 58 percent of the undergraduate class receive either an athletic scholarship aid or need-based aid and 69 percent receive some sort of financial support.

“The university is doing everything it can to keep a Stanford education affordable,” Denning said in the press release.

Stanford promised that its financial aid program was there to ensure that as many students could stay out of debt as possible.

“Two out of three students receive financial aid from Stanford and outside sources, and most students graduate debt-free,” Denning said.

Out of the 2015 graduation class, only 22 percent of the class graduated with debt, with a median of around $16,000.

PETER MAROULIS

NEWS AND OPINION EDITOR

T

he repair of a ruptured water pipeline serving Santa Clara County has been labeled as a $20 million project, the tip of the iceberg in what could be a major financial and safety concern for county residents.

On Aug. 1, 2015, the 31-milelong pipeline, which provides 40 percent of the drinking water for nearly 2 million Santa Clara County residents, began leaking, sending 15 million gallons of water flooding into the greenery surrounding Highway 152 in San Benito County. Though water going to the leak was promptly stemmed within the hour, local officials raised concerns over the general welfare of the pipeline, which is only 30 years old. Considering recent state-led efforts to expand water infrastructure through the Delta Tunnels, the ruptured pipeline is an ill omen.

“It’s absurd that the Santa Clara Valley Water District would even consider moving forward with raising millions of dollars from ratepayers to advance the Delta Tunnels project when they cannot maintain their own existing water infrastructure,” Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla, Executive Director of Restore the Delta, said in a press release.

Further investigation by the Water District turned up two other problematic sections of the pipeline, which were fixed at the cost of $1.2 million. However, the cost of maintenance falls directly on local taxpayers, despite the federal government having installed the pipeline.

“We as Americans have to invest,” Greg DiLoreto, former president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said of the increased taxpayer

COURTESY OF SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS

Repair teams worked to fix the initial rupture as well as two other pipeline sections.

burden in a press release. “If you compare your water bill to what you pay for cable TV or a cellphone and think about how important water is to your life, it begs the question: Are you willing to invest more?”

Current theories behind the pipeline’s premature degradation center mostly on cracks in the pipeline’s cement mortar, which allowed for water to infiltrate, rust and subsequently damage crucial structural wires in the metal.

“It’s not like there was a unique situation,” Barbara Keegan, chairwoman of the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board, said in an interview with San Jose Mercury News.

“The fact that it cracked and the wires corroded, how extensive is this?”

Aside from the possibility of increased taxes, county residents also face the serious danger of having contaminated water.

Recent national controversies over a faulty pipeline in Flint, Mich. have made local water troubles especially concerning.

Flint’s months-long difficulty has been marked by one stable sentiment: anger directed at Capitol Hill.

Despite the fact that American water pipelines are for the most part owned by the federal government, it has no responsibility in ensuring desirable water for American citizens.

Since August’s unexpected malfunction, the Water District has been dutifully inspecting the pipeline and was expected to release a comprehensive report before March 6; however, investigative delays have pushed the release date forward to May 6.

For now, county drinking water is perfectly safe, though the county may have to foot a heavy bill in the future in order to maintain clean drinking water.

The Campanile

Friday, March 18, 2016

OPINION

A5

History curricula should align with elections

ANANT MARUR

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

W

ith presidential candidates like Donald Trump seizing control of the nation’s politics, educating the masses is more important than ever. In the United States, an alleged paragon of democracy, voter turnout was at an embarrassing 57.5 percent in the 2012 election (a number which has been on the decline since the 2004 election) according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Teaching students about electoral politics begins a self-sustaining cycle of political efficacy.

The capacity of the youth vote to swing the election remains as potent as ever. However, widespread political indifference of American students squanders this potential, while also inspiring a culture of political lethargy in incoming generations of voters.

California high schools are required to teach courses such as World

History and United States History in an effort to help high schoolers understand their roots and the chain of events that culminates in the present.

The ever-tiring mantra, “Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it,” springs forth readily from every history teacher’s mouth.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump, the lovechild of Adolf Hitler, Joseph McCarthy and a repeatedly concussed toddler, inches closer to the presidency as he employs tactics of fear-mongering and divisive campaigning. In order to apply history effectively to the present, students need to have a reasonable grasp on the politics of the present.

An unfortunate consequence of the exclusionary nature of American politics is that politicians almost universally attempt to make the issues they deal with seem unnecessarily complex.

This makes delving into the world of politics seem daunting, discouraging many young voters from making an educated decision.

Educating students on basic electoral issues, such as ObamaCare, immigration, foreign policy and the prison industrial complex allows students

to understand the stream of media that is crammed down the American public’s throat. Campaigns will do more than half of the work — American students are already being bombarded with the messages, they just lack the tools to effectively understand them.

Teaching students about electoral politics begins a self-sustaining cycle of political efficacy. When students understand the issues, they are able to take a side and begin a political dialogue.

At Paly, there already exists a lively dialogue among students who take the time to learn about relevant national issues. However, its scope is insufficient and reflects the 57.5 percent voting rate — and Paly is evidently one of the more politically active schools in the nation.

Once a dialogue is established, students begin to educate one another through argumentation and are more inclined to pay attention to the constant stream of information that comes from all directions during election season.

Evidence shows that voter behavior during the first few election

cycles of an individual’s adulthood is a strong indicator of lifelong political behavior. Getting students invested in political issues and facilitating the development of their opinions and stances primes them to vote in their first election as they begin to enjoy the privilege of finally having their voices heard. Whether their votes goes to the winning or losing party, they will continue to come back to the polls.

Given that the 4-year presidential election cycle aligns perfectly with a 4 year high school, the mechanism to educate high school students should be based on the presidential race.

History and social science classes during the election year should be adjusted to include a curriculum based on the election. Every history class can weave current election politics into their respective curricula — economics can cover fiscal policy, world history can examine the evolution of major electoral issues and foreign policy simply needs to examine the partisan nature of U.S. foreign policy.

American teens are apathetic about too many things — politics should not be one of them.

funding to help students with financial hardships apply to college.

Problems persist even years after graduating. The “Robin Hood tax” relies on middle-aged Americans. By placing a tax on trading, Sanders deters average Americans from investing. But by deterring investors, there will be less trades to tax and many economic experts suspect that the tax will raise nowhere near the estimated $70 billion funding that Sanders proposes.

According to experts, with less trading, other taxes, such as federal income taxes, will also decrease, leading to a net loss in government revenue. Additionally, experts believe that Sanders’ proposed “Robin Hood tax” would not impact his target: Wall Street speculators. Instead, according to economist Tim Worstall, the markets that would be affected most heavily, such as foreign trade, are not the same ones that contributed to the 2008 recession, such as the housing market.

frustrated at having to shell out tens of thousands of dollars every year, only to graduate with enormous student loans and limited job opportunities.

But if you think free college will solve all our problems, think again.

Free college simply isn’t free. According to the Sanders campaign, his proposed plan requires $70 billion in subsidies to public universities to compensate for the lack of tuition funding.

To secure funding for this initiative, Sanders has proposed what economists refer to as a “Robin Hood tax.”

Sanders plans to levy a 0.5 percent tax on stock and bond transactions, as retaliation for Wall Street’s involvement in the 2008 financial crisis.

Even with the so-called “Robin Hood tax,” the allocation for tuition would equate to nearly double the amount the government spends on Pell grants –– need-based federal scholarships –– annually. This does not account for potential increases in

college enrollment, as less motivated students would be more likely to enroll with such low risk.

Additionally, government subsidies can easily lead to deterioration of the education system and general inflation. For example, California already faces a teacher shortage and exceeding enrollment — finding and paying for the increase in teachers needed would present a large problem. Should teachers be paid less to manage the budget, the quality of teaching would be severely diminished. Students simply cannot expect a high quality of education at little to no cost. Since the government will be paying tuition for the college, the college or university may have to raise auxiliary costs simultaneously to compensate for the lack of tuition revenue, which would lead to the skyrocketing prices of necessities, such as room, board and textbooks.

Only the lowest income students will have these additional costs provided for them, free of charge.

Many supporters love Sanders’ proposal because it benefits their own college education directly, but others lend support because they believe they would be paying into a system that lifts motivated students out of poverty. This is false. The proposal actually will benefit middle and upper class students, who already have sufficient savings to pay for college. According to the Pell Institue, 81 percent of students who graduated college in 2012 came from households with incomes above the national average. Similarly, that means that $56 billion of the funds will pay for college for those who have the means to pay for it.

Additionally, Sanders’ admirable intention is to help the poorest students, he should institute a bottom-up policy by intervening and aiding with the college process earlier, starting with the application and standardized test-taking processes. College tuition is truly the final step in the college process and many disadvantaged students do not even make it to that milestone. Instead, he should aim to divert

Sanders’ promise of free college tuition will backfire

CLAIRE DENNIS

NEWS AND OPINION EDITOR

O

ver the past several months leading up to November’s presidential election, millions of millennials have been “feeling the Bern.” It seems as though the elderly self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist has captured America’s youngest voting demographic.

Bernie has attracted 84 percent of voters under the age of 30 in the Iowa Caucus, the nation’s first primary, according to Time magazine and continued to pull the large majority of the youth vote. But what do young Americans find so appealing about Bernie Sanders? Among several other radically optimistic proposals, the Vermont senator is making a big promise: making college free.

To the estimated 20.2 million college students in America, this promise is a blessing. Young Americans are

If there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there’s certainly not a free college education.

Students should invest in their college education, as it will increase their responsibility and motivation to see their degrees to completion. Even though some students may have their college tuition paid for by parents, they still are held accountable to a specific individual.

There is less accountability for money coming from a broader institution with fewer measures of retribution that the government can enact should the student not take his or her education seriously. Not only will the student hurt his or her own academics, he or she will also be failing the government, who will have invested heavily to subsidize each student’s tuition.

Nothing gets American hearts racing like the word “free.” But as Sanders will learn, nothing is free. If there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there’s certainly not a free college education.

Friday, March 18, 2016

A6

The Campanile

OPINION

Liang case evidences scapegoating of minority officers

Police Officers, such as Peter Liang, who were involved in accidental shootings, have wrongly received harsher punishments than their White counterparts.

ASHLEY ZHANG STAFF WRITER

J

uly 17, 2014 — white New York Police Department (NYPD) Officer Daniel Pantaleo kills African-American Eric Garner.

Garner passes away from an illegal chokehold after repeating the now famous phrase, “I can’t breathe,” 11 times. Despite video evidence, Pantaleo is not indicted.

Aug. 19, 2014 — white Ferguson Police Department Officer Darren Wilson kills 18-year-old AfricanAmerican Michael Brown. Brown, while unarmed, is shot at least six times from a close range. Wilson is not indicted.

Nov. 20, 2014 — Asian-American NYPD Officer Peter Liang’s gun accidentally discharges in a dark stairwell.

The bullet ricochets off a wall, and kills African-American Akai Gurley. Liang is convicted and faces up to 15 years in prison on the charge of second-degree manslaughter.

America’s struggle with disproportionate amounts of police brutality against minorities, especially against African-American men, has dominated headlines for many years. After failures

to indict multiple officers for intentional killings, many citizens are now convinced that Liang’s conviction will be the beginning of justice brought to officers who target minorities.

However, Peter Liang’s case is not one of a police officer’s unlawful shooting of an unarmed suspect. It is not one of a police officer’s intention to kill a child for wearing a hoodie, or choke a man to death on suspicion of selling illegal cigarettes. Frankly, it is not one of police brutality.

This story is one of a rookie officer’s gun unintentionally discharging in a darkened stairwell, and, by a tragic twist of fate, accidentally killing a man with a ricocheting bullet. Liang had no intent to kill, yet received punishment far worse than those who had.

Despite having shot Gurley accidentally, Liang is the first NYPD officer to be convicted because of a police-related shooting in over a decade.

According to an investigation conducted by the New York Daily News, out of the 179 fatal shootings involving NYPD officers over the past 15 years, only one case led to a conviction, when the victim was killed by four officers in a hail of 41 bullets. Although both cases ended tragically, an accidental gun

shot is not comparable to a purposeful shooting and thus should not have led to the same conviction of second-degree manslaughter.

Liang’s unjust indictment was also counterproductive to America’s fight against police brutality in that it presented an inaccurate facade that justice had been served. Although police who wrongfully kill must be brought to justice, Liang cannot be the poster boy for police brutality and take the fall for officers who intentionally kill.

Dr. Chunyan Li, an Asian-American activist and professor at Pace University, was one of the first and most vocal supporters of the Justice for Peter Liang movement. Although she is also a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, Li believes that Liang’s indictment and conviction did not advance the fight against police brutality.

“While I sympathize with the intention of the Black Lives Matter movement, I don’t think Peter Liang’s case should be representative of how we tackle police brutality,” Li said. “That is why the Chinese community at the New York rally [for Peter Liang] … thought that this was not a good way of moving forward because putting Liang into jail would not solve the prob-

lem [of police brutality], and he is not a threat to society. If he was truly guilty and had intention, then he should be held responsible, but this case was an accident.”

However, the Justice of Peter Liang movement has faced backlash from many people across the country who believe that the protests oppose the Black Lives Matter movement, due to its position on the wrongful indictment of a police officer.

Paly Freshman Bridget Li, a supporter of the Justice for Peter Liang movement, believes that the focus of the movement is not against anti-police brutality movements, but rather America’s justice system.

“This isn’t about disregarding black lives,” Bridget Li said. “The AsianAmerican community does agree that black lives matter, but [the protests are] about bringing awareness to the inequalities and white privilege in the justice system.”

Liang cannot be the poster boy for police brutality and take the fall for officers who intentionally kill.

Liang cannot be a victim of selective justice — the jury cannot carry out harsh sentences only when convenient.

If intentional shootings from officers did not deserve indictments under the eyes of the law, then an accidental killing deserves a proportional amount of retribution, if any.

A police officer’s job is to protect and serve their community, and they must be held accountable if they break the law. However, America must recognize and differentiate between intentional transgressions and tragic accidents, and learn to administer retribution accordingly, without indicting an officer simply to compensate for others’ wrongdoings. If our country is to truly act under “equality and justice for all,“ we must eliminate racial profiling and selective justice and create a system of standardized retributions for all.

Social Justice Warriors should not censor opponents JOANNA FALLA

P

STAFF WRITER

alo Alto is located in the heart of Silicon Valley, a technologyinfluenced area constantly in the spotlight. The Bay Area welcomes new ideas and opinions in order to make the world a better place. Despite living in a world that is becoming increasingly open-minded to the diversity of humanity, it seems that people may be simultaneously reaching a new level of censorship in an effort to reach absolute inclusivity.

While older generations censored the facts Americans deserve to know about other ethnicities, the current generation has a tendency of censoring the things they don’t want to hear.

The current generation of teenagers has become extremely conscious of how others are treated in the modern world, and it is enlightening to see that future generations are becoming more empathetic towards the less fortunate or minority groups. But, this new wave of open-mindedness may actually be shutting out new ideas simply because they do not fit the standard definition of political correctness. Furthermore, some people also choose to go a step further and push their agendas on others in a form of censorship. While older generations censored facts Americans deserve to know about other ethnicities, the current generation has a tendency of censoring the things they personally do not want to hear. In a world full of hate, people seem to go in the opposite direction of a logical solution by shutting down anything that could be seen as offensive. Regardless, if most people believe that a certain phrase should not

be said, they have a right to know why there is controversy and they are free to form their own educated opinion on the matter.

Although it would be a dream come true for humanity to be able to live in a world where there is no room for hate speech, it is also important that people have the right to say whatever they want; positive or otherwise. To be absolutely politically correct is inevitably an impossible task, which consists of a huge gray area where it is hard to determine what is socially acceptable to say. People should take into account how other groups may feel, but no one should be required to abide by a rigid code of speech. By drawing any form of a guideline for what is acceptable to say, specifically in America, people are automatically putting restrictions on the First Amendment. Many people, known as Social Justice Warriors (SJWs), harass others into following a strict guideline in order to better the environment for all minority groups.

SJWs have good principles and intentions, but some of the more radical SJWs tend to lose sight of what it means to actually be open-minded along the way. The biggest problem with this social movement is that SJWs often have a weak basis for the campaign against a specific idea. However, it should be mentioned that SJWs are right in the sense that some phrases should not be said. Some terms are arguably inappropriate to casually say in this modern era because of the history and connotation behind them.

Palo Alto High School is known for its initiatives in improving the environment for students. This includes a “Not In Our Schools” week and other programs set in place by the Paly Environment Committee and students who take the Social Justice pathway.

The most recent initiative in progress is the “R-word” campaign. Their slogan “spread the word to end the word” promotes learning about the history behind the word, “retarded,” and how

its use affects people on a personal level every day. In an educational pathway like Social Justice, the students do an excellent job of providing information about the controversy without using excessive force. Of course, there will always be bias concerning opinion and there will always be SJWs in the course that take advantage of the less educated, but in the specific case of the R-word, students who run it do a great job of providing valid reasoning without using guilt or force.

There is room for improvement, but there are issues with going too far. All words are subjective and can be interpreted in various ways. There are also different forms of ending a word depending on the person. For example, the N-word is constantly disputed against for its strict rules of usage among the races. The main argument is that since the phrase was originally used by white men to address slaves, so to continue using the phrase is to keep alive the terrible history behind it. However, some black people continue to use the term

as a way to strengthen the bond between black people in America. While some black people support the use of the word, others despise the continuation of a racial slur. This racial term is one of many that constantly face discussion and prove just how subjective censorship can be and further prove

SJWs take on admirable causes, but often overstep their boundaries by oppressing dissenters and contradicting free speech.

SJWs cannot truly build a solid argument behind banning a specific word from our everyday language. how SJWs cannot truly build a solid argument behind banning a specific word from our everyday language.

America is one of the unique countries that emphasizes the importance of freedom of speech, and while it would be a miracle to only spread good words, people should not sacrifice the ability to say anything they want.

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

OPINION

A7

Media should neither celebrate nor condemn women’s bodies

JESSICA WONG

R

STAFF WRITER

ecently, countless commercial brands and advertisers have received harsh criticism for promoting the “thin ideal” — the presentation of slim female models as the norm. Such advertisements implicitly dictate how women should appear, pressuring women of all ages to strive for a single body type.

In order to begin to remedy the damaging effects on self esteem and confidence caused by the thin ideal, all mass media must eliminate debate over the female body.

In a study conducted by Center for Change, an eating disorder treatment center, exposing randomly selected college women to images featuring fashion models who fit the thin ideal increased body dissatisfaction, negative mood states, eating disorder symptoms and decreased self esteem.

Additionally, studies have shown that teenagers spend an average of nine hours daily watching television and movies and checking social media,

while 18-year-olds may spend up to 11 hours doing so. Spending such extended periods of time exposed to thin ideal marketing on social media and in television has yielded detrimental effects on women’s self-images, leading some to practice extreme dieting and exercise and others to disordered eating habits.

Rather than constantly debating physical appearance, the media should stop discussing women’s bodies altogether. While campaigns to embrace all body types are a step in the right direction to improve acceptance and confidence, they continue to add to the harmful discussion of women’s bodies: a conversation that must end in order for the female body to not be an object for evaluation.

In order to counter a growing epidemic of destructive behavior, many prominent brands and personalities have worked to foster a movement in mass media encouraging women to embrace their bodies. These brands are attempting to support the self confidence of each woman rather than placing pressure on them to labor towards obtaining bodies similar to those typically presented in the media. Although promoting acceptance of all body types is a progressive step, the media’s constant fixation on

the female body, even when embracing it, only further encourages women to focus on their appearance. This abundance of media coverage may easily lead back to the same destructive behavior that such promotions attempted to prevent.

“It’s good to encourage girls to embrace their bodies, but constantly talking about [body image] everywhere just makes them think about their bodies more,” junior Maddie Frick said. “Then that leads to body obsession, and nothing positive is accomplished, which is what was intended.”

According to the National Institute on Media and the Family, 53 percent of 13-year-old American girls are unsatisfied with their bodies, a figure that grows to 78 percent for 17-year-olds. Young girls are particularly susceptible to the influence of the media, and with constant exposure to the discussion of women’s bodies, they are made vulnerable to the pressure on their physique from a disturbingly young age. As they transition from their teenage years into adulthood, they are constantly barraged with commentary on women’s bodies across various platforms. The discussion of women’s bodies in the media is unavoidable, and when girls

are exposed to the topic from a young age, they are taught that their bodies should be a point of fixation, an idea that only continues to expand as they grow older and continue to come in contact with body campaigning in the media.

While encouraging women to embrace their bodies is largely beneficial, in order to begin to remedy the damaging effects on self-esteem and confidence caused by the thin ideal, all mass media must eliminate debate over the female body. Though modern media is well intentioned in its preaching to women encouraging self-love and selfacceptance, such measures would be unnecessary to begin with if women’s bodies were not put on a pedestal and evaluated on social networking sites, TV shows, films and magazines.

Attempts to undo the adverse effects of promotion of the thin ideal only further serve to single out women’s bodies as a topic of debate across various media platforms. While these campaigns to embrace all body types are generally received positively, they are still contributing to a culture of discussion surrounding the female body, one that must be eradicated in order for women to truly feel that their bodies are their personal business, and not that of the media’s.

Imminent correction in technology sector will shock Silicon Valley

KATE DEANDRE

P

STAFF WRITER

rivate technology equity in Silicon Valley has experienced unprecedented and uncontrolled growth in past years, resulting in a current correction in valuations as growth slows. This issue may lead to a major crash later this year bearing similarity to major technology crashes in the past.

After a run up of stock valuations of technology companies over the past 5 years, Silicon Valley is in the midst of a major correction. However, this should not be a surprise to many because major corrections similar to this seem to occur roughly every seven years — 2001, 2008, 2016.

One of the most significant crashes in technology history was the dot-com crash of 2001. The dot-com bubble grew from 1997 to 1999 when there was a great surge in equity markets fueled by investments. However, during the years between 1999 and 2001, there was a major decrease in

the values of these technology companies, which devastated Silicon Valley.

During this bust, many companies completely failed, and those that did not deteriorate entirely lost a large portion of their market capitalization.

During the entire crash there was a loss of five trillion dollars in the market values of tech companies.

As the valuations of the public technology companies have skyrocketed over the past few years, so have the valuations of the private companies that have tried to emulate them.

During this time, venture capitalists not wanting to miss out on profits have been more than willing to pay their prices.

As a result, 146 unicorns were created. A unicorn is a private technology company that is valued at more than one billion dollars. The only problem was that very few of these unicorns had the money from investments to support their valuations.

So when the public market stopped issuing IPOs this quarter,

and the valuations of many public technology companies started dropping, the dominoes started falling.

As a result, the valuations of the unicorns trying to piggyback on the success of the public companies by comparing themselves to the successes of the public companies so investors will view them as more successful. And most of these unicorns reside right here in Silicon Valley.

Even the seemingly most successful of the unicorns — Uber, Snapchat, Airbnb — have had huge drops in valuations. Some unicorns valuations have dropped by up to 50%.

Recently, the venture capitalists supporting their portfolios have sounded the call to cut expenses because the many venture capitalists may not be investing in companies anytime soon. The venture capitalists are curtailing their investments to conserve their capital so companies will have a possibility of a future.

With the IPO market shut down, there are very few places left to get necessary capital.

The crash will cause many smaller privately-owned companies to fail, and there will be far fewer technology companies in Silicon Valley. Many unicorns will likely die because they are losing money too rapidly, so no one will be willing to give them more money to stay alive. Private companies are more affected by this because they have not secured an IPO at this point, so it is harder for them to support their company financially. Many of the companies that have gone public are not in the same situation because they do not rely on venture capitalists for investments to keep their companies alive. The unicorns with more substantial businesses will be able to stay alive, but they will have to slow their growth rate because they will have less capital to use.

This will cause layoffs at many private technology companies, especially the unicorns.

If the companies can get financing, it will be at a much, much lower valuation. So we are starting a period where tech companies will start to cut expenses in a bid to get profitable. It will likely take a few years and lead to layoffs, but once profitable the companies will then gain value and the market for IPO’s will eventually open again. Unfortunately, most of the unicorns will likely die in the process.

The crash will cause many smaller privately-owned companies to fail, and there will be far fewer technology companies in Silicon Valley.

People should be more aware of this recurring cycle of crashes in private tech companies so that we can work on a solution to this cycle. If we are slightly more cognizant of the process of reevaluations of tech companies, they can be better informed about factors that can affect their own daily lives.

The Campanile

Friday, March 18, 2016

A8 EDITORIALS Gap year alternative should Retakes on tests be emphasized as viable path need to be offered

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ccording to The Campanile’s 2014-15 Annual College Map, 11 students indicated that they were pursuing gap years — the same number who reported enrolling at USC, one of the most popular colleges for Palo Alto High School students. Many students use gap years to pursue a multitude of opportunities, from international travel to community service to work experience. As these alternative pathways become more widespread, The Campanile believes that the College and Career Center (CCC) should advertise them as more viable posthigh school options.

There are many times in which the CCC discusses post-graduation options with juniors and seniors, most of which are college-centric. At the beginning of second semester, the CCC hosts an orientation for juniors — presenting an overview of different college types, the general application process, and tips on identifying whether a college is a good “fit.”

While gap years are mentioned briefly as a post-graduation options, we believe that the CCC can expand on this topic by presenting different organizations that offer gap year programs, talking about the advantages that gap years can offer students, and discussing the types of students that may most benefit from this opportunity. As this

is one of the first times at which students are exposed to the CCC, it gives them the impression that the CCC can help students plan for alternative pathways besides college, and gets students thinking about these alternative opportunities early.

Later on in the year, college advisers at the CCC have individual meetings with prospective college applicants in which advisers review transcripts, recommend colleges and discuss applicants’ interests, among other things. However, gap years are usually left out of the conversation unless applicants introduce the topic.

We believe that the CCC can use this time to also present alternative pathways for after high school — most notably, taking gap years — as viable opportunities. In turn, students who were considering taking gap years can receive useful counsel on their benefits and drawbacks and those who were not may ponder the possibility of doing so. This advice is especially valuable seeing as gap years are often advertised for students who are unsure of their long-term career plans, which is only a small perspective in the larger framework of gap years. By providing specific advice about gap years tailored to each student, the idea becomes less abstract and instead takes shape as a pragmatic opportunity for enrichment.

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n recent years, Palo Alto High School has become subject to a trend in which students do not pass classes due to their poor performance on tests. While tests are the best way for students to demonstrate knowledge of subject matter, a student’s performance for an hour and a half should not be able to have such negative effects on a student’s grade.

The Campanile believes that students should be allowed the opportunity to retake any test in any non-honors, non-Advanced Placement (AP) course and earn up to a C on the test.

Student in honors and AP courses have opted to take on a much more rigorous workload, and due to the time constraints with regards to the AP tests in May, this system would not be feasible to place in most honors courses. However, students who are in non-honors, non-AP classes have made a conscious choice to learn at the level that best suits them, and should be helped adequately to reach the baseline grade of a C. By allowing students to retake tests, students could focus on learning, instead of fretting about their grades. With the peace of mind that they will pass the course as long as they try, students will be more willing to buy into teachers’ lectures. The logistics associated with the implementation are relatively simple. Teachers

Additionally, in the fall semester of students’ senior years, representatives from colleges present on their respective colleges, including information pertaining to collegiate opportunities, student life and the admissions process at each university. We believe that it would be beneficial for the CCC to also bring in representatives from different gap year organizations to present what they can offer students in terms of a gap year, and answer any questions about gap years students may have. In addition, bringing in Paly alumni who have taken gap years to speak on their experiences would be helpful in both assisting students’ decisions about taking gap years as well as providing them with specific ideas.

The Campanile believes that gap years are valuable experiences that students should be more exposed to during the application process. Global Citizen Year claims that 90 percent of people who took a gap year with their organization and re-applied to college got into better and more selective schools, and all felt that they had a competitive advantage. Considering the CCC’s current advisement on the college application process and the magnitude of interest in gap years, we believe that the CCC can better promote gap years so as to provide students with helpful guidance for their endeavors beyond high school.

would need to create alternate versions of their tests so that students could not gain on unfair advantage by taking the test again. Students would take the alternate test at the Testing Center.

Although this system requires extra work on the teacher’s end, The Campanile believes that teachers would gladly undergo this endeavor if it would lower students’ anxiety and raise their eagerness to learn.

A counterargument to this idea states that this system would be unfair to students who performed well on the original test. After all, these students put in hard work, but are not receiving opportunities to do better.

However, these claims are shortsighted. This system would not diminish the achievements of those who scored highly on the test, but would rather allow others to improve their grade up to a C so that everyone could have a greater understanding of material.

Finally, The Campanile notes the necessity and importance of testing, but recognizes the need for change with regard to the current system in place. Paly should prioritize students’ learning over their archaic systems that result in student stress. And in doing so, not only will students’ grades be safe, but their appreciation for the knowledge that they are receiving will rise.

Homework policy in need of further reform

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he homework policy at Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) has been a long debated issue that has the potential to alleviate the typically high levels of student stress and workload. While The Campanile applauds the District for its continued efforts in updating the policy to accurately reflect a student’s workload, including the most recent change to include Advanced Placement (AP) classes, we feel that a solution cannot be found in establishing any guidelines when there is such variation among students. Instead, we propose putting control in the hands of students by making more homework optional and increasing the use of periodic, homework quizzes that can be retaken.

Under the new homework policy, Administrative Regulation 6154, “students who choose to enroll in AP, Honors, or accelerated courses should expect higher homework loads, but are not expected to have more then 15 hours of homework a week on average.” This remains extremely unrealistic of what an advanced student’s workload looks like. An academically challenging but standard schedule might consist of AP Spanish Language, AP U.S. History, Humanities, AP Environmental Science Ceramics, IAC and Physics H. According to homework data collected by Paly’s Input Club on over 1,000 students, this would amount to an average of 24 hours of homework per week.

While some may advocate for students to take it upon themselves to build easier schedules, students should be able to take a challenging course load that caters to their interests, and have the ability to adjust their homework loads accordingly.

Teachers have made strides to cut back on busywork, but the only way

to significantly reduce time spent on homework is to allow students to choose the most effective means of learning the material by providing resources to do so but not requiring assignments to be turned in.

As such, The Campanile believes that giving students more control over their workload will remedy the discrepancy. Several Paly classes have already implemented methods that operate on this premise. For instance, AP AB Calculus, a senior math class, posts suggested practice problems on Schoology but homework is never collected. This way, students are responsible for gauging their understanding of the material; should they need more practice, the resources are available. At the beginning of each block period class meeting, students take a homework check, testing their understanding of the material they learned the previous class. Students can retake the benchmarks until they receive full credit.

AP Psychology is governed under similar ideology. The class runs on a system that encourages students to do textbook readings with online progress checks, which count for a point if completed. But if a student chooses to forgo the assigned homework, it is not held against them. This gives students the independence to balance their own workloads according to their needs and schedules. It also aligns with grading styles in college where projects and tests count for the entirety of a grade while providing the safety net of homework points.

It is clear that arbitrary regulations will not decrease students’ workloads.

Instead, the District should look to expand the success of optional homework systems to give students the independence to use homework as they deem necessary.

MARCH’S TOP TEN LIST Top Ten Ways To Ask Someone To Prom 10) Choreograph a group routine.

9) Write a song with reasons why they should go to prom with you.

8) Hoverboard onto the quad.

The Campanile Editors-in-Chief Miranda Chen • Stephanie Cong • Owen Dulik Lauren Klass • Mischa Nee • Nikhil Rajaram Online Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Fu News and Opinion Editors Claire Dennis Peter Maroulis

Lifestyle Editors Aiva Petriceks Carissa Zou

Sports Editors Kai Oda Ethan Teo

Business Manager Rachel Farn

Design Editor Bo Field

Photography Editor Dami Bolarinwa

Yael Ben-Shachar Abira Berezin Josh Brigel Uma Choudhury Kate DeAndre Greg Eum Joanna Falla Maddie Feldmeier Mackenzie Glassford Eli Gwin-Kerr Danny Hammerson

Editing Consultants Evelyn Richards Elisabeth Rubinfien

7) Ride in on a chariot.

6) Email bulletin@infocusnews.tv your prom asking.

5) D.M. them.

4) Snapchat.

3) Puns.

2) Get your finest men and write “Prom?” on their chiseled chests.

1) A poster and flowers.

-Gillian Robins and Christina Le

SAMUEL VASQUEZ/THE CAMPANILE

“WORSE THAN CHERNOBYL”

Staff Writers

Jamie Har Cole Hechtman Antonio Kieschnick Edward Kim Grace Kitayama Masha Konkov Christina Le Will Leighton Tiffany Liang Anant Marur Madeline McCluskey

Nicholas Melvin Kiran Misner Jacqueline Moore Anna Moragne Josh Ng Gillian Robins Maggie Rosenthal Bethany Shiang Thomas Smale Adrian Smith Noah Smith

Photographers

Abira Berezin Daniel Hammerson

Jacky Moore Jordan Schilling

Jared Stanley Talia Stanley Avi Tachna-Fram David Tayeri Annalise Wang Sarah Wang Clay Watson Jessica Wong Samuel Yun Ashley Zhang Alice Zhao

Illustrators

Samuel Vasquez Catherine Yu

Advisor Esther Wojcicki Letters to the Editors: Email all letters to editors to theeds16@googlegroups.com The Campanile prints letters on a space-available basis.

We reserve the right to edit submissions.

The Campanile only prints signed letters.

Advertisements: Advertisements with The Campanile are printed with signed contracts.

For more information regarding advertisements or sponsors in

The Campanile and their size options and prices, please contact The Campanile Business Managers by email at campanile.ads@gmail.com.

Note: It is the policy of The Campanile to refrain from printing articles that misrepresent or alienate specific individuals within the Palo Alto community.

The policy of The Campanile is to publish editorial content that represents at least half of the staff.

LIFE TYLE

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

STUDENT LIFE

Spring Break Ideas From hiking to staying in, make the most of spring break.

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Rappers of palo alto High School i n c e its inception during the rise of hip-hop culture, rapping has been a form of self-expression for many.

Through their music, groups from the early ‘90s such as N.W.A. and the Wu-Tang became symbols of contemporary culture.

Rap music gave those musicians a platform to address social issues and capture the cultural atmosphere of their times, resulting in songs that define much of the 1990s such as “Fuck tha Police” and “93 ‘til Infinity.” Now the torch has been passed to the countless collectives and individuals that make up hip-hop, a genre that embodies the state of mind of a generation.

Now in the mid-2010s, rap has become an integral part of youth culture for millennials due to its inherent nature of outspokenness, and many of the artists pushing the genre today are of increasingly younger ages. It is not uncommon to find established rappers that are in high school, and Palo Alto High School is home to several students that write, create and record their own songs and instrumentals.

Paly senior Gideon Kortenhoven has been recording and publishing music on SoundCloud since early 2015. He began making music under the name Gidlit in Grand Rapids, Mich. when he and a friend made an album cover but had nothing to put it on.

“It’s actually a funny story, looking back on it,” Kortenhoven said.

“We were just on Adobe Illustrator and we made an album cover and were like ‘This is sick, but we don’t have any music,’ so the first song I ever made was made so we could put that album cover on it.”

Kortenhoven raps about the life and thoughts of a Midwestern adolescent on the West Coast, leaving out neither the illicit nor the intimate.

He only recently moved to California from Michigan and attributes his musical style to that of the Midwest rap that he grew up listening to. “Keep your tabs on me, you’re watching me grow/Planting all these seeds of knowledge, watching me sow,” he raps over a jazzy, mellow beat in his recent single “Ride.” He displays an impressive mastery of rhythm that allows him to use a variety of beats in his songs. From jazzy instrumentals to more aggressive, drill music beats, Gidlit appears to be comfortable in a variety of instrumental mediums, usually finding a good refrain to keep the verses evenly spaced out.

“I don’t have any particular influences, but all we would listen to back in Michigan was Chicago rappers like Chief Keef and Lil Reese,” Kortenhoven said. “They’re pretty big inspirations of mine.”

As of March 13, Gidlit has posted 15 tracks on SoundCloud and has garnered just over 100 followers. His aspirations, however, remain modest; he laughs that he is “just doing it because it’s hella fun.”

Senior Martin Manasherob is another avid user of SoundCloud and a lifelong hip-hop enthusiast. Although not as prolific on the music-sharing site, Manasherob — who produces under the name Martin from Palo Alto — puts

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much thought and effort into each track.

“Although the first music anyone’s heard from me is only from a couple of months ago, [it] has been a couple of years in the making,” Manasherob said. “I started producing beats on my computer at 15, when I was listening to hip-hop and rap basically 24/7. I always had headphones in my ears” Hip-hop isn’t the only genre that Manasherob shows interest in. He stresses that rapping requires an understanding of linguistics as well as melody. To him, rap and hip-hop blend the best of other genres.

“I was studying everything about rap from different flows to rhyming patterns... I knew I’ve always been good at words and poetry as well as music in general, having played several instruments,” Manasherob said. “So one day I just thought to myself why not [make my own songs].”

The two tracks Manasherob has released so far are both emotionally-centric, taking cues from Drake and early 2000s Kanye West, whom he lists as influences. The beats he chooses are R&B inspired and match the tempo of his sincere lyrics. Despite these sources of inspiration, Martin from Palo Alto sticks to a theme of individualism.

“I wouldn’t say that I sound like anyone specific because in order to be successful you have to just be yourself,” Manasherob said. “But I will say that Eminem is the rapper that I listened to most. He just says stuff you would never expect and in ways where you’re just like ‘how the hell did he fit all those words in five seconds?’ But I’d say I’m most influenced by Kanye. He was really one of the first rappers to acknowledge his insecurities and I think that’s something that is so rare in rap because everyone wants to be a ‘gangster’ or ‘hard’ when it’s not really [them]. I’m not pretending to be anything, and I’m not rapping about stuff I don’t actually do or don’t actually feel.”

Taking on one’s own initiative and creating a distinct image is a large part of success in any field, and Manasherob intends to adhere to his original approach to rapping: personal, exclusive and honest.

“I’m not pretending to be anything I’m not, and I’m not rapping about stuff that I don’t actually do in my own life,” Manasherob said. “I’d say I’m very versatile because I can make songs where the beat is super fast and I can just flow..., but then I also make slower songs that I’d say are

design by

jamie har senior staff writer

more emotionally driven rather than focusing on just lyricism.”

For junior Carson Cordova, rapping was a pastime that evolved into a serious affair following the reception of his first track, a song that chronicled the struggles and triumphs of teenagers and an unattended house.

“When I really started getting into more and more music I thought that this was something I’ve been more passionate about than anything in my life so far,” Cordova said.

“I didn’t know I wanted to start rapping until I would freestyle with some of my friends and they thought I was better at it than most people.

I thought, ‘I better do something with this talent,’ so I decided to start putting music up on SoundCloud.”

Cordova raps over driving, synthy beats with biting lyricism and witty rhymes that jump from topic to topic. He ascribes his sound to that of East Coast groups whose influence shows in the rhymes and melodies he chooses: an emphasis on lyrics that give a clear direction, either telling a story or setting a scene, in which the influence of the group Pro Era is evident.

“I’d like to think that my sound relates to more of a classic ‘90s hip-hop sound,” Cordova said.

“My biggest influences would be people such as Joey Bada$$, Biggie, J Dilla, Bishop Nehru and Capital STEEZ, rest in peace, just to name a few.”

Although music once seemed like a hobby for Cordova, he expresses a deep passion for making rhymes and instrumentals which can be seen in the countless freestyle recordings he has on his phone.

Cordova’s ardor for creating music is a testament to how the roots of hip-hop are found in not only catchy beats and clever lyrics, but in a love for music and self-expression.

“Music is the one thing I find myself most passionate about in my life,” Cordova said. “I want to be able to share what I’ve created in hope that others will find the same passion that I do through my music.”

Text and design by eli gwin-kerr staff writer

Joanna Falla staff writer

How “The Bachelor” ruined humanity

AIVA PETRICEKS

LIFESTYLE EDITOR

We all dream of finding our soulmate sin situations that almost seems as if it was scripted. We all dream of living in mansions in Los Angeles with 25 other women as you date said bae.

We all dream of going on trips to exotic places such as the Bahamas, Mexico and Warsaw, Ind. with this love. Many reading this may be very oblivious to what I am hinting at, but I think many girls (and select few guys) will understand what I am referencing: I am talking about: “The Bachelor.”

“The Bachelor” is a reality dating show when one perfect man — who is unexplicably still single — dates 25 women. These women are also unusually pretty and the fact that they need to go on television to find love leaves everyone else with no hope. During the show, cat fights happen, roses are given out, vacations take place and the next thing you know, The Bachelor finds love! Well actually, that can’t necessarily be said because most relationships on the show don’t work out.

With all the insane women that are on the show along with how this Bachelor is the perfect Ben (yes, ABC did use this slogan for promotion this season), this has been a very entertaining season. This past week Ben Higgins did find love as he said JoNO to Jojo and chose Lauren B. to be Lauren Bae — he gave her the final rose and they will go live happily ever after (stayin together for five months before breaking up). Though this season has brought me a lot of joy, it has also made me give up on humanity more than anything else, and that says something about us considering Donald Trump currently being the leading candidate for the Republican Party. Let me tell you why.

No one on the show thinks it’s weird that they are promoting polygamy. Taken out of context, a man dating 25 women and then having ceremonies to kick 24 of the women out of his life can raise many problems for feminists and honestly, just people in general. Somehow, reality television has convinced a good chunk of society that this situation is normal and no one questions it. One of the best episodes of the season is “Hometown Dates,” when Ben goes to the hometowns of the final four contestants (surprising, I know) to meet their families. Every dad brings up that this is a very unusual way to meet a man, and questions if his daughter really loves Ben or if it’s just because he is on a huge pedestal. Every woman will usually tell her dad that she has never loved anyone more than she loves Ben, even though at this point she has only had a few hours of alone time with him over the span of six weeks. I mean come on — I’m in love with Ben and I’ve never met him — ladies, this is NOT what true love is, it’s lust.

That being said, “The Bachelor” will forever be my guilty pleasure and it’s calming knowing that I have my life together more than most of the women on the show, which is surprising because I don’t have my life together at all. Bye Paly Pals!

LIFESTYLE

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Find out what your Philz order says about you.

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

B2

LIFESTYLE DEAR JAMIE: My boyfriend and I broke up a while ago.

I can’t seem to get over him, and to give a bit more context, we’ve been hooking up recently. I know he only sees me as a friend with benefits, but my feelings won’t go away. I want to keep hooking up, but I don’t want to hurt him or myself.

What should I do?

--STUCK

DEAR STUCK: I’m going to approach my response first with personal advice as a fellow high schooler and later with more general advice as an outsider.

Simply put, I would stop hooking up with your ex-boyfriend as the first step. I know that’s easier said than done, but I think that maintaining physical attachment with him while simultaneously trying to cut off emotional attachment will hurt more than help you and your ex.

From what I’ve experienced and learned from others, giving a part of yourself physically to another person whom you care about forms a bond that runs deeper than the surface touches. It creates a sense of comfort, familiarity and greater acceptance of both people — effects that can feel good but that you should also be wary of.

What’s familiar to you is always changing as you have new experiences, so familiarity is very fickle and hard to ground. Familiarity is also a fragile justification for why a person should stay how they are in life now, eternally, while he or she could become and feel better. Holding onto something that used to provide comfort and pleasure but no longer does

and rather nurtures dissatisfaction and uneasiness — only hinders you from gaining experience, perspective and wisdom. Besides, the familiarity you treasure could be rekindled by another person in the future with whom you are more compatible. In your situation, the cons of continuing to hook up outweigh the pros.

In addition, I think it is unfair for the specific person whom you sincerely care about to use you primarily for his own pleasure and ignore your affections and disquieted, discontent feelings — unless he is clueless about your inner conflict. Using someone for a selfish reason is not right, but failing to heal a pain that one is unaware of causing is not wrong either.

Thus, to clarify where you both stand, I suggest talking to him about your emotions and thoughts whether you want to continue hooking up or not. If, even after understanding your unhappiness with the relationship, he still tries to keep hooking up with you and actively disregards your struggle, then he probably does not value you or your emotions as much as himself or his own.

In this case, I would think about what matters to you most in a friend and if you still want to keep your friendship with your ex. Remember, others should respect you and you should respect yourself. You are worthy of love and consideration for more than your body or sexual abilities. Just because someone doesn’t treasure you as you do them does not mean you deserve to be devalued. You can experience comfort and a sense of fulfillment without being in a sexual or romantic relationship, even if you feel like you temporarily lose some.

In the end, as an outsider, I can only offer suggestions. Talking with

other mentors, adults and professionals can surely be helpful, but even they cannot see through you. You know your heart and mind best, and only you can introspectively decide what might bring you peace.

The frightening power that emotions seem to have over people only exists because people create and allow it themselves; the emotions alone are weak, often unreliable portrayals of one’s thoughts and of reality. Hurt will inevitably be experienced by everyone, so though you can’t avoid it, you can try to lessen it. To do so, you have to be honest with yourself and your ex. Consider what is reasonably best for both of you from as objective a point of view as you can. Advise yourself as you would a younger sibling or close friend. Recognize that though you say you don’t want to hurt your ex or yourself, you already are deceiving your ex by acting as if you are fine, and you are already hurting yourself by staying in this difficult position. Try to relieve yourself of the hardship and avoid more hurt over time.

All you can do is use your best judgement. As I said before, life is always changing. Thankfully, that means you are never stuck. In each moment, you can make new choices and reflect on and realize different things. Use this truth as a source of strength as you move forward with your decisions.

WITH LOVE: JAMIE Dr. Moira Kessler, a child psychiatrist at the Stanford University Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, offers feedback to the column writer. She is not providing neither clinical services nor direct support for writers.

Students perspectives on private and public schooling Former public school students reveal private schools offer benefits to students that public schools do not CARISSA ZOU

LIFESTYLE EDITOR

SARAH WANG

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

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any students at Palo Alto High School have only ever been exposed to one framework of education: the public school system. Though in many places around the country private schools are considered the providers of higher quality education, the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) public schools are consistently ranked among the top schools in the nation. As a result, many Palo Alto families choose to send their children to public schools. So in Palo Alto, besides sources of funding, what is the difference between private and public schools?

One of the most stark differences between public and private schools is the difference in the size of the student population. While Paly has around 2,100 students and approximately 500 students per grade, private schools, such as Castilleja, an allgirls school, have around 50 students per grade. Subsequently, students at private schools tend to form a tighter community within their class and school as a whole.

Students at Paly who have been exposed to the private school system, having attended some of the many neighboring private schools in the area, note the closer communities of their previous private schools.

Senior Emma Raney, who attended the Girls Middle School (GMS)

in Palo Alto, had to adjust to being in a grade at Paly that has significantly more people than her grade at GMS. “Going from knowing everyone to sometimes not being aware [a] kid even goes [to Paly] was definitely a change,” Raney said. “There were also a lot fewer of us [at GMS], so the community was more tightly knit.”

Senior Elana Rebitzer, who attended Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto from kindergarten up until eighth grade, also noted how tight-knit her class was. She notes that she was able to connect with every single one of her classmates, a characteristic she believes is unique to private schools.

“I had every single class with some of my friends and I think in that sense it was nice because you got to know everyone in your grade,” Rebitzer said. “You know so much about people’s lives when you go to a small school.”

I’ve been able to form really great relationships with those teachers [who have] pointed me in the right direction.

Maddy Birnbaum Senior This tighter community also translated into the classroom, where Rebitzer found that smaller class sizes made it easier to engage in discussion with fellow classmates rather than learn passively in a large class.

With more opportunities to speak up in class also comes more opportunities to form connections with

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teachers. Most of Rebitzer’s teachers stayed with her for more than one year, some for up to five. In comparison to PAUSD, where most students rarely have teachers twice, these connections foster a relationship between student and teacher.

Maddy Birnbaum, a current senior at Woodside Priory School in Portola Valley who attended schools in PAUSD up to eighth grade, notes that not only does she now get to have teachers for more than year at Woodside Priory School, but that they help her hone in on her interests, such as English.

“If you choose a subject and you choose to pursue it and you get to the higher levels, you’re likely to have the same teachers for a while,” Birnbaum said. “I’ve been able to form really great relationships with those teachers [who have] pointed me in the direction I want to go in.”

Another byproduct of smaller communities at private schools is the abundance of resources available to every student. Resources and opportunities cannot always be offered to the large student bodies of public schools since there are too many students and schools that are funded by taxpayers’ dollars, but these options are more viable when there are less people to accomodate for. With more resources provided for students, those who want to start on a career pathway have the opportunity to do so. In addition, private schools have more money along with fewer students, since each student pays a tuition to attend.

At her small private school, Raney had opportunities her counterparts at public school did not have, including skateboarding as a part of her physical education and a year-long entrepreneurship project to apply learning to the real world.

“At GMS, there’s this huge yearlong project we do in seventh grade called Entrepreneurial where we basically get to start our own business,” Raney said. “The process is complete with investors and we divided the profits of real money amongst our group.”

You know so much about people’s lives when you go to a small school.

Elana Rebitzer Senior Private schools even provide opportunities and applications of education outside of the traditional school boundaries, most notably on the national scale. Birnbaum recently got the chance to travel to New Hampshire to attend political rallies and debates hosted by Woodside Priory’s sister school, Saint Anselm College, an opportunity uncommon in public institutions.

“There were only about 1000 people at the debate and it was easy to run up and briefly talk to [and] take pictures with the candidates during commercial breaks,” Birnbaum said.

“We could see the whole political primary system in action, which we had just studied.”

Additionally, many private schools grant students the opportunity to delve deeper into concepts surrounding religion, culture or language that public schools cannot, due to separation of church and state. In retrospect, Rebitzer appreciates the exposure she had to Judaism and the Hebrew language through her religious and linguistic courses.

“Academically, I think the only main difference [between Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School and Paly] was that we had Jewish studies education so I came [to Paly] not quite bilingual but speaking another language which was helpful in general,” Rebitzer said.

In fact, after years of learning and understanding more about her religious background and its history, Rebitzer now views her religion as a larger piece of her life than if she had not went to a religious school.

“I think my identity as a Jewish person is maybe stronger because of Hausner,” Rebitzer said.

Overall, though both private and public schools offer similar levels of high-quality education in Palo Alto, the similarities end there.

With smaller class sizes, more resources and the opportunity to delve deeper into subjects, private schools offer different strengths than public schools do, leading some students to make the decision to forgo the public school system. However, each decision ultimately resides on the personal preferences of each prospective student and what type of school they feel fits them the best.

The Campanile

Friday, March 18, 2016

LIFESTYLE B3 College Confidential: benefits and shortcomings Online resource provides important yet unreliable information about both colleges and the application process ALICE ZHAO

STAFF WRITER

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tudents, parents, Internet trolls and college experts all convene on one website: College Confidential. Dubbed the “world’s largest college forum,” College Confidential boasts 300,000 visitors a month. Topics discussed on the website include, but are not limited to, college admissions, summer programs, internship opportunities, essays and financial aid.

With more and more college applicants each year and college admissions becoming increasingly tough, students and parents alike are anxious to know what it takes to get into toptier colleges. Since its inception in 2001, College Confidential has continued to grow in popularity due to a larger influx of distressed and unsure applicants.

The infamous “What Are My Chances?” forum mostly contains threads of users asking others to evaluate their chances of getting into certain schools. In these threads, members outline their achievements inside and outside of the classroom in hopes of having other users tell them they are worthy of admission. Over 6,250 “Chance Me” threads have been created since November, a testament to the growing anxiety surrounding college admissions.

Another type of thread, which asks for the college decisions of graduated seniors, is one of College Confidential’s most popular threads, with over 1.5 million views. This thread has over 2,000 replies where previous applicants list their college decisions along with the college they will be attending. The replies go on to detail an applicant’s GPA, ACT and SAT scores, AP scores, ethnicity, location, extracurriculars, leadership roles, honors, awards and self-reflection on essays and teacher recommendations. On the site, registered members are allowed to comment on threads anonymously and participate in college-related discussion while anyone without an account can view the information.

By comparing their own statistics with the statistics of other applicants, readers are meant to be able to

SAMUEL VASQUEZ/THE CAMPANILE

“chance” themselves, as well as others.

The combination of all previous applicants’ attributes and outcomes are intended to help future applicants gauge their achievements relative to the achievements of others and build a more realistic list of safeties, fits and reaches.

However, there are mixed feelings surrounding this seemingly helpful resource. Urban Dictionary, a satirical website that defines slang, lists College Confidential “among the worst websites on the internet” and labels it as “a place where you can read about snotty geniuses who feel the need to brag in the ultimate attempt to make the ‘average high school student’ feel pity on the themselves.”

I find it pretty useful because I can see what activities other students are doing and where those activities have gotten them in terms of college admissions.

Alison Wu Sophomore While sophomore Allison Wu agrees that College Confidential has the ability to put students down, she believes it is still a valuable resource students should tap into.

“Because of the amount of overachieving students posting on the website, [the site] sometimes dis-

courages me,” Allison Wu said. “Yet I find it pretty useful because I can see what activities other students are doing and where those activities have gotten them in terms of college admissions.”

Even though the college application process does not begin until senior year, high school students of all ages use College Confidential.

Junior Samarth Venkatasubramaniam was introduced to the website by his older brother as early as freshman year, and has since used it to compare his own achievements to the achievements of others who have gotten into research programs he is applying to. Although Venkatasubramaniam recommends the website because of its plethora of information, he recognizes that some of it is too specified.

“For the purposes that I use it, College Confidential is somewhat useful,” Venkatasubramaniam said.

“But the user base of College Confidential is not really representative of the population of applicants for most things, so the information is definitely skewed.”

Both senior William Meng and Venkatasubramaniam agree that the sort of demographic found on College Confidential does not reflect that of all college applicants.

“The number of people who post on those threads is statistically in-

significant compared to the number of people who actually apply to [college],” Meng said. “I think those people are not randomly selected whatsoever as I think there is a certain characteristic mindset that is shared by people who post on College Confidential that is not common to college applicants in general.”

There is a certain characteristic mindset that is shared by people who post on College Confidential that is not common to college applicants in general.

William Meng Senior Even though College Confidential aims to demystify the college application process, its superficial text format limits the amount of reliable information. Similar to Venkatasubramaniam, junior Ericka Wu is wary of the accuracy of what people post.

“College Confidential should not always be trusted as a lot of the time it is not representative of your own circumstances.,” Wu said. “Just because people post information does not mean you should totally depend on what they are saying.”

Despite not completely trusting the information it provides, Ericka Wu believes that College Confidential remains a useful resource for stu-

dents looking for college advice from both past and present college applicants.

College Confidential can give students and parents the “inside scoop” on the college admissions process that cannot be found anywhere else.

When Googling hard-to-find information on topics ranging from summer programs to financial aid, College Confidential is usually a top result with multiple threads on the inquiry. The wealth of information should be taken advantage of, as specific statistics and applicant testimonies can rarely be found on a college website.

One of the most helpful topics on College Confidential titled “Ask the Dean” allows members to ask a college admissions expert their own questions about the college admissions process by creating their own thread. Despite not being an actual dean, the information provided by the college admissions experts is still applicable. This forum gives applicants and parents the opportunity to have their own specific questions answered by a professional. Even rare and specific topics such as not having enough slots to input all extracurriculars, made up credentials and middle school detentions are addressed — pointing to the topic’s ability to help applicants on exactly what they need.

However, having already gone through the college application process, Meng finds that the information found on College Confidential can mislead future applicants on what a college is actually looking for.

“The site might promote a distorted view of the college admissions process,” Meng said. “If you read a thread [on college decisions], you might think thoughts like ‘to get into this school, I need to be more like ‘X’ user who was accepted’ or ‘I need to avoid doing what ‘Y’ user did who was rejected.’”

Despite its flaws, College Confidential remains the largest source for advice on the college application process. Readers should be warned that some information is misleading and unrepresentative. Regardless, College Confidential provides helpful advice that can aid students in the stressful college application process.

Interesting books to New APES teacher brings his passion for nature to classroom liven up English class Jack Kearns hopes to utilize field experience to teach his students Required reading should engage students JOSH BRIGEL

ANANT MARUR

STAFF WRITER

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

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or new AP Environmental Science (APES) teacher Jack Kearns, ecology has always been a large and important part of his life; teaching is a new career and passion that he is just beginning to discover.

In the past, Kearns has volunteered as a teacher and been a guest speaker at other local schools.

“This is my first year as a teacher, record, but I’ve been doing part time teaching at other schools off and on for three or four years,” Kearns said.

“I did a lot of guest speaking on ecology, which was a lot of my background, and wildlife biology.”

Kearns had always been fascinated by nature while growing up in the Bay Area, and knew since he was young that he wanted to focus on the subject.

“I was super adventurous as a kid, I loved to explore and investigate wilderness areas and that led to this fascination around animals and that led into an obsession in wood-birds,” Kearns said. “ My boyhood dream when I grew up was to be a game warden, track down poachers and bring them to justice. It has really been a lifelong passion that has come to realization.”

Kearns had a lot of inspiration and many opportunities as a child to follow his passion and was supported by those around him to follow his dream.

“My mom gave me opportunities to be involved with wildlife,” Kearns said. “At a very young age I was doing bird watching for programs and volunteering at wildlife rehab centers where I’d help rehab injured animals.”

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DAMI BOLARINWA/THE CAMPANILE

Jack Kearns takes APES students on a field trip to Stanford’s Central Energy Facility.

Kearns has held several jobs in environmental conservation and has traveled abroad on such projects. He has studied animals in Africa, such as mongooses, and tundra animals, such as owls, in Alaska.

The Students have been really welcoming to me and very interested in my teaching style, so that’s been really helpful to me transition.

Jack Kearns APES teacher For Kearns, teaching is the next step in his life and he feels he is meant to be here.

“I’m here because I’m supposed to be for a higher purpose,” Kearns said.

Having known of his predecessor, the late Kenyon Scott, he refers to the class as Scott’s “mantle” and is honored to continue what has been

started in the APES classes. Outside of school, Kearns has a wife and children along with a passion for multiple sports.

“I love spending time with my family,” Kearns said. “They’re my top priority.”

In the past, Kearns has participated in numerous sports and even played football in college.

“I played football competitively.

I went to a Division 1 school (St. Mary’s) on a full scholarship in football,” Kearns said.

Along with football, he has played volleyball and wrestling, among others. Palo Alto High School has been a change of scenery for Kearns but he has adapted quite well to the campus and its staff and students.

“Everyone here has been amazing,” Kearns said. “The students have been really welcoming to me and very interested in my teaching style, so that’s really been helpful to my transition.”

othing quite describes the dismay of signing up for a seemingly interesting English elective, only to be dismayed when the required reading fails to meet your expectations.

The books that an English class focus on largely define how interesting the class is. Logically, one of the best ways to choose what classes to sign up for is to find classes that read books that are interesting, transforming dull fishbowls into compelling discussions.

Here is some of the best literature that Paly’s English department has to offer: “The Importance of Being Earnest

by Oscar Wilde” - Comedy Lit This play perfectly fits the class’s description, and delivers both in terms of plot and in terms of comedy.

The wordplay throughout the book is fantastic, and although some of the innuendos are well hidden, the ones that click add a new level of humor to the book.

At 64 pages, it’s one of the shortest reads you will find and the reading speeds by since the language is easy to understand.

Although it does require some effort to experience the full effect of the book, it is definitely one of the better reads in the Paly English department and is considerably less dull than the average required reading book.

“Siddhartha” by Hermann Hesse Humanities “Siddhartha” is everything that Paly students who sign up for Hu-

manities are looking for – profound claims, paradoxical thinking and a change of pace.

Exploring a young man’s journey of self discovery, the book explores themes of knowledge, hedonism and various philosophies.

It’s certainly an enlightening read, and it is quite short as well, clocking in at only 160 pages.

While it needs to be read more slowly than other books to fully grasp the multitude of philosophical underpinnings, it keeps the reader immersed throughout the journey.

“Dune” by Frank Herbert - Escape Lit Set in a futuristic galactic society, “Dune” is a refreshing change of pace from books set in the past or in characteristically dystopian futures such as “Brave New World” and “Fahrenheit 451.”

“We are always learning about the hero’s journey and tragic heroes in our other English classes,” senior Christina Park said. “Dune is a refreshing and interesting way to explore that theme, unlike other books like Sophocles’ ‘Oedipus’ and Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’.”

While the book is rather long, at 896 pages, the riveting plot and the interesting setting keep the reading constantly interesting.

In fact, its length is an advantage, since it will take up a larger chunk of the course that might have been spent on a less interesting book that is a not only a chore to read, but also a waste of time.

Of course, if books in general are to be avoided, the decision is easy: go ahead and watch some exciting films in the Film Composition and Literature class.

The Campanile

Friday, March 18, 2016

SPOTLIGHT

B4

THE CLASSROOM CONUNDRUM: PAUSD’S BACKGROUND

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et’s face it: students are tired of classroom learning. American education has, over time, been streamlined in a manner to promote efficiency, which has often removed the pleasure of coming to school. The progressive education movement, which began in the 19th century and is rapidly gaining momentum today, stresses the importance of alternative methods of instruction, and is aimed at giving students a holistic yet enjoyable education. Silicon Valley, always on the cutting edge of innovation, has some of the best public

schools in the nation, some of which have begun exploring more unusual methods of instruction. At Palo Alto High School, project-based learning programs like Advanced Authentic Research (AAR) and Pathways have gotten off the ground quickly and smoothly in the past few years. The experimental system of free student work (flex) time is also being tested as a viable strategy.

A debate has thus arisen over the merits of traditional versus alternative learning. As the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) begins to

become more comfortable with alternative learning, even developing plans to open an alternative school, the community has had a mixed response.

PAUSD Superintendent Max McGee has clashed with community members in his push for what he calls the “moonshot”: an alternative initiative stressing student discovery rather than pure instruction. Is tradition stagnation? Is alternative learning equivalent to current methodologies? The Campanile explores both sides of Paly’s debate over educational novelty.

resear

BLENDED L WHAT IS IT?

PROJECT-BASED LEARNING WHAT IS IT?

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AUSD’s AAR, which is in its first year, is a project-based 8th period (after school) class that gives students the opportunity to pursue their interests beyond the confines of the classroom. The class, which meets two to four hours a week, is taught by non-PAUSD advisers for the

most part. As of now, the 71 enrolled students choose a particular area of focus,which can be anything, and work on a comprehensive report/project over the course of the school year. In May, a science fair-type event will be held wherein all projects will be put on display.

PROS

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AR, which is available to all PAUSD sophomores, juniors and seniors, has been lauded by students as a realistic introduction to the process of conducting a research project.

Students in AAR learn about and practice all of the steps of a research project, gaining valuable experience about the research process.

“I joined AAR because it gives you outside of the classroom learning experiences, and the chance to experience a field you might be interested in pursuing as a career,” junior Anmol Nagar said.

Nagar is currently studying the correlation between pH levels and toxins in water for a biology project.

“Outside of the classroom learning opportunities are vital to a student’s understanding of material and AAR is the perfect way to gain that experience,” Nagar said. “In the real world, you won’t be required to cite facts from a textbook, instead you will be researching and developing conclusions.”

In an October 2015 survey conducted by the Enrollment Management Advisory Committee (EMAC) on choice programs, project-based learning was preferred by 30 percent of PAUSD parents.

On the other hand, only eight percent of parents favored direct instruction, or traditional teaching.

The overwhelmingly pro-alternative survey numbers, with 92 percent of parents in favor of change, suggest the need for a reform to be implemented into PAUSD education.

The success of AAR is a clear indication that students have the ability to learn new concepts and conduct intensive research while working in a less structured environment. It is has thus established a logical educational foundation for learning real life skills, which can be cultivated in the familiar environment of high school. Even opponents of project-learning must admit that the classroom is quite dissimilar to the real world.

CONS

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roject-based learning at Paly has faced criticism over efficiency, despite plaudits from enrollees. While research programs do provide a more in-depth scope of information with more personal attention than a classroom of 20 students does, the quantity of information they cover is not as extensive.

Timothy Liu, a Paly junior in AAR, has had an enjoyable experience in the program, despite the fact that he might not be learning as much information.

“For me personally, I enjoy learning hands on and through applied learning, so I think that project learning is effective for me,” Liu said. “That being said, project based learning does have its limitations, as there are certainly things that you can only learn out of a textbook or through a lecture, such as facts or theorems.”

Learning through projects might be a refreshing change of pace, but the issue of direction and supervision also comes into play. In project-based learning, the teacher role is reduced and students charter their own course, learning different material at varied paces. Teachers have been trained as professional instructors and not as professional project gurus: what will they do when they have 20 individual lesson plans instead of a single agenda?

Education at all levels is a vessel for exploration and discovery, but there is a base amount of knowledge that students need to have in order to obtain a high school diploma. While a project may be informative and enjoyable and even an efficient use of time, it might not give a student the necessary amount of different information to continue on in the educational system — information that a few lectures might cover.

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lended classes, 11 of which have sprung u at Paly, are another example of innovati learning’s rise. These classes feature “fle periods, or periods where students can use the time as they please, providing them with a great

PROS

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P Psychology was one class this year th employed flex periods. Many senio enrolled in AP Psych were grateful for th increased agency they now have over their time.

“The best part about blended classes is the fre dom,” Brian Lai, a senior in AP Psych, said. “I fe like the teachers finally trust us enough to let learn by ourselves.”

Once students go to college, they must choo what to do with every single hour of their tim not just one period of the day. Paly’s extensio of increased flexibility to students can be cast a strategy to prepare students for life after hig school. When Paly campus is left behind, as will regimented schedule: students will need to manag their time when there are no bells. Students cou benefit greatly by less rigidity and structure, an more practice with using their time productively.

CONS

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egularly scheduled classes might not alwa please their occupants, but they have th benefit of structure. An objective — lik learning grammar in a foreign language or unde standing a historical/mathematical concept — h been laid out, and a teacher breaks that objecti down into components. Students then grapple wi understanding that concept, which is often taug or contextualized in several different ways by th instructor (so that a broad range of learning styl are encompassed). At the end of the lesson, th educational system’s goal is for students to ha understood that topic.

Flex time, for its merits, lacks efficiency communicating information: free hours, whi liberating, are not being monitored directly by pro fessionals. This method of self-sustained learnin is a privilege, which might not be capitalized on respected. Many high school students are respons ble, but it is often difficult to resist the temptatio that might arise in a free period, especially on a

Text By: Peter Maro

PARENTS’ OPINIONS Here’s how 1259 parents responded when asked by the district to agree or disagree with certain statements.

It is important for the district to expand choice programs in our middle and high schools.

17.11% DISAGREE I would likely send my student to such a program.

21.62% DISAGREE

82.89

78.38% AGREE

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

SPOTLIGHT

B5

DEBATE OVER ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION CAREER PATHWAYS

In the real world, you won’t be required to cite facts from a textbook, instead you will be rching and developing conclusions.

ANMOL NAGAR

WHAT IS IT?

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he recently introduced Social Justice Pathway, along with the Sports Career Pathway and the soon-to-be-introduced Business Pathway, are examples of a new class style at Paly. Around 100 students participate in the

PROS

JUNIOR

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he Social Justice Pathway, for instance, is a 3-year program for students who are interested in studying the struggle for equality in society. The Pathway places them in classes such as statistics and humanities that help them get a better grasp on social justice.

“I love the Social Justice Pathway because it gave me an environment in which I am in control of my education and my impact on the community,” junior Molly Weitzman said. “The pathway has inspired me to continue my social justice learning in college and beyond.”

Social Justice Pathway members also praised the program for its ability to unify students and give them some sort of agency over their education.

“The Pathway gives us an opportunity to take control of our education — we’re able to think outside of the normal restrictions of traditional school,” junior Ahana Ganguly said. “Also, we’re unusually close for a class, which allows us to have honest discussions about important issues.”

LEARNING

up ive ex” eir ter

degree of independence. Blended classes, including Advanced Placement (AP) Music Theory, AP Psychology and AP Biology, which rely more on self-teaching, currently count over 250 Paly student enrollees.

hat Instruction and monitoring by professionals is, ors and always has been, essential for learning in the he American school system. Blended classes do not by any means do away with such supervision. ee- The argument for blended classes and flex eel periods is that independent work time can be more us effectively balanced with in-class learning — providing students with more of a choice — which can ose also lead to further student enjoyment. Students me, might be more interested in their education when on they have more control and authority over it. as Blended classes, by giving students a few more gh hours of the day to use in a truly constructive way, l a could be an exceptionally useful tool for students. ge Sitting in rows and being lectured might not be uld effective for all types of learners; a loosening of the nd leash does not necessarily accompany a loosening of . the mind.

ays he ke erhas ive ith ght he les he ve

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Pathways, which are gaining popularity, and give a more in-depth scope of particular subject areas. At Paly, the several different pathways offered teach information through a particular lens in various fields.

Ganguly’s views were reaffirmed by data from the EMAC survey, which showed that 13 percent of PAUSD parents preferred Pathway learning as an overall instruction method, while just eight percent supported current, non-Pathway classroom methodologies.

The Pathways’ community spirit and gentle direction can be a benefit to students who are passionate about a certain area, actively fostering interests when current instruction might not.

Pathways give students the opportunity to explore specific fields that they are interested in, and figure out what they hope to pursue after high school.

While Pathways do help students focus on a certain field, they do not determine the future; enrolling in the Business Pathway does not necessarily destine a student to four years in business school. Rather, it may be a valuable tool in helping students decide whether a career in business is fitting for them.

CONS

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athways are inherently specialized, which proponents of general education frown upon. At Paly, the several different pathways offered teach information through a particular lens in various fields.

Junior Nadia Leinhos, who is in her second year of Social Justice, believes that this style of more specialized teaching and learning can occasionally be inhibiting.

“If there are times I feel Social Justice is inhibiting, it’s because it’s different from the way I learn outside of the Pathway,” Leinhos said. “The alternative learning style focuses less on what happened and more on its impact, so in history we do less memorizing dates and more analyzing primary documents. It was tough to get used to at first, but the point of the Pathway is that we experience some discomfort in our worldview to expand it.”

open campus. Students from Paly’s AP Psych voiced doubts over their flex time productivity.

“I appreciate flex time for what it is in the sense that it’s cool and I can go off and do other things,” senior Elias Fedel, an AP Psych student, said. “But in terms of learning psychology, I feel like everybody is always doing something else.”

Fedel said that he enjoyed flex time, but he often found lack of classroom instruction difficult.

“A lot of the material that ends up being on the tests we have to learn by ourselves now,” Fedel said. “Solid lectures have become infrequent in lieu of flex time, which can be ineffective.”

Those who enjoy a class, like Fedel, might be frustrated with a lack of instruction, despite an effort to make the best of their free time; those who do not enjoy a class might not make nearly the same effort.

“I want to learn more psychology but I’m just not,” Fedel said. “In class, I’m actually learning something.”

High school is designed for students to explore different career options, but at the same time, students need to log a standard (national) level of historical and language instruction. The worry over Pathways is that they essentially turn high school into a trade, or vocational, school by narrowing students’ focuses. While college and graduate school are typically used as the launching pads for professional careers, high school is not. If students who pursue a Pathway at the age of 15 find themselves, three years later, with an aversion to that pathway, how will that look to colleges and employers?

There is undoubtedly high potential for making a mess of one’s education by embarking along a certain, specified course, in any field. Educators and learners alike must ask themselves one question before pursuing a pathway: do you really want a 15-year-old making crucial life decisions?

Project based learning does have its limitations, as there are certainly things that you can only learn out of a textbook or through a lecture.

TIMOTHY LIU

JUNIOR

oulis & David Tayeri Design by: Bo Field

9% AGREE

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LOOKING FORWARD

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he struggle between proponents of innovative learning and those who believe in traditional education is as fierce in Palo Alto as anywhere in the country and at least as fierce today as it has been at any other time in history.

Both sides are motivated by the desire to make PAUSD schools student-friendly centers of learning, without sacrificing efficiency and some sort of structure. As battles rage over the implementation of project based learning, blended classes and career

pathways in PAUSD schools, the future of education in Palo Alto hangs in the balance. There must be more research and data over the efficiency of more flexible learning methods before they can either be embraced or shot down.

Every avenue must be explored: if research reveals that alternative education really is viable, then there needs to be an effort to implement it in all subjects, STEM and humanities. There can be no partial or full level of alternative education: an all-encompassing solution for every subject and grade level

must be found. As far as anybody knows, the “moonshot” is neither a boon nor a burden.

The Pathways are still relatively fledgling, and have not yet graduated their first crop of students. However, it will take much longer than that (years and maybe even decades) to deduce the true level of efficiency in alternative learning. For now, it is important to allow community tensions to simmer so that alternative education research can be evaluated with cool heads and open minds.

Friday, March 18, 2016

B6

The Campanile

LIFESTYLE

Upcoming spring fashion trends Tips for Spring Break Advice for the most in-style, seasonal clothing and accessories

Local adventures all around the Bay Area GRACE KITAYAMA

STAFF WRITER

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YAEL BEN-SHACHAR/THE CAMPANILE

To appear fashionable in the spring, one must be sporting a lace-up top, an off-the-shoulder dress, lace-up shoes or a baseball cap.

ALICE ZHAO

STAFF WRITER

ASHEY ZHANG

STAFF WRITER

A

s the final quarter of the school year settles in and the days get warmer, stepping up your wardrobe is a must. With spring comes many newly popularized pieces, making it the ideal season to try out those trendy styles you have been eyeing all winter.

Lace-up tops A new style of blouse is taking the fashion world by storm. Slightly resembling corsets, lace-up tops feature a plunging neckline, conservatively tied off with a string. These trendy tops come in both tighter and looser fitting variations, and can be dressed up or down. Tighter fits can be paired with a bodycon skirt to seem like a 2-piece dress, while looser fits can be paired with jeans to give off an effortless vibe. Most styles come in solid colors, but printed lace-up tops provide a more unique take on the new style. Lace-up tops can be found at most trendy stores with prices starting at around $10 from Forever 21 and going upwards of $30 at Topshop and Urban Outfitters.

Off-the-shoulder dresses With bohemian styles continuing to be all the craze, off-the-shoulder dresses undoubtedly hit the mark.

These dresses expose the shoulders, making their wearability similar to that of strapless dresses. While these dresses come in both tight and loose varieties, looser and breezier styles tend to be more popular during the spring. A classic way to style offthe-shoulder dresses are with sandals and a denim jacket or vest. This lowmaintenance dress is sure to become a stylish wardrobe classic. Off-theshoulder dresses can run anywhere from from $30 to $80, with Forever 21 and H&M occupying the bottom of that price range and stores such as Free People, Urban Outfitters and ASOS covering the more expensive range.

Lace-up shoes For all the clumsy, uncoordinated girls out there: now is the chance for your inner prima ballerina to shine.

Lace-up shoes, the fancier sister of ballet flats, are the new “it-shoe” of the spring, with their pointed toes and laces wrapping around the lower calf, similar to a ballerina’s pointe shoe. The lace-up style can be found on both ballet flats and heels and is

a simple way to add a touch of elegance to any outfit. Popular in nude or black, lace-up shoes are easy to pair with cuffed skinny jeans and skirts in casual settings and add a unique, polished look when paired with dresses.

These shoes are available at most popular clothing stores such as Forever 21 and Nordstrom with prices ranging from $20 to over $100.

Baseball caps Baseball caps are comfortable without compromising style, making them effortless accessories to throw on on the way out the door. No longer reserved for the occasional outdoor excursion or sports game, this accessory can be paired with any casual outfit to conceal a bad hair day or add an athletic flair. Although snapbacks have been the more popular option in recent years, the classic curved bill of the baseball cap provides a timeless silhouette that fits every face shape. Baseball caps with logos can be found online or at stadiums during games and provide an opportunity to support favorite sports teams. Not a sports fan? No problem – Brandy Melville, Urban Outfitters and other popular clothing stores all carry baseball caps with various patterns and embroidered phrases for $15 to $25.

s a high school student, the prospects of having a wild and crazy adventure over spring break may seem bleak — the “wildest adventures” people have often become a week with family in a tropical resort in Hawaii or a cozy cabin in Tahoe. However, for those lucky enough to stay in the beautiful Bay Area over break, there are a plethora of fun and local activities aside from the classic beach getaway or senior roadtrip to occupy your time on your 10 free days.

Foodie adventures For those who have grown tired of Bare Bowls, Sushirrito, T4 and CREAM, staples of Palo Alto cuisine and therefore deemed “basic,” dare to venture outside of your local suburban comfort zone for some different food options. Many use their Spring Break to adventure around the Bay, and San Francisco is a popular place to do so, being home to some of the most unique food and drink choices in the country. Show Dogs for one, is a gourmet hot dog restaurant that serves an array of artisanal sausages and sandwiches, all of which have their own unique twist on the classic American staple foods. Also in San Francisco, Plentea is a boba shop that sells its pearl milk tea in tasteful glass jars, which are just begging to be the subject of your next Instagram photo. Heading in the opposite direction from the city, Milkcow in Fremont is a different type of creamery which serves its own unique flavors and toppings, making for a delicious and aesthetically pleasing treat.

Spring cleaning This may not be the most fun or exciting activity to occupy your free time this break, but it is well worth the effort. Multiple studies have

found a correlation between stress and a cluttered living space. As the most stressful time of the year approaches, getting rid of junk you do not need will not only improve your mental well-being, but also help you stay more organized for the final quarter. In addition to decluttering your life, you can also sell your old clothes online or at a consignment shop as a way to earn extra cash.

Staying inside Staying inside is possibly the easiest and most satisfying way to have fun locally this break. In giving yourself a much needed rest from work and socializing, you can also catch up on the latest TV shows that you have fallen so behind on while in school.

Hikes Spring weather provides the perfect opportunity to go outside and get some exercise. Stanford campus has many beautiful hiking trails including Windy Hill and the Stanford Dish, all of which are just a short drive from Paly. However, if you are willing to make the longer journey to Mission Peak, hiking in Fremont is a great option, only an hour drive from Palo Alto, and you will have the chance to feel the sense of achievement that comes with standing on top of the funky metal landmark at the peak of the trail. Though the action of hiking itself may not seem appealing to the average student, the view from the top of Mission Peak will more than make up for it. If at any time in your hike you find the trek to become too rough, whisper to yourself “Do it for the Insta” repeatedly for motivation until you make it to the part of your trail with the best view to take your picture. On the way back down, you can consume your time by thinking about a witty caption to get maximum likes. Whichever trail you choose, don’t forget to wear your Lulus.

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

LIFESTYLE Yayoi offers authentic Japanese cuisine New Downtown restaurant brings diverse menu of Japanese food at reasonable prices CHRISTINA LE

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What Your Philz Order Says About You

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

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fter years of a Downtown Palo Alto that did not serve Japanese food other than sushi, Yayoi is a revelation. Set on the corner of University Avenue and Waverly Street, the first Yayoi location — a popular teikoku chain restaurant in Japan and Australia — in the U.S., opened on March 4. Yayoi serves authentic, quality Japanese food at very affordable prices. Yayoi serves lunch from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. then reopens for dinner from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

“Teishoku” means a well-balanced meal, served on a tray with a combination of steamed rice, miso soup, a main dish of choice, vegetables and pickles. Teishoku exemplifies a popular, everyday cuisine in Japanese culture. There are fourteen types of teishoku, ranging from meals that feature karaage fried chicken to tonkatsu pork to teriyaki salmon ($14.50-19.50). The menu is diverse.

My order consisted of Sukiyaki, Wafu Katsu Ju and Ohagi: Sukiyaki - $23, (9/10). The sukiyaki includes beef sukiyaki, udon noodles, tofu and vegetables. On the side, the sukiyaki is served with pickled vegetables, a bowl of rice and onsen tamago, a type of Japanese omelette, which is made by rolling together several layers of cooked egg.

The tamago can be eaten with rice, or mixed into the sukiyaki. The sukiyaki was tasty, and stayed hot throughout the whole meal. The udon noodles had a nice bite to it, and the beef was tender. However, tamago is normally served warm, and the tamago here was a bit on the colder side. All in all, I would highly recommend the dish.

Wafu Katsu Ju - $14.50, (10/10).

Rice topped with a panko grilled pork cutlet and bonito flakes? How could you go wrong. The pork was prepared perfectly, with the meat cooked through, but still quite juicy.

YAEL BEN-SHACHAR

STAFF WRITER

CHRISTINA LE/THE CAMPANILE

Yayoi opened Mar. 4 and is located on University Avenue. The menu features many Japanese dishes, such as the pictured Sukiyaki.

The pork had a crispy outer layer, and even though the meat was moist, the panko was not soaked. The shortgrain rice has a great texture to it, walking the line between dry and watery. Out of all the plates I tried, this was definitely the winner.

Ohagi - $5, (7/10). If you are a fan of red bean, this is the dessert for you. Ohagi is a sticky rice ball coated in sweet red bean. Yayoi uses a short grain rice for Ohagi — this helps the rice stick together to hold it’s shape.

This rice also has a sweeter taste, compared to normal jasmine long grain rice. The beans were cooked to have the perfect bite. However, this dessert is a bit too sweet. Asian red beans are naturally sweet, but it seems that for this dessert, the beans have been cooked in simple syrup (diluted, boiled raw sugar). The Ohagi was tasty and inexpensive, but I would not go out of my way to have this.

Though Yayoi is notable for its teishoku dishes, their menu offers many other meals to choose from as

well. Even though Yayoi does not sell sushi, they have raw fish dishes available such as salmon carpaccio and salmon sashimi ($9).

The dessert menu features dishes with green tea and red bean — signature Japanese ingredients. Their most popular dessert is the Matcha Anmitsu, a green tea ice cream topped with red bean, agar jelly, fruit, black syrup and Matcha Warabi Mochi served with a drizzle of chocolate.

Yayoi is a family-friendly place, and on top of that, it is relatively inexpensive for high quality Japanese food.

Previous restaurants at the same location, including Taxi’s Hamburgers, Abbey’s and O Sushi House, have kept the building’s design relatively the same for the past ten years.

Yayoi has taken a new approach to this building, creating their restaurant from the ground up. With newly painted walls, and a wooden light

up sign, Yayoi has started something new. The interior of the restaurant has a modern feel to it, with trendy wooden tables and an elegant bar.

In addition, it is the first restaurant in Palo Alto to have iPads at each individual table. The iPads are available for customers to order food digitally. It’s innovative and convenient for customers and the restaurant staff alike. Though orders are placed through the iPads, waiters are still available for tables to answer questions and to assist customers.

Yayoi is unique in the fact that they have a no-tipping policy — they state that any tips will be donated to local charities. Regardless, customer service at the establishment is great, and the staff are attentive, prompt and warm. Yayoi is a familyfriendly place, and on top of that, it is relatively inexpensive for high quality Japanese food. Because this is the only location in the U.S. as of now, the waiting list for the restaurant is extensive, so make sure to plan ahead.

Best platforms for online music streaming Pros and cons of various music streaming mediums, including Youtube Red and Spotify

MACKENZIE GLASSFORD/THE CAMPANILE

EDWARD KIM

STAFF WRITER

J

ust like any other adolescent roaming the campus of Palo Alto High School, I encounter the daily dilemma of trying to balance my needs with my resources.

I constantly ask myself the question: “Do I really need to buy this?”

From the time I got my first Apple device equipped with iTunes, I have had to decide which music platforms to invest my time and limited data plan into. If you face the same predicament, here is a brief, albeit comprehensive, overview of the best music platforms.

Spotify Pros: Arguably the most popular music streaming platform, this Swedish service gives access to about 30 million songs. The company operates under a “freemium model,” which allows users to experience the majority of songs for free under certain conditions, such as advertisements. For $10 per month, and a 50 percent student discount, a listener can upgrade to the “Premium” model, which offers advertisement-free streaming and a mobile listening capability. The plat-

form, which users can access via the web or mobile and tablet applications, creates personalized playlists, monitors a “top 50” chart and allows users to “follow” other playlists.

Cons: Spotify, which looks great at face value, unfortunately hides a myriad of problems under the circular green icon. Notable artists, including singer Taylor Swift, Prince and Tom Yorke have pulled their music off the streaming platform, citing the lack of compensation. According to Spotify’s Artist website, the service pays between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream to the artists, a compensation that pales in comparison to other streaming sites. Although Spotify is a great deal for any listener, the other side of the spectrum appears considerably darker.

Tidal Pros: Tidal, which was created by Jay Z, allows artists to have stakes in the company, directly giving them profits from the streams. In comparison to other sites that offer the artists meager compensation, Tidal offers the most benefits to its artists.

Brought into the spotlight by Kanye West’s new album, “Life of Pablo,” the platform offers a unique palette of

advantages that other services cannot match. First, and perhaps most importantly, Tidal is making waves by being the only service that has the legal backing to publish Kanye’s newest album. Although illegal black market sites have copies of the album, Tidal offers a clean conscience and better sound quality. The platform also presents several songs written by the living legend — Prince.

Cons: Unfortunately for the many penny-pinching high schoolers out there, Tidal’s lack of any form of free service acts as a negative against its vast array of songs. In addition, the platform’s premium service costs $20/month, which is money that could be spent on a week’s worth of lunch at Town and Country. Even more damning, many sources have corroborated the claim that Tidal’s songs often buffer, even on highspeed Internet. In a fast-paced time like high school, the 5 to 10 seconds between the buildup and the bass drop could be the difference between an excellent and terrible day.

Youtube Red Pros: A subscription to YouTube Red not only incorporates videos from YouTube, but also includes mu-

sic from the Google Play Store, combining two separate music and video platforms into one. In addition, Red allows users to watch videos without any advertisements. For those who follow YouTube stars such as the Fine Brothers, YouTube Red comes with a pass to see exclusive content that regular subscribers cannot. YouTube Red also allows users to download videos and music from the software to use whenever need be, which alleviates the need to stream using data.

Cons: YouTube Red does not offer discounts, which means that the $10/month rate is final for all users.

It is also difficult to create playlists on this interface, which means that you have to manually search for every song or video that you want to watch.

Although the content from video creators looks like a great idea on the surface, in reality, all publishers that use advertisements need to connect to YouTube Red to avoid having their videos taken down. In a country that emphasizes free use and ownership, having a restriction placed on videos is a hindrance to YouTubers.

Apple Music Pros: Apple’s newest music platform, Apple Music, is supported by both Android and iOS systems, something that its predecessor, iTunes, could not accomplish. In addition, any artist can submit content to Apple Music, due to changed guidelines that allow more leeway in submissions. Apple Music’s library can be synced with previous iTunes playlists, which answers any questions about transitioning from iTunes.

Cons: Many people have reported frustration with Apple Music. Apple decided to integrate the Apple Music feature into the Music app on iOS, which creates an overwhelming experience for new or unpracticed users.

The flood of options for users trying to add songs to a playlist can feel difficult to grasp at first. Although you are free to make your own playlists with Apple Music, you cannot follow those of your Facebook friends, making it difficult to share music within your circle.

Let’s be honest, life is exhausting. In order to remedy the exhaustion, many people turn to the laid-back coffee chain, Philz Coffee. Not only do people come to Philz for the delicious coffee, but also for the great Instagram photos. Whether you order a small or an extra large, get coffee or tea or ask for “sweet and creamy,” what seems like a simple order really speaks multitudes in terms of who you are as a person. If you are reading this and are wondering what your Philz order says about you, let me help you out.

Mint Mojito Iced Coffee If you order a Mint Mojito, it is most likely your first time at Philz.

You have probably never had actual coffee before or think that coffee is too bitter. But you still want to be able to say that you drink Philz coffee for that hipster aesthetic, and to be able to call yourself a true Palo Altan.

(Extra “basic” points if you order your Mint Mojito extra sweet and extra creamy because that entails that you truly are only here for the Instagram likes. That’s probably the main reason you go anywhere, really.).

Jamaican Blue Mountain Consistently ordering Jamaican Blue Mountain means that, first of all, money is clearly not an issue for you because this is the most expensive drink on the menu, priced at $10 for a large, instead of the usual $4.50. Either you have a well-paying job, or your parents are willing to buy you anything you want, no matter how frivolous it may seem. In any case, you are probably very sophisticated and professional, and have your life together, or at least you have the money to make it seem like you do.

You most likely run into Philz quickly with your high heels and pencil skirt, acting as if you work at a fancy, high-paying job.

Black Coffee In order to seem like a true Philz enthusiast, you have to order black coffee, the opposite of a Mint Mojito, to prove that you are only here for the right reasons (the coffee). Although it does not matter which brew you order, a light roast will make you appear even more dedicated because it is an even stronger brew. This order is generally given by someone who will be the epitome of hipster in the future, and who will probably end up sporting a beard or a man bun, and is most definitely a massive know-it-all.

Anyone who orders black coffee will make sure to order it loudly, so that everyone else at Philz can hear their intense order and know that they have a real love of coffee.

Ambrosia and Tesora These two coffees are both medium roasts, and are a couple of the most commonly ordered drinks at Philz. If you are ordering this brew, you are, in all likelihood, a Philz regular. You started out with this drink because it was what your friend ordered the first time you tagged along to Philz, and you have since been too afraid to branch out and try something different. You are not very original, but at least you keep a consistent schedule with time everyday allotted for your Philz fix.

Tea and Hot Chocolate If you walk into Philz and order a tea or hot chocolate, take a step back and rethink your life choices. The chain is called Philz Coffee for a reason, so if you want tea or hot chocolate, please go somewhere else. Don’t worry, there is probably a Starbucks a couple of blocks away.

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

LIFESTYLE

B8

BIGGER THAN THE INterneT: DarkNet AN ESOTERIC TECHNOLOGICAL FREE-FOR-ALL HIDDEN UNDERNEATH THE SURFACE OF THE WEB TEXT AND DESIGN BY ANNALISE WANG

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fter hitting “enter,” your imminent nuclear threats from Russearch engine sifts through sia, to which the U.S. Department of and selects every website Defense responded by creating the that remotely matches your search Advanced Research Projects Agency query, returning millions of results Network (ARPANET) in order to sorted by relevancy in fractions of preserve security for confidential mila second. But what you may not itary and government actions. This realize is that all of those millions network essentially created “layers” to of results are just the very tip of the online content, a major contributhe iceberg of the Internet — less tion to allowing people to browse the than ten percent of the Internet Internet anonymously decades later. is accessible through all of the To access a darknet, one needs to traditional search engines such as download an application such as The Google and Yahoo combined.

Onion Router (Tor), which is the Everything that can be ac- most popular method, or a similar cessed by a traditional search en- system such as The Freenet Project gine is known as the “surface web” or Invisible Internet Project (I2P). or “clearnet,” and beyond that are Upon downloading one of these the deep applicaand dark tions, users re c e s s e s are free to of approbrowse the priately homepage, labeled dubbed the “dark“ Welcome n e t s ” Mat of the — priDarknet. ” vately acThis front cessible page seems networks like a typiwhere cal clearpolitical net page, JUNIOR activists, containing scammers, hackers, military bases links to many harmless and legal and blatantly illegal types convene. websites, but, in reality, anything is a Part of the danger of darknets lies manual search and click away. in their accessibility — anyone Darknet pages are similar to surwith a computer and basic knowl- face web pages, but instead of links edge of the Internet can gain en- ending in “.com,” “.net” or “.org,” they trance. end in “.onion. ” In an onion network, “When we browse the web messages are encapsulated in layers [through Google], we’re only get- of encryption, like those of an onion. ting access to one percent of the They are transmitted through a series web. Think of the surface web that of network nodes called onion routwe use as the surface of the ocean,” ers, due to the fact that each node junior Jerry Huang said. “peels” away a single layer, uncoverA darknet is a private, restricted ing the data’s next destination. Esnetwork that can only be accessed sentially, each node only knows the through specific browsers, autho- next node, so it is nearly impossible rizations and software configura- to discover the content of the original tions. They host all sorts of content search query. that cannot be found on the surAnyone analyzing the Internet acface web, and thus, are populated tivity of a darknet user will know that with troves of illegal merchandise network communication was taking and dangerous characters. place, but not the content of these The popularity of darknets is on messages nor the persons reached. the rise, reportedly growing expoThrough manual searching, one nentially compared to the surface can find many links to all sorts of web’s. The amount of devices that darknets, many of which are very can access darknets rose more than much illegal. Since Tor’s main advantwofold between 2013 and 2014, tage is that it is private and completefrom 1,050,000 devices to over ly anonymizes browsing, darknets are 2,500,000, according to released entirely anonymous and thus popular data by The Tor Project, the devel- among criminals and other unsaoper of a darknet browser, Tor. vory types. This results in there being These untraceable networks plentiful links leading to black mararose in the 1970s when there was kets, self-harm forums, communities a need for military security due of anarchists, radicals, racists and just to the rising popularity of online about any other group fathomable. information hosting. Military in- There is truly something for everyone formation was also stored there, on the darknets. and anyone with basic computer “Most of the darknet contains skills could find this information.

This became dangerous during the Cold War when there were

It’s crazy to think that we’re completely blinded from the other 99 percent of content floating around invisibly on the deep web.

Jerry Huang

DESIGN BY CARISSA ZOU AND ASHLEY ZHANG content related to the online black market. You will find drugs, weapons, computer hacking, forged documents and illegal software.” Huang said.

“You can buy any kind of illegal item if you wanted to.”

The marketplaces are the most frequented darknets, and therefore perhaps the most dangerous of all darknets. The high level of traffic on these pages indicates that most people visit darknets to purchase items , usually illegal substances and objects, from these marketplaces.

The Silk Road, a popular, illegal darknet drug marketplace, was shut down in late 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Many sites like it have also been shut down by government intervention in the past, causing transactions to be halted and currency to be lost.

Darknet transactions are done with Bitcoin, an untraceable peer-topeer cryptocurrency, as their currency of choice. Bitcoins allow for transactions on the darknet to be reliable and convenient, thus adding to the appeal of anonymous online transactions.

The marketplaces themselves are not very reliable as they are constantly being shut down as the Silk Road was, and additionally as there is always runs the risk of simply not receiving what one paid for, since the anonymous purchasing system which does not bind the seller to deliver the item. In terms of the item reviews, the sellers of such transactions will be very reliable, while the unlawfulness of the transaction itself renders it unreliable for different reasons.

Darknets are teeming with scammers and hackers, as many try to gain harmful access to a user’s computer — more specifically their bank accounts and legal identity. Potential risks of using darknets include stolen identity, robbery or computer virus transmission, which is a huge drawback to the anonymity of darknets. This gives people with computer knowledge a huge edge in the criminal world by making them incredibly dangerous on darknets, which may lead to the creation of a new kind of criminal.

Above any of the other risks associated with using the darknet, purchasing drugs, firearms, or any other illicit merchandise over darknets is explicitly illegal. While it is no less

illegal than purchasing drugs off the street, it is not caught as often as street trafficking, due to the fact that it is hard to arrest someone who is completely anonymous.

This contributes to its rising popularity, as it is easier to do illegal things without getting caught, and people are always looking for the easiest way out.

However, certainly not everyone that uses darknets has to be morally corrupt or in search of partaking in unlawful activities.

“Even though darknets have negative connotations, they have benefits if used with good intentions. [They] can be used for personal privacy and the protection of individual privacy rights,” Huang said.

There are many websites within darknets that are perfectly legal in every sense of the word, much like ones on the surface web. Some users prefer darknets simply because of the privacy they ensure. Anonymous chats can take place on the darknets and people can express their opinion freely about sensitive topics such as governments and racism. Darknets can offer a community for people that have certain unique interests and passions. All in all, they are an aspect of the modernizing world that are rising in popularity quickly, and a reminder of the transition to the digital world.

Regardless, darknets are incredibly dangerous to anyone accessing them. Once on the darknet, users have access to all sorts of illicit content that is potentially very harmful to viewers.

A hitman-for-hire can be bought for upwards of 250,000 dollars — that in itself speaks volumes about the content on the darknets.

“It’s crazy to think that we’re completely blinded from the other 99 percent of content floating around invisibly on the deep web. If you ever want to access it, be sure you’ve educated yourself on the risks involved,” Huang said.

Certainly the darknets garner much curiosity — in less than 10 clicks one can access the entire world of the darknets, but if you choose to use them it is imperative to tread lightly. Do not just click links without thinking about where you might end up, what you might see or who you might meet.

All in all, they are an aspect of the modernizing world that are rising in popularity quickly, and a reminder of the transition to the digital world.

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This edition featuring:

Tessa Barry with The Campanile’s own

Aiva Petriceks The Campanile: So I know you have a passion for socks, do you want to talk about that?

Tessa Barry: I love socks, oh my goodness. Whenever I have money I save up and I go to the sock shop and I buy like five pairs at a time. They have to be different from each other, but I have so many different kinds that it is hard for me to find new pairs of socks. I love animals, especially cats. I always wear cats so I have a lot of cat socks. But I love colors because it’s pretty much the only place where I have color on my body and so it has to be boom, this is a statement piece.

TC: What’s your favorite pair of socks?

TB: My favorite pair would probably be my unicorns. I have long unicorn socks that have a rainbow, and it’s going over the rainbow. I feel really flamboyant and different. I like feeling different.

TC: Do you think socks are the most underrated article of clothing?

TB: I say yes, in a sense not in Palo Alto. In Palo Alto they have kind of blown up a little bit, which is fine, so socks, go them, they deserve the spotlight a little bit. But in general, no.

People are afraid to have a cool sock.

TC: True, what are your opinions on school and coming to school as a second semester senior?

TB: I would rather not go to school and hang out with people I don’t like.

TC: On a scale of zero to ice cold, how chill are you?

TB: I’m pretty f… can I swear?

TC: Yeah we’ll bleep it out.

TB: I’m pretty f*cking chilly if you ask me. Like, ask Bryn [Carlson], she’s pretty crazy and I’m totally cool with it. You do you, if you are going to be crazy, be crazy. If you are going to be timid, that’s you. I’m going to do me, and that’s pretty chill. Keeping it cool, that’s a big thing.

TC: I’m going to need Bryn’s opinion on this, how chill is Tessa?

Bryn Carlson: So chill. I’m kind of a lunatic and she puts up with me.

TB: I love people like Bryn because I feed off of people’s energies. If you are going to be super excited, I’m going to be super pumped because you are super excited. If you are super sad, uh oh because I’m going to be sad too.

TC: What’s your spirit animal?

TB: I’m a f*cking frog okay.

TC: Why a frog out of all the animals?

TB: I meditated and a frog came to me. I read it and looked it up and was with Alex Rose and my spirit animal is a frog, it’s confirmed.

TC: If you were any kid snack, what snack would you be?

TB: What’s my favorite cereal right now? I’d be Lucky Charms.

TC: Do you feel like you are more of the marshmallow?

TB: The tastier part for sure. Screw the cereal, give me the marshmallows.

TC: Have you ever just bought the marshmallows?

TB: No, uh oh, that ruins the ratio.

You gotta have the regular cereal or it’s just going to be all good, all the time. You need some of the bad stuff, because the bad stuff makes the good.

TC: So really you get a life lesson from cereal?

TB: Definitely. I have a piece of advice: don’t be shy. If it’s a dance move, if it’s a song you really want to sing, don’t be f*cking shy, just do it, because you are going to be so much happier.

TC: Any last words for Paly?

TB: Smell ya later.

The Campanile

Friday, March 18, 2016 ATHLETE OF THE Senior lacrosse MONTH

SP RTS

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goalie Quintin Valenti uses his quick reflexes and superior judgement to save goals.

Kelsey Feeley: More than a coach Feeley stands with her high school distance medley relay team.

The boys cross country team poses after placing second in CCS.

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t age 25, Kelsey Feeley is the head coach of Palo Alto High School’s track and cross country teams, a teaching assistant at a local private school and a friend to athletes.

Her life has already been punctuated with enough tragedy and happiness to be spread out over the course of a lifetime. In her most tumultuous struggles, coaching was a lifeline for her to cling to and rely on.

Feeley grew up in Palo Alto and became interested in running at a young age. She participated in track and cross country during her time at Henry M. Gunn High School, focusing on the 400-meter and 800-meter events.

After graduating in 2008, she attended San Francisco State University with the intent of becoming a history teacher. Unfortunately, upon graduating college, her father was diagnosed with cancer.

Following the devastating news, Feeley diverged from her intended career path as a teacher to take care of her ill father. She decided to seek a job that would give her the flexibility to tend to her father as well as pursue her own passions. The idea of being a high school coach appealed to Kelsey, but there were no positions open at Gunn. Instead, she applied to be the coach of the long-distance track team at Paly in the spring of 2013.

“I heard that there was a position open for a boys distance coach from a friend and I interviewed for the position and I got it,” Feeley said. “I absolutely fell in love with coaching — it has been such a great outlet for me and a way to focus my energy.”

Feeley’s first season went smoothly — her enthusiasm and success as a coach allowed her to become the head coach of the boys cross country team in the fall of 2013. Under her leadership, the boys advanced to Central Coast Sectionals (CCS) for the first time in four years. The following season, she took the team to the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) state meet for the first time in five years.

I want kids to want to be at track practice, to want to compete at meets, to want to see improvement over the year. that doesn’t mean that you have to be the fastest one out here.

kelsey feeley track and cross country coach An influx of talented young runners that season propelled the team forward, but Feeley also believes that the connections she formed with the athletes brought them together, made them work harder and ultimately made them stronger runners.

“I am pretty empathetic and sympathetic to the kids, and I do my best to be someone that they feel comfortable with coming to with problems that don’t have anything to do with running,” Feeley said.

Feeley became the head coach of both the boys and girls track teams in the spring of 2015. Her journey to becoming head coach of the largest sports team at Paly had been an

Feeley patrols track and field practice to ensure efficiency.

Feeley hugs her late father, who passed away last fall.

almost uninterrupted progression of happiness and success. Although she was not a teacher, Feeley was able to work with students through coaching and realized with gratification that she was a talented mentor. Additionally, her father’s health was slowly improving. Inspired by his recovery, Feeley began taking classes at Foothill College to become a nurse alongside her position as head coach.

Unfortunately, her father’s health began to deteriorate unexpectedly and rapidly. After a long struggle with cancer, he passed away in the fall of 2015, leaving Feeley shocked.

During the weeks following his death, Feeley focused on coaching cross country and preparing the team for the upcoming state championship. Coaching became the primary focus of Feeley’s life, giving her a reason to continue working and interacting with concerned friends and athletes through her grief.

“If I didn’t have the cross country team, I wouldn’t have [had] much to wake up in the morning for,” Feeley said.

On Oct. 11, 2015, Feeley attended her father’s funeral. She was surrounded by the usual friends and family who comforted her, as well as many student athletes and their parents from the cross country team who attended the somber gathering to support her.

They gave her flowers, kind words and their condolences. Five months later, Feeley is still grateful to the team that gave her an excuse to get out bed and put on a brave, if delicate, smile.

Feeley poses with a drawing made for her after her father’s death.

“After [my dad] passed, I was floored by the amount of support I received from the cross country team,” Feeley said. “The kids and their families... I was so honored that they made me feel so loved and supported and that I had this whole big family to lean on during what became the hardest time of my life.”

After finishing the cross country season, Feeley reassumed her role as head track and field coach this year.

Over 250 students are currently participating in running, throwing and jumping events, putting a strain on the six coaches. Even with the increased number of athletes, Feeley attempts to form connections with the athletes and be a positive influence in athlete lives.

“This is the age [where] you become the person you are going to be and live the rest of your life as,” Feeley said. “I [have] found that coaches have a lasting impression on the athletes and I always hope that it is a positive impact.”

After my dad passed, I was so honored that the kids made me feel so loved and supported and that I had this whole big family to lean on during what became the hardest time of my life.

kelsey feeley track and cross country coach Unlike other sports, track and field intrinsically lends itself to athlete categorization — precise times and dis-

tances easily quantify who is the fastest, strongest and ultimately, the best athlete. However, Feeley focuses on athlete improvement and avoids using numbers to determine an athlete’s worth. Feeley’s job is to help athletes set goals and provide them with the workouts and motivation to achieve them. In the process, she hopes athletes will become passionate about continuously improving themselves and begin to enjoy running.

“I want [track and field] to be an outlet for kids,” Feeley said. “I want kids to want to be at practice, to want to compete at meets, to want to see improvement over the year and that doesn’t mean that you have to be the fastest one out here.”

Feeley has recently accepted a teaching job at a local private school, where she is an assistant for a fifth grade classroom. The hours of her jobs allow her to pursue her passion for education during the day and athletics After three years of uncertainty, success and loss, Feeley has finally found a life she enjoys. During the toughest portions of her life, coaching was a constant for Feeley, and what started off as a distraction became an integral part of her self-image. She intends to continue coaching and learning from athletes for as long as her other jobs allow.

“I love watching the progression of kids throughout the year and seeing the joy on their faces when they are able to break a personal record or achieve a goal,” Feeley said. “I would like to [continue coaching] for as long as I can.”

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF KELSEY FEELEY AND MALCOM SLANEY

Text and design by: Kai oda sports editor Design By: Aiva Petriceks lifestyle editor Feeley celebrates with junior Tanner Newell after his race

Feeley comforts junior Kent Slaney after a tough cross country meet

SPORTS

March Madness Predictions

March means one thing for college basketball fans all over the country: March Madness.

As fans start to fill out their brackets in preparation for the tournament, The Campanile predicts which team will walk away with the trophy.

COURTESY OF PRIMESPORT.COM

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COURTESY OF NBC SPORTS

COURTESY OF MELANIE GUAN

COURTESY OF KNOWNEWS.COM

Drae Bowles shows how athletes are in a position to spark change.

A club once known for its cultural values has lost touch with its roots.

Barcelona on the decline

Cheer and Dance beyond Paly

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NCAA Title IX Lawsuit

Paly dancers take their unique skills to the competitive stage.

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

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SPORTS

Team feels confident despite rough start

With a strong start, the team has high standards for their season

Boys tennis looks ahead High hopes carry track and field team ANNALISE WANG

STAFF WRITER

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he boys team played Saratoga on Tuesday, March 15, losing in a crushing defeat of 0-7.

The boys tennis season began on Feb. 1 and since has played seven matches, winning two and losing five. Despite dealing with numerous injuries and illnesses to start the season, the boys team has remained afloat.

“Well, we’re in a tough league you know,” varsity coach Andy Harader said. “We just have to go out there and play hard, and most importantly have fun.”

Boys tennis kicked off the competitive season on Feb. 24 with a friendly match against Aragon High School, winning 6-1. They then played Henry M. Gunn High School and Homestead High School, and in the end lost each fixture 1-6.

The team does not believe these losses are indicative of their future success, as it is still early in the season and can be accounted for by injuries.

“This season has been tough since we’ve been dealing with so many injuries and illnesses,” senior Shiv Matta said. “I was out for two weeks

with a concussion, so everyone had to move up a spot. Now our number two player, Carl Goodfriend, has hurt his back, so once again everyone had to move up a spot.”

From March 3-5, the boys played in the California Classic Tournament in Fresno, Calif.

“In Fresno we had a hard time because we played in a tough division,” junior Henry Badger said. “We lost matches to great players, and overall it was a great experience.”

The team lost the first two matches 0-6, but bounced back to win their final match 4-3.

Freshmen Antony Georgiadis and Adam Love have performed exceedingly well at the number one doubles spot. Additionally, returning players Matta, senior Drew Embersits and juniors Noah Galper and Badger have been keeping the team competitive and have shown great skill so far.

Overall, the team remains hopeful, with strong players and much more time in the season for the players to sharpen their skills.

“Our team is improving greatly as the season is progressing,” Badger said. “I am confident we can keep doing better.”

KIRAN MISNER

STAFF WRITER

P

alo Alto High School’s track team performed well in their last meet against Lynbrook High School. According to sophomore mid-distance runner Aashai Avadhani, the team performed well at the meet.

“The team competed really well in my opinion,” Avadhani said. “All the people who we wanted to place did, and overall, we ran really well as a team.”

Despite running well at the meet, long distance runner and junior Kent Slaney still sees room for improvement within the team.

“We’re just looking to get stronger as a team and we’re looking to improve within every practice,” Slaney said.

The next event the track and field team will participate in what will be the Stanford Invitational. Slaney regards the Stanford Invitational as the hardest event that the team will do all year.

“The Stanford meet invites and gets teams from all across the nation, so it’s great practice” Slaney said.

COURTESY OF MALCOLM SLANEY

Sophomore Reed Foster sprints ahead of the pack at The King’s Academy Invitational.

“However, this also means we need to run at the level of these other teams.”

To get better, Avadhani feels that training hard for the two hours of practice each day will be a major key to success.

“It’s the beginning of the season and to be the best in the league, we just have to keep on pushing ourselves and our teammates,” Avadhani said.

For head coach Kelsey Feeley, there are a few goals in mind that she wants to accomplish by the end of the year.

“The goal is that our boys team will come first at CCS and get some runners to qualify for state championships.” Feeley said. “On the girls side, we want to have a top five finish and I know the girls can do that.”

With these goals in mind, the Vikings will compete against a multitude of teams from across the nation in the Stanford Invitational.

“Our final goal is that everyone gets stronger by the end of the season,” Slaney said. “If we can do that, this year has the potential to be very successful.”

Boys lacrosse enthusiastic after dominant beginning to season Team hopes to utilize experience and talented players to lead Paly towards consecutive league championships MADS MCCLUSKEY

STAFF WRITER

T

he Palo Alto High School boys lacrosse team has started their season on a good note.

They have won six of the seven games played so far and start their league season on March 17 against Los Gatos High School.

They boys lost their last game against San Francisco University High School (SFUHS) by two goals on March 15. This was a crucial game because it ended their undefeated season; however, such a close loss against a good team like SFUHS proved their ability as an elite team.

The game remained tied 6-all through halftime, with each team pressuring the other. Paly got the first shot in after half; however, SFUHS soon came back and brought the score to 8-7 with SFUHS in the lead.

“It’s really boiled down to three main things: our shot selection on offense was pretty terrible, competing for ground balls in the middle of the field and being aggressive at the end of the game on defense and recognizing the situation,” head coach Dj Shelton said.

The team’s game against Menlo Atherton High School (MA) on March 8 was a huge win for them because they have been long-time rivals.

The team learned from their loss last

year, winning by give goals this time.

The defense was able to prepare for MA’s unique offensive style, allowing the offense to hold the ball longer and score more.

“MA has been known to have a really strong defensive court and if our attack can shut that down then that means that we’re going to have a really good season,” junior Christian Rider said.

The long-time rivalry with MA started three years ago when Paly beat them on their Senior Night. The game against MA is also very important because they tend to have one of the stronger defenses in the league.

“I think that the MA game was more of a contest for us,” senior Cole Tierney said. “Although today showing up in the rain and being able to get more of our players on the field and practice what we worked on the week prior it felt good. I think [our wins] are another step in the positive direction.”

The boys won leagues last year, so they hope to make it as back to back reigning champions.

“Winning a championship is great, but doing it twice in a row is even better because it shows it actually was an element of consistency and not just by chance,” Shelton said.

“That’s our goal this year and that’s where all our sights are aimed towards.”

MADS MCCLUSKEY/THE CAMPANILE

Midfielder Rutger Van Hulsen looks downfield to pass the ball up to Paly attackers during a game against Bella Vista High School.

There is no Central Coast Section (CCS) Championship for lacrosse yet, so winning the league is the largest title obtainable.

“Based on what I can tell from the league, we’re probably one of the more sustained teams; we have a lot of guys returning that played last year,” Shelton said. “There’s no way to predict the end of the season, but based on where we left off last year

and where we are now, there’s not any reason to think that this season will be that different, at least in leagues.”

The boys look to grow their program in order to become a more elite team. Currently, they have many individually talented players, however they are still looking for room to improve.

“Our strength, as of now, is our offense,” Shelton said. “We’re stacked

with three really good attackers.

We’ve got some speed in the midfield. Where we need to develop, I’d say, is midfield: the transition. I think we feel comfortable with the ball at either end of the field, but getting it from one side to the other we’ve been struggling with so far, at least in the last two scrimmages and practice. But it’s early on in their season and that comes with time.”

Swimming and diving optimistic after big Girls lacrosse attempts to victories against Homestead and Bella Vista rebound after a shaky start The team believes their strong work ethic will result in triumph MACKENZIE GLASSFORD

STAFF WRITER

A

fter two successful meets against Homestead High School on March 4 and Monta Vista High School on March 10, the Palo Alto High School swimming and diving team is optimistic about the rest of the season and their chances during the postseason.

Junior Andrew Josefov was able to look back on the Homestead meet with a positive attitude, noting individual improvement.

“The team did a really great job at taking care of business against Homestead,” Josefov said. “Some people had some pretty great swims, especially for this point in the season.”

Monta Vista has a long history of strong swim teams, but despite this, the Paly team was still able to pull out a win.

Junior Alex Beaudry was pleased with the way the meet turned out and how well the team performed.

“I think the meet against Monta Vista went really well,” Beaudry said.

“Monta Vista has a very good team and we were still able to beat them, so I think that really tells us some-

thing about ourselves and our skills as a team.”

Beaudry attributes the win to the team’s ability to swim efficiently and continuously improve through their work ethic.

Most of us have known each other for a long time and have swam with each other on different teams before ... so I think that definitely gives us an edge.

Andrew Josefov Junior “I think that we were really good at stepping up and swimming fast when we needed to,” Beaudry said. “We have a really strong team this year, so I’m very confident that we can make it pretty far in Central Coast Selections [CCS], and even make it all the way to states. I don’t think that there is much that we need to work on race wise, but I do think that we need to work a lot harder in practice in order to beat Gunn[High School].”

This season, the team is looking to secure first place at CCS and to take back their winning streak at the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League

(SCVAL) finals from Gunn High School.

Prior to the 2015 season, Paly has won the SCVAL title nine times in the past 10 years. They hope to do similarly this year.

“Our goals for the season are definitely to win CCS and hopefully to reclaim our SCVAL title that will restart our streak of winning leagues.”

Josefov said.

Josefov is confident that the wins against both Homestead and Monta Vista will energize the team.

He also hopes that the chemistry between the team members will help them to succeed against other teams throughout the rest of the season and going into postseason.

“We are a very close group,” Josefov said. “Most of us have known each other for a long time and have swam with each other on different teams before when we were younger, so that makes practice a lot more fun and creates some friendly competition, so we’re always getting up and racing each other in practice. We’re always pushing each other to be better, so I think that definitely gives us an edge.”

Paly’s next meet will be on March 18, against Saratoga High School.

Unexperienced underclassmen affect team TOMMY SMALE

STAFF WRITER

T

he Palo Alto High School varsity girls lacrosse team is back on the field, starting off the season 2-2. The team lost its first two games but has since been undefeated.

During the season’s first two losses to Saint Francis High School and San Ramon Valley High School, the team lacked smooth transitions. The defense was able to make stops, but clearing the ball out of the defense and to the offense was challenging.

Paly made improvements in their transitions in their two wins against Los Altos High School and Sacred Heart Preparatory. Great talent and stick skills allowed Paly to win the games.

Girls varsity lacrosse looks to have a season similar to last year’s. Last year, Paly lacrosse finished the season 18-1 and undefeated in league play.

Nonetheless, Paly alumns Allie Peery and Paige Bara were notable losses; together they were an unstoppable duo.

Last year’s success was partly due to the large number of seniors the team had.

“We had a lot of experience working together as a team with the se-

niors,” senior captain Maya Benatar said. “This year we have a lot of talent but we’re learning to work together as a group.”

This year’s team is drastically different from last year’s: underclassmen make up half of the team roster.

With so much new blood, everyone on offense and defense will need to figure out how to play with each other effectively.

“No one is very familiar playing with each other and every game we have gotten better and better,” Benatar said. “Once we have everyone’s unspoken place on the team completely set well be able to work really well together.”

Building on field teamwork will be a challenge to overcome, but if the team succeeds in this they should be a very strong team.

In order to effectively play together as a team, the girls have been making an effort to bond on and off the field.

After Saturday practices, the team gets together for a team brunch. in addition to having pasta feeds.

The girls have a promising season ahead of them this years if they are able to build team chemistry and play together.

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

SPORTS

C3

Girls basketball defeated in states Baseball suffers first loss After a strong season, girls basketball team suffers a tough loss

Boys remain optimistic about rest of the season

CLAY WATSON

JOANNA FALLA STAFF WRITER

STAFF WRITER

P

alo Alto High School girls varsity basketball has clinched the Central Coast Section (CCS) championship with a convincing 59-44 win over North Salinas High School, sending them to the official State Girls Basketball Championship tournament. Unfortunately, the Lady Vikes lost in the first round of the tournament to Dublin High School in a very close match.

Despite a first half lead, Dublin had a comeback victory ending the game 55-49. Even though the Vikings ended the season with a loss, the players and coaches are proud of the team’s success this season.

Coming into the season with aspirations of winning the CCS championship, the girls varsity team was thrilled to come away with a win.

The girls that led the team to victory in the championship game were sophomore Carly Leong with 17 points and senior Alexis Harris with 14 points, the Vikings outscored the North Salinas Vikings in three out of the four quarters.

“Winning CCS is something I will never forget,” junior Skylar Burris said. “It was amazing. Especially winning where the Santa Cruz Warriors play, honestly it was surreal.”

While the Vikings successfully beat Cupertino High School and Piedmont High School in the first two rounds of the CCS playoffs, the tournament did not come without difficulties.

“We definitely had to bring our best every game, which is hard to do,” Burris said. “We had to limit our lapses in defense and offense, and know that every mistake is more than

T

MADS MCCLUSKEY/THE CAMPANILE

Senior Coco Lovely dribbles past Dublin, ultimately losing in the first round of states.

likely two points for the other team, so limiting turnovers and gaining as many possessions as possible was key.”

With momentum from their CCS Championship victory, the Vikings got off to a fast start in the first round of the State Girls Basketball Championship.

Entering halftime with a strong lead, the Dublin Gaels answered back with a 22-4 run, ultimately beating the Paly Vikings 55-49.

“It didn’t feel good, because ending the season with a loss is never fun,” Burris said. “However, they were a good team and we played together, which is really what counts in the end.”

Ultimately, the Paly girls basketball team had a very successful season despite its culmination in a loss.

While the majority of the team will not continue to play basketball over the summer in an effort to stay in shape, a few will play in the Amateur

Golf team upholds steady winning streak early on Boys perform well against Sacred Heart

Athletic Union and be ready to play come next season. In addition, despite the loss of three talented seniors next year, who were key to this years games, Maddy Atwater who averaged 3.7 points per game, Coco Lovely who averaged 7.4 points per game, and Harris who led the team with an average of 10.6 points per game, the eight returning varsity players, combined with several aspiring new players from the freshman and junior varsity teams, will look to make an even stronger team.

“Although we are losing three great players, we will have the majority of our players returning and I wouldn’t expect any less from what happened this year, maybe even better,” Burris said.

Paly girls basketball’s success this season is definitely noteworthy, and as the team continues to develop, Paly sports fans should look forward to the coming seasons of girls varsity basketball.

he Palo Alto High School baseball team looks to bounce back after it suffered its first loss to Serra High School on March 8. A combination of poor weather conditions and an off day of team chemistry lead to a bitter loss of 6-1.

Even though there were some inevitable factors set against the team, junior Michael Champagne looks back on the loss with regret.

“We played seven innings before the game was called due to no more sunlight,” Champagne said. “We absolutely should have won that game [against Serra]; we’re better than them no question. We didn’t get the win because we failed to execute offensively when the chips were down.”

Even though this first loss was hard on the team members, they changed their mindsets to claim victory against Cupertino High School with a score of 8-0 on March 11.

Junior Ben Cleasby accredits the strong win to the team’s positive attitude to seek redemption from the previous game.

“We were pissed off, we all knew we had it in us to beat them and play at their level,” Cleasby said. “Our hitting was not doing well and we showed how bad we wanted to come back from it in the Cupertino game.”

Looking forward, the team has high hopes after assessing the raw talent on the roster. The sophomores on the team show great potential and bring a fresh attitude to the team.

“We are looking real good, we have a solid lineup 1-9 and our pitching staff is incredible,” Champagne said. “[Sophomores] Jake Varner, Niko Lillios, Jeremy Akioka and Max

Jung-Goldberg are either pitching frequently and successfully or hitting and playing great defense.”

Most of the baseball team is made up of sophomores and juniors who will continue to play next year, but the seniors are just as important. Senior captain Riley Schoeben values not only the sophomores, but the experienced upperclassmen as well.

“We’re off to a great start,” Schoeben said. “We have lots of experienced seniors and a young, talented pitching staff. We won league last year so we have similar expectations for this year but we also want to make a run at a [Central Coast Section] championship and we feel we have the team to do so.”

As the team continues to maintain a successful record (which includes winning first in the League), Schoeben plans on keeping the same successful mentality. While the team may have a larger amount of underclassmen than other sports in the spring season, the team chemistry is just as strong.

Through playing in club baseball to being friends off the field, the team creates a strong bond that leads to fewer mistakes.

“Our team chemistry is amazing, there’s really no weak links and we have known and played with each other for a long time,” Cleasby said.

The team has made few errors in the past games even after dealing with the unfortunate weather, and Schoeben hopes to exemplify a victorious mindset through the remainder of the season.

“We have to consistently execute in all areas of the game, and make sure that when crunch time comes we don’t flinch at the opportunity to win the game,” Schoeben said.

Softball starts off season last in league Team looks to redeem themselves after multiple recent defeats SAMUEL YUN

STAFF WRITER

P

alo Alto High School’s softball team is noticing early season struggles after suffering a crushing 12-0 defeat against Pioneer High School, placing them last in the league and tallying their sixth straight loss of the season. However, they are only one game behind Lynbrook, who have a record of 0-3.

Although Pioneer is one of the toughest opponents for Paly, the Vikings were still not performing at their greatest potential. Paly struggled throughout the course of the difficult game and was unable to gain

back the momentum they needed in order to bounce back from a relatively slow start.

“We were playing against one of the best pitchers we’ll face this season so hopefully it’ll help us prepare for league,” senior Jesse Kim said.

This disappointing start has helped the girls realize that the team’s gameplan and preparation need to be modified if they want to succeed in future games.

“We could definitely work on hitting more with pitchers of different speeds, but more importantly adjusting to each pitch and not using different pitch speeds as an excuse for our subpar hitting,” Kim said. “Also,

one of our major infielders, [sophomore] Sophie Frick, just came back from basketball, which was a good boost for our morale.”

Their game against San Mateo on March 9 was a closer match than the one against Pioneer, but the Vikings still ultimately lost with a score of 4-2.

The team was looking to bounce back as they played Santa Clara yesterday, March 17. They hoped that their improved preparations and boosted morale would give them a better chance at success.

The girls still have several games awaiting them to turn their season around.

Basketball team defeated in CCS final

Boys end a very strong season in a close game against Cupertino COURTESY OF MATHEW LEWIS

Junior Eric Maser focuses in on the ball as he prepares to drive it down the green.

PETER MAROULIS

NEWS AND OPINION EDITOR

H

istory will remember Feb. 29, 2016 as no more than a leap day, but this date also marks the immense foundation of a new era in pre-collegiate golf, laid down by the deft hands of Palo Alto High School’s boys golf team. The boys, who showed their substance that crisp winter day will live on in the archives of historians as some the finest young athletes to ever have graced the links at Sharon Heights Golf and Country Club in Menlo Park.

In its inaugural match of the 2016 season, the team put forth a half dozen of its strapping lads to take on the cunning Gators of Menlo Park’s Sacred Heart Preparatory School.

Though the territory was more familiar to the latter than the former, a ferocious display of prowess by the Vikings propelled them to a final victory of 192-211 — a respectable margin by all accounts.

The winning effort was led by the blistering clubs of Paly sophomores Sergi Mata, Joonsung Ha and Ahmed Ali, all of whom are being scouted by college programs. Ha and Ali each shot 38 strokes while Mata shot 33 strokes.

Junior Timothy Liu, a seasoned veteran in his third year on the golf team, was impressed with the performances thus far.

“We’ve been doing pretty well, but as always, there’s room for improvement,” Liu said.

“Pretty well” is an understatement.

In the second match of the season on Mar. 3, fresh off their pounding of Sacred Heart, the boys squared up against Mountain View: a subsequent Viking onslaught ensued.

At their home course, Paly smote the rival Spartans with two 1-over 37s by Ali and Mata and a 2-under 35 (including three birdies) from senior Matthew Lewis. Senior Henry Gordon pitched in with a 38 and Ha sealed the deal with a 40.

Aside from a star-studded starting six, the team’s 12-man roster is deep with talent, and there is still vigorous competition for the top-6 positions.

“The guys that aren’t quite at the top 6 yet aren’t too far away, so they’re battling it out in efforts to get there and start in matches,” Liu said.

However, jostling for top spots does not seem to be having a negative impact when it comes time to suit up and hit the links.

“Overall, I’d say we’re looking really good this year and I’m looking forward to the rest of the season,” Liu said. “We’re going to be facing some good competition but I feel confident about the team.”

The boys also played a tourney against LaSalle on March 14, and are ready to tee off again against hapless Mountain View on March 24.

GILLIAN ROBINS

STAFF WRITER

T

he boys basketball team’s journey to a Central Coast Section (CCS) victory was tragically cut short when they lost with a score of 54-50 in an upset against Cupertino High School in the first round of the tournament on Feb. 27.

Though they battled ferociously, the Vikings could not secure the win against Cupertino. Up until the fourth quarter, the two teams fought evenly. Cupertino managed to pull through with the win that pushed them to the next round of CCS playoffs.

The team started out strong, ending the first quarter with a lead of 1713. During the second quarter, the boys fell behind by a sizable margin that proved detrimental. The team scored six points, to Cupertino’s 17.

The boys scored more points in the third and fourth quarter than Cupertino, but it was not enough for them to recover from the second quarter slump.

The Vikings scored two more points in the third quarter than Cupertino.

In the fourth quarter, Paly scored one more point than Cupertino and fought hard to keep up, but they were not able to increase their lead by enough.

According to sophomore Max Dorward, the Vikings lost because

they suffered from subpar defense that Cupertino took advantage of and found many open outside shots to win the game.

“We didn’t do as well as we’d have liked on the defensive side, especially guarding their shooter,” Dorward said. “We lost him too many times and left him open with good looks.”

The team did quite well in the regular season, many games were played everyday by both teams.

We have a young team, and we are all excited for next season because we have a lot of talent.

Spencer Rojahn Sophomore “We played pretty well throughout the season,” sophomore Spencer Rojahn said. “But we had many tough games that could have gone either way. In the close games, we missed shots and the other team made shots.”

The team is stacked with underclassmen that carry impressive ability, which should sustain and hopefully heighten the team’s future success.

“We have a young team, and we are all excited for next season because we have a lot of talent,” Rojahn said.

As the first season Diepenbrock has coached in years, he now knows where there is room for improvement for the boys in order to secure a better record next season.

“Overall I think the season was up and down,” Diepenbrock said.”We

had some good wins and some very tough losses. But we got lots of young underclassmen and some really good game experience.”

The boys finished their regular season with a 16-8 record similar to that of their previous season (17-7).

This was a season to figure out how the team functioned with a new coach.

One of the flaws in the team’s play that was evident this season was the lack of defense, which led to an excessive amount of outside shots by opposing teams. This made the difference between a loss and a win in many games this season for the Vikings.

“Overall, teams shot very well against us and we couldn’t defend the 3-point shooting,” Rojahn said.

Members of the team enjoy spending time with each other, which reflects in the fluidity of play on the court.

“Our team has very good chemistry,” Rojahn said. “So we get along super well and have a lot of fun.

Justin Hull is the only player on the team graduating this year. Hull wishes the team well for next year.

“I would just tell them to stay together and enjoy everything as much as [they] can,” Hull said.

The team will need to find a replacement for Hull in the upcoming season. Paly hopes to see the team improve next season under the meticulous and passionate coaching of Peter Diepenbrock.

Friday, March 18, 2016

C4

1. KANSAS (30-4)

The Campanile

MARCH MADNESS

16. AUSTIN PEAY (18-17) 8. COLORADO (22-11) 9. CONNECTICUT (24-10) 5. MARYLAND (25-8) 12. S. DAKOTA ST (26-7) 4. CALIFORNIA (23-10)

SOUTH

13. HAWAII (27-5) With a 30-4 record, 14-game win streak and their 10th Big 12 win, Kansas is poised to dominate the South Region. Senior Perry Ellis, the starting power forward, is one of the team’s strongest players: Ellis leads his team in points per game at 16.5.

His skill combined with junior guard Frank Mason III’s superb shooting and lockdown defense has bolstered the Jayhawk’s game since November.

Kansas is the number one team in the nation for a reason – expect them to play in the Final Four at the very least.

The Jayhawks’ biggest competition in their region is two seed Villanova.

The Wildcats are a solid team both offensively and defensively, so it will take an exceptional team to beat them. Dissimilar to Kansas, Villanova does not rely on a couple of exceptional athletes to put points on the board. Its top five players, Josh Hart, Kris Jenkins, Ryan Arcidiacono, Jalen Brunson and Daniel Ochefu, each average roughly 12 points per game. Additionally, unlike many of the other top seeded teams in the

tourney, Villanova does not bank on threes to win games; most of their points come from inside shots. A potential challenger to Villanova is California. The Golden Bears have had a decent season, winning 23 out of their 33 games. They play a physical game and are led by freshman forwards Ivan Rabb and Jalen Brown. At 6’11”, Rabb averages 8.5 rebounds per game and hits over 60% of his field goals. Brown is the second highest scorer for the Bears, sinking an average of 15 points per game.

COMP YO BRAC

[

Starting on March 17, 68 college ba compete in the 2016 National Colle March Madness tournament. While the favored teams winning, watch ou Dreams will be made, hopes will be s one team will take home the title of na Madness predictions on this page.

6. ARIZONA (25-8) 11. VANDERBILT/WICHITA ST 3. MIAMI, FL (25-7) 14. BUFFALO (20-14) 7. IOWA (21-10) 10. TEMPLE (21-11) 2. VILLANOVA (29-5) 15. UNC ASHEVILLE (25-7) 1. OREGON (28-6) 16. HOLY CROSS/ SOUTHERN 8. SAINT JOSEPH'S (27-7) 9. CINCINNATI (22-10) 5. BAYLOR (22-11) 12. YALE (22-6) 4. DUKE (23-10)

wEST

13. UNC WILMINGTON (25-7) Arguably the best college basketball player of the 2015-16 season, senior guard Buddy Hield is more than capable of leading the Sooners past the teams in the West Region.

Hield is the second-highest scorer out of all eligible players in the NCAA, averaging 25 points per game, and shoots 46.4% from behind the three point line. Similarly, the Sooners are a jump-shooting team, generally scoring around 10 treys per game at 42.6%. While their reliance on their NBA-level guard is risky, it should

pay off: few players can guard against Hield’s fine-tuned ability to shoot accurately and drive aggressively.

Despite its lack of any outstanding players, Oregon tops the West Region over Oklahoma. That’s not to say the Ducks don’t deserve the one seed; the team has talent, but it’s more or less evenly spread between its starting five. Forwards Dillon Brooks and Elgin Cook average 16.8 and 14.5 points per game, respectively, and guard Tyler Dorsey hits 43.1% of his threes. Favored behind

Oklahoma is Duke, the defending national champion. The Blue Devils are ranked fourth in the West Region, a far cry from their one seed in the South bracket during the 2014-15 season. With their 23-10 record, this year’s team has proven to be weaker than last year’s, which lost only four games. Despite its 11 seeding, Northern Iowa could pose a threat to the top seeded West teams.

In November, the Panthers beat overall two seed UNC, meaning they have the skill to pull off a Cinderella run.

6. TEXAS (20-12) 11. NORTHERN IOWA (22-12) 3. TEXAS A&M (26-8) 14. GREEN BAY (23-12) 7. OREGON ST (19-12) 10. VCU (24-10) 2. OKLAHOMA (25-7) 15. CSU BAKERSFIELD (24-8)

Text and Design by: Jacky Moore

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

PLETE OUR CKET

C5

1. NORTH CAROLINA (28-6) 16. FGCU/FAIR. DICKINSON 8. USC (21-12) 9. PROVIDENCE (23-10) 5. INDIANA (25-7) 12. CHATTANOOGA (29-5) 4. KENTUCKY (26-8) 13. STONY BROOK (26-6)

Seeded second overall behind Kansas, North Carolina should at least make it to the Final Four. The Tar Heels are a well-rounded, extremely talented team with a deep bench should their starters falter. They average 82.4 points per game, meaning it will take a strong defensive team to counter Carolina’s offense. Senior forward Brice Johnson leads the team in scoring, making 16.6 points per game and shooting 61.4% from inside the arc.

The team’s biggest weakness is their poor three-point shooting, as they make only 31.4% of their attempted treys. Despite Indiana’s fifth seeding in the East Region, (which looks to be the most difficult region in this year’s tournament,) the Hoosiers are expected to advance far in the 201516 bracket and pose a legitimate threat to North Carolina. Averaging 17 points and 5.5 assists per game, senior Hoosier guard Yogi Ferrell

could very plausibly lead his team to the Sweet Sixteen at the very least.

Indiana is a high-scoring team, as they average 82.3 points per game, which makes them a threat to any team in the East. Another team with the potential to make a run through the East is Stony Brook. Lead by senior forward Jameel Warney’s 19.8 points per game and 10.7 rebounds, the Seawolves have a plausible chance of upsetting their region.

EAST

]

asketball teams across the nation will egiate Athletic Association (NCAA) most of the games will play out with ut for sleepers to pull of a few upsets. shattered, brackets will be busted and ational champion. Fill out your March

MARCH MADNESS

6. NORTE DAME (21-11) 11. MICHIGAN/TULSA 3. WEST VIRGINIA (26-8) 14. S.F. AUSTIN (27-5) 7. WISCONSIN (20-12) 10. PITTSBURGH (21-11) 2. XAVIER (27-5) 15. WEBSTER ST. (26-8) 1. VIRGINIA (26-7) 16. Hampton (21-10) 8. Texas tech (19-12) 9. butler (21-10) 5. purdue (26-8) 12. little rock (29-4) 4. iowa st. (21-11) 13. iona (22-10) rebounds and 12 assists in Michigan State’s narrow win against Kansas in December. However, Michigan State’s heavy reliance on Valentine is risky; should he be injured during the tournament or have an off game, the Spartans’ chances at the title will be severely crippled. Similarly, the odds of Midwest one seed Virginia not making it to at least the elite eight are slim. While known for their defense, the Cavaliers’ offense is steeply on the rise. Virginia makes 40.5% of their threes and 51.9% of their

field goals. Senior guard Malcolm Brogdon scores 18.7 points per game, the most of his teammates by a wide margin. While not ranked as high as Michigan State and Virginia, sleeper team Gonzaga has the potential to pull off a run. The Bulldogs’ strategy is to rely heavily on their forwards to win games. This tactic could very plausibly pay off: 6’10” senior forward Kyle Wiltjer averages 20.7 points per game. Wiltjer is helped by sophomore forward Domantas Sabonis, who snags 11.6 rebounds per game.

MIDWEST

One of the strongest contenders for the national title is Michigan State, the Midwest Region two seed.

Michigan State is strong shooting from the outside – the Spartans have the highest three point percentage (43.1%) out of all of the NCAA Division I teams. Michigan State’s top scorer, senior guard Denzel Valentine, averages 19.6 points per game and shoots 45.4% from behind the arc. Valentine performs well under pressure, as demonstrated by the fact that he scored 29 points, 12

6. seton hall (25-8) 11. gonzaga (26-7) 3. utah (26-8)

14. S.F. AUSTIN (27-5) 7. fresno st. (25-9) 10. syracuse (19-13) 2. Michigan st. (29-5)

Design by: Alice zhao

15. middle tenn. (24-9)

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

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SPORTS

Football player speaks out FIFA appoints a new president against college rape case Paly hopes to expand athletes’ positive change in the community Soccer governing body looking to start Palo Alto High School Athletic over after devastating corruption scandal highly touted high school players.

ETHAN TEO

SPORTS EDITOR

I

n the midst of a chaotic imbroglio of legal troubles and rape allegations, many consider former University of Tennessee (UT) wide receiver Drae Bowles a hero for helping a woman who claims to have been raped by two of Bowles’ teammates, A.J. Johnson and Michael Williams in November 2014. On the night of the alleged rape, Bowles took the woman to the hospital and later strongly encouraged her to report the incident to the police.

Eight unnamed female students from UT, seven of whom claim to be victims of sexual assault, filed a lawsuit against the university on Feb. 9 for violating Title IX laws by acting “deliberately indifferent” in regards to several alleged rapes over the past three years on the school’s campus grounds. Former UT athletes Yemi Makanjuola, Riyahd Jones, Johnson and Williams, alongside current football player identified as a “John Doe,” have been the main targets of this lawsuit.

UT’s incident is just one of many examples proving that athletes are in a unique position to cause change and ignite social movements against injustices.

In light of Bowles’ courageous actions to sacrifice his loyalty to his teammates in order to help the alleged rape victim, UT Football Head Coach Butch Jones has been under fire for telling Bowles that he “betrayed the team.” Furthermore, Jones excused the severity of the issue and complained that the commotion has hindered the team’s ability to recruit

Bowles transferred to Chattanooga University soon after several football players physically and verbally assaulted him for defending the alleged victim.

Although the lawsuit has not been resolved, it caught national attention and ultimately promoted the cause against sexual harassment. UT has since received thousands of letters and angry messages from various individuals. Under such pressure, universities across the nation will be forced to pay closer attention to cases of sexual assault.

As a collective group, [Paly athletes] have the responsibility to project our school in a way that we want to be represented out in the greater community.

Kathi Bowers Paly Athletic Director UT’s incident is just one of many examples proving that athletes are in a unique position, capable of causing change and igniting social movements against injustices. With the amount of media attention that athletes attract, they often are held more accountable to their actions than the average individual.

Not long ago, the University of Missouri’s football team boycotted all football-related activities in a movement to increase awareness of the racial tensions on campus that the administration had failed to address previously, particularly against black Americans on campus. These protests sparked a national uproar against racial discrimination across many colleges, including but not limited to Yale University, Lewis and Clark College, Amherst College and Vanderbilt University.

Director Kathi Bowers recognizes that this phenomenon of societal influence is not unique to collegiate athletes — she hopes to hold Paly athletes to the same standard.

“When our athletes are wearing a Paly jersey, they are representing our Paly community,” Bowers said. “As a collective group, they have the responsibility to project our school in a way that we want to be represented out in the greater community.”

While athletes certainly hold a lot of responsibility, the part that coaches and athletic instructors play in molding role models deserves to be recognized. Bowers believes that Paly already holds strong emphasis in ensuring that its coaching staff is not only qualified, but also able to consistently instill positive messages into their players.

“Building leaders in athletes starts with the coaches and them leading by example,” Bowers said. “It’s important to pick coaches who are also good role models so that there is a trickle-down effect. I think all of our coaches definitely hold our athletes to a high standard. I don’t think they tolerate any misbehavior.”

Paly has had success in helping athletes blossom into leaders in the community, but Bowers seeks to take a step further in the next school year.

“I would like to see every sports team participate in some sort of a group community service project and event — whether coaches take the kids and go to a soup kitchen or do ‘Read Across America Day’ with them,” Bowers said. “I’m hoping teams will be out there wearing Paly athletic gear representing our school by being out in the community doing something good and beneficial for everyone.”

ADRIAN SMITH

STAFF WRITER

O

n Feb. 26, Gianni Infantino was elected president of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) after the second round of voting, defeating his competitor, Luis Figo, by 92 votes. After previous president Sepp Blatter’s suspension for money laundering and bribery, Infantino will be the first replacement since the unscrupulous term of his predecessor.

Infantino’s campaign started with the suspension of his boss at Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), Michel Platini, from the FIFA presidential election. According to Swiss prosecutors, Platini was involved in a “disloyal payment” of $2 million from the previous FIFA president, suspending him for six years.

I want to work with all of you to restore and rebuild a new era where we can put football in the center of the stage.

Gianni Infantino FIFA President Hoping to bring the administration out of its lowest financial decline, Infantino strives for the continuity of FIFA, leaving his office at UEFA to stop the fall of the global football association and global football itself.

Infantino promises to fulfill the role of an active president in contrast to his predecessor, Blatter, by implementing reform and by restructuring the organization.

“It’s your money, not the money of the FIFA president,” Infantino said to The Telegraph. “The money of

FIFA has to be used to develop football and make the game fair.”

Mentioning money issues and prosecutions within executives of FIFA, Infantino realizes the struggle of the organization and hopes to end corruption within the sport.

“FIFA has gone through sad times, moments of crisis,” Infantino said to ABC News. “But those times are over.”

Infantino built his campaign on the premise of reform, aiming to restart FIFA by pulling the association away from its corrupt past. He used $555,000 of UEFA funds to travel the world and gain support before the final election. Infantino showed determination throughout the election, promising to double development money dispensed to FIFA’s federations; this levels out to $5 million in four years.

“I want to be the president of all of you,” Infantino said after his election in an interview. “I want to work with all of you to restore and rebuild a new era where we can put football in the center of the stage.”

His enthusiastic campaign continued to impress delegates after mentioning his successful work at UEFA and highlighting his primary goal with the debt that he faces. The campaign was greatly focused on the image of FIFA itself, attempting change the reputation of the organization and move it past the corruption scandal.

“We will restore the image and respect of FIFA, and everyone in the world will applaud us and everyone will applaud all of you for everything that we will do in the future,” Infantino said in an interview with ABC News.

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

SPORTS OPINION

C7

Need for reforms in NCAA punitive system has become more evident

Misconduct of student athletes, coaches and universities calls attention to a very ineffective and flawed system DAVID TAYERI STAFF WRITER

A

s each year brings a new round of horrendous blunders by the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) indefensibly bad punitive system, the need for drastic changes becomes more and more apparent.

From pay-to-play and sexual assault to grand theft crab legs, it seems that nearly every major case of misconduct is followed by a horribly botched investigation by the NCAA and a hypocritical ruling.

It has become increasingly clear that something must be done to address not only the crimes committed by student athletes, but also the corruption and malpractice conducted by universities on a larger scale.

If the NCAA continues making claims that it is fighting to protect the amateurity of college athletics, it must put an end to the illegal and immoral recruiting practices currently employed by the vast majority of Division I schools.

The answer is certainly not bigger fines. Most athletic directors consider the $2 million fine issued by the NCAA for “persuading” a 5-star

quarterback to come to their school a small price for top talent.

Instead, the NCAA must make more liberal use of the so-called “death penalty,” its ability to ban a school from competing in a sport for an entire year, and other heavy hitting penalties such as post-season bans and recruiting restrictions.

The NCAA has to show that it will not stand for such brazen violations of recruiting rules and gross misuse of booster money. They need to expand investigations and crack down on violators. It is not only the NCAA’s public image at stake, but the careers of thousands of student athletes as well as the integrity of collegiate sports as a whole. The way that the NCAA exists now, in moral limbo, makes it appear as if the NCAA condones such deplorable behavior.

The current practice of punishing a school to send a message has failed miserably, with the University of Miami’s football program as a prime example. It was banned from post-season play for one year, given a reduction of 13 scholarships and put on 3-year probation. However, despite these seemingly crippling sanctions, Miami came back after just a few years to be perhaps one of

COURTESY OF THE SUN SENTINEL

The Miami Hurricanes, pictured above, were penalized heavily by the NCAA, only to become an elite team again a few years later.

the greatest teams of all time in the 2001-2002 season. And less than a decade later in 2011, the program was again found guilty of NCAA rules violations, including improper use of booster funds.

Another facet that has to change quickly is the way that the NCAA deals with student athletes who are accused of or convicted of a crime.

Currently, public opinion and NCAA investigations seem to dictate how a player is punished for off the field behavior. Inconsistency from case to case has all but rendered this system useless. To remedy this, the NCAA should leave student athlete suspension and punishment up to law enforcement and each student athlete’s respective school.

The road to true justice in college sports will almost certainly be long and difficult, and may well result in a near purge of current NCAA leadership.

However, that is a small price to pay for an arrangement that is uniform and unbiased. The NCAA’s first priority should be to create a fair and consistent punitive system.

Barcelona Futbol Club headed for decline under new president, Rosell Number one soccer club in the Spanish League loses sight of cultural identity in favor of commercialization ANTONIO KIESCHNICK clearly defined as a Catalan club; in

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

T

he Barcelona Futbol (or soccer) Club is currently at the top of the Spanish league.

They are eight points ahead of Atletico Madrid, in second place, and 15 points ahead of their traditional rivals, Real Madrid, who is in third.

This season, Barcelona has conceded less than one goal per game (0.8) and has scored the most goals of any team in the league (84). In the Champions League, they won their away game against Arsenal 2-0 and are expected to win the return leg as well. Of the top five goalscorers in the Spanish League, three of those play for Barcelona, where Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar have combined to score 68 goals in just 29 games. The statistics for that trident verge on the absurd. On The Guardian newspaper’s perennial list of the 100 best players in the world, 11 are from Barcelona.

Last year, Barcelona won the treble, a Herculean feat that only a handful of clubs have accomplished. In the last six years, Barcelona has won it twice. The discussion surrounding Barcelona no longer concerns their status as one of the best clubs in the past decade, but rather their status as one of the best club teams in the history of the game. And yet, Barcelona is a club on the decline.

To understand what Barcelona’s decline means, one must look at the history of the club: Barcelona Futbol Club was founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss and Catalan businessmen led by a Swiss-German businessman, Hans Gamper. Despite their Swiss beginnings, Barcelona was very

fact, Gamper later even changed his first name to Joan, a Catalan-ization of his Swiss-German name.

The discussion surrounding Barcelona no longer concerns their status as one of the best clubs in the past decade, but rather their status as one of the best club teams in the history of the game. And yet, Barcelona is a club on the decline.

To begin with, Barcelona was the club of the Catalan working class (their fans are known as “cules,” the Spanish word for behind, because during its early years, fans would climb up to sit on the walls to watch, where they would sit on their behinds) as opposed to the more affluent crosstown rivals RCD Espanyol.

A few years later, the club changed its official language from Castilian Spanish to Catalan, and so began Barcelona’s history as a symbol of Catalan nationalism.

The first instance of Barcelona embracing its political heritage came during a game in 1925: in an uncoordinated reaction to the ineptitude of dictator Primo de Rivera’s rule over Spain, the crowd jeered the Spanish national anthem. The crackdown from the regime, relative to what Barcelona would have to endure under Francisco Franco, was mild; the club’s ground was shut down for six months and Gamper forced to resign as president. This was perhaps the first time Barcelona truly reflected its Catalan heritage, and the trend continued throughout the Spanish Civil War, as many of Barcelona’s players enlisted

to fight against Franco’s military uprising.

It was following Franco’s victory in the Civil War that the true persecution of Barcelona began. Franco wanted a more unified Spain reflected in every strata of society, and so he banned the Catalan flag from Barcelona’s club crest as he saw it as a symbol of sectarianism. Over the next 35 years, Barcelona would be a symbol of left-wing Catalan resistance to the fascist powers that were in Madrid.

Their rivalry with the Francosupported Real Madrid came to mean much more than just a sporting one; it was a political one too. Franco would sometimes pass legislation in order to impede Barcelona’s signings and their success. The most famous instance of this was with the signing of the Argentinian striker Alfredo Di Stefano. Participating in a tournament in Madrid with his then club Millonarios, Di Stefano produced an absolutely breathtaking display that had both Barcelona and Real Madrid chasing after him. However, with an excellent Catalan nationalist lawyer, Barcelona managed to secure Di Stefano’s signature, he looked poised to come play for the Catalan outfit.

Despite an incredibly convoluted contract that included three different parties — Di Stefano, his current club Millionarios and his previous club Boca Juniors, to which Di Stefano was still technically signed to — Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), soccer’s global governing body, waved the deal on through. However, Spain’s local federation, over which Franco exerted a significant degree of control, did not.

The Spanish federation claimed the papers were not actually correct, and

so Di Stefano went to Real Madrid.

It has nonetheless perplexed Barcelona fans to this day, why the smaller Spanish federation would contradict its superiors, with the obvious answer being that Franco intervened in favor of his club. Di Stefano would go on to be Real Madrid’s defining player and would lead them to winning five Champions League trophies in a row.

Barcelona would continue to play second fiddle to Real Madrid throughout the rest of Franco’s regime. It was after his death and the democratization of Spain that the club truly began to come into its own.

They began by holding a democratic election for president of the club.

Under the new president, Sandro Rosell, Barcelona has since lost sight of its cultural identity in favor of blunt-force commercialization.

Imagine if, say, fans of the Dallas Cowboys were to elect the president instead of having Jerry Jones buy the team and become de facto president.

Barcelona began by electing Josep Lluís Núñez as president, and the move paid off immediately, as Núñez reinforced the club’s focus on the local Catalan community by building what was soon to be one of the best youth academies in the world: La Masia. Under Núñez, Barcelona grew rapidly and soon had a solid economic foundation with which it could forge ahead as one of the most important soccer clubs in the world.

However, it was with the election of one of Núñez’s successors, Joan Laporta, and the unprecedented success he brought to the club, that Barce-

lona came to completely define itself as a bastion of Catalan pride. Laporta brought with him a focus on bringing up the players developed in La Masia.

Laporta bought into the ideology surrounding Barcelona; he believed in Catalan independence, and he believed Barcelona should wear that, quite literally, on their sleeve, in Catalan colors.

Not only that, but Laporta refused sponsorships. While the rest of the sporting world was scrabbling for every bit of commercial money they could find, Laporta was only willing to put one name on his club’s shirts: Barcelona FC. However, it is true that Laporta then added UNICEF to the Barcelona shirts in 2006, but even then, that was for free.

Why, then, is Barcelona a club in moral decline? This can be attributed to what happened after Laporta left.

Under the new president, Sandro Rosell, Barcelona has since lost sight of its cultural identity in favor of blunt-force commercialization.

They are now sponsored by Qatar Airways, which is by no means a symbol of Catalan independence. The club has ceased its reliance and devotion to homegrown players. Instead, it buys players like Suarez and Neymar for millions of dollars. Currently, the club only has four consistently starting players who came up from La Masia, of which three are Catalan.

A few years ago, all 11 players were homegrown and 10 were Catalan.

The club slogan is “Mes que un club,” which means “more than a club” — and Barcelona used to represent their slogan. They used to be a club with character and stand for something.

Now, Barcelona is just another investment opportunity.

Friday, March 18, 2016

The Campanile

SPORTS

C8

ATHLETE OF THE

MONTH

Quintin Valenti with The Campanile’s own

Owen Dulik

CHEER AND DANCE OUTSIDE OF PALY

“P

-A, P-A-L-O, A-L, A-L-T-O, P-A-L-OA-L-T-O Palo Alto

Vikes!”

The crowd jumps and chants along as students in green and white uniforms toss around pom poms and perform stunts. Everything falls silent and loud music blasts as another group of students dressed in black get down on the football field.

Though this is where Palo Alto High School’s cheer and dance team members are usually seen cheerleading and dancing, a number of them can be seen in a different setting; many members are also involved in competitive teams outside of school.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Senior Leila Benest began her career on Paly cheer her freshman year, when a Paly student encouraged her to try out for cheer with her. Once she made it onto the team, Benest found joy in stunting, competing and performing.

After a few years, she felt her experience with Paly cheer was not enough, and she hoped to explore more of the competitive side of cheer.

“I was trying to find [an All Star team] because I felt that [Paly cheer] wasn’t pushing me enough,” Benest said. “I wanted to do more — I love competing and [Paly cheer] only competes once or twice a year.”

During Benest’s junior year, a fellow Paly cheerleader joined the Cheer Dynasty Elite (CDE) All Stars team and invited her to join as well.

Conversely, Paly co-captain and senior Melanie Guan started dancing on an outside team first.

Guan attended Dance Connection, a local dance studio, starting

at age four and later joined their competition team after being encouraged to do so by the team director. Guan’s love for performing then developed.

“I enjoy being on stage because it gives me this sort of excitement that I can’t experience elsewhere,” Guan said.

During her freshman year, Guan was at a different outside studio and due to conflicts, was unable to try out for Paly’s team. During her sophomore year, she rejoined Dance Connection and also decided to get involved with Paly’s team.

“I knew that [Paly dance] would be a different experience from Dance Connection,” Guan said. “I would have a bigger role in [Paly dance’s] leadership and choreographing.”

As co-captain, she has grown her alternate joy for choreography and her bonds with other dancers.

“Having this role allows me to choreograph a lot,” Guan said. “I [also] love my teammates and I want to spend quality time with them while improving our dancing.”

[] We push each other, and everyone just loves the sport and doesn’t care if they’re gonna puke on the mat Leila Benest Senior

SCHOOL TEAM VS. OUTSIDE TEAM

Upon joining CDE, Benest has noted key differences in motivation and drive between her peers in CDE and those in Paly cheer.

“Everyone [on CDE] is there because they want to compete and they want to do well,” Benest said.

Besides differences in determination, she also felt a difference in difficulty. To her, Paly cheer is more relaxed, but CDE, on the other hand, is more competitive and intense. “[Paly cheer] is not as hardcore — there are a large amount of practices where we just do a couple things and we hang out,” Benest said. “[At CDE] we push each other, and everyone just loves the sport and doesn’t care if they’re gonna puke on the mat [during practice].”

For Guan, the main differences between Paly dance and Dance Connection’s competition team are styles of dance and her roles on each team.

In Paly dance, Guan tends to perform more jazz and hip hop, while Dance Connection focuses more on contemporary and lyrical styles as well as dance artistry.

As a school team, Paly dance is geared more towards cheering during football and basketball games, aiming to show school spirit. At Dance Connection, however, Guan mainly trains for competitions and performances.

In Paly dance, Guan’s focus is more toward the team as a whole but at Dance connection, she focuses more on herself.

“In Paly, I have a role of the leader which means that I focus more on the team members than myself,” Guan said. “At Dance Connection, I am able to work on myself and better my dancing skills.”

JUGGLING TWO TEAMS

One of the main difficulties of being a part of two teams is the large time commitment. Not only do the teams take up time, but they also take up money.

Benest also discussed conflicts between each team’s coach; they often have problems with competition and rehearsal schedules. In addition to competing, her coaches worry about potential injuries.

“My All Star coach didn’t want us to get hurt, and [both coaches] are scared that we’re gonna get hurt on the other team,” Benest said.

[] In Paly, I have a role of the leader which means that I focus more on the team members than myself.

Melanie Guan Paly dance co-captain

Guan deals with similar problems of time commitment, high costs and coach conflicts while being a part of two teams, but she noted that many Paly dancers also attend Dance Connection, so the Paly dance team tends to work around their outside team schedule.

In addition, Guan finds it difficult to memorize all her choreography. She has a number of competition pieces for Dance Connection as well as for spirit squad and Paly dance team’s competitions.

“We are currently working on about six pieces and I have to memorize four more pieces along with that,” Guan said. “My mind sometimes gets jumbled between [Paly and Dance Connection].”

Benest’s and Guan’s experiences being involved in two teams vary greatly. Nonetheless, as they discuss their introduction to the activity, compare the two teams and talk about team conflicts, one thing is clear — both Benest and Guan have a deep appreciation and passion for their teams.

TEXT AND DESIGN BY RACHEL FARN

DESIGN BY KATE DEANDRE AND GRACE KITAYAMA

Senior Quintin Valenti starts in goal for the varsity boys lacrosse team. He has been on the team since his freshman year, and now leads as a senior captain.

Valenti’s stellar performance has led the Vikings to a strong start this season.

The Campanile: You have been on varsity, now, since your freshman year. What do you think makes this team different from the rest of them?

Quintin Valenti: Like the rest of the teams in our league?

TC: The rest of the teams that you’ve been on over the years at Paly.

QV: This team really creates a true brotherhood between all the players, from the seniors to the freshmen.

And I think that started my freshman year. The seniors kind of took me and Matt [Seligson] and Cole [Tierney] and the other freshmen on the team at the time really kindly and brought us up and taught us well, helped us out whenever they could, and I think that’s kind of carried on through the years.

TC: So, this has been a special team because this is very similar to the team that won the SCVAL Championship last year. Do you think that you’ll be repeating this year?

QV: 100 percent. I mean, the skill level’s only gone up. We did lose a few key players from last year, but some juniors have really stepped up and taken their spot and filled the gaps that we needed to.

TC: You mentioned that there’s a lot of great relationships between team players, but would you say that the team has a good relationship with your head coach, DJ Shelton, and could you describe this relationship?

QV: With DJ, it’s kind of a love-hate relationship: he’s a very good coach, he knows the game very well, but with that, and with him being the head coach, comes some animosity towards him. I think a lot of kids get frustrated with him because they feel very comfortable around him at times and are able to talk to him and come up to him, and then when they’re on the field and he’s screaming at them, they get a little bit flustered and pissed off.

TC: You mentioned that the team is really tight from seniors to freshmen.

Could you describe the best freshman on the varsity lacrosse team and what your relationship with him is?

QV: Well, I’d say the best freshman on our team this year might be Patrick McIntosh. He’s a really great kid, everybody on the team loves him, he’s an amazing lacrosse player, he’s a great kid, as I said. There’s just not much wrong with him. I saw him lay a kid out in our last game, and it was really, really cool. I like that a lot.

TC: Okay, a few of your brothers have played on the lacrosse team, right?

QV: Two of them.

TC: Two of your brothers had played on the Paly lacrosse team. Would you say that you’ve lived up to their legacies?

QV: I hope so. I mean, they’re both great players. I got to play with one of my brothers for one year as a goalie when he was a defender, which really helped me strengthen our relationship and the relationship I had with the team and all of the Palo Alto lacrosse organization.

TC: This is your final year, what do you think you’re gonna miss most about the team?

QV: What I’m gonna miss most about Paly lacrosse is definitely the brotherhood that’s created through the whole season and throughout each season throughout new years, I guess. It’s really something special, and being on a team that tends to win a lot makes it all the better.

TC: Well, good luck this season.