April 2019 -- Silver Chips Print

silverchips A public forum for student expression since 1937 Montgomery Blair High School

April 3, 2019

SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND

VOL. 81 NO. 5

CHANGING CLIMATE

Back-to-back protests

By Itamar Fiorino and Victoria Xin STAFF WRITERS

Students from the D.C. Metropolitan area took to Pennsylvania Ave. on both March 14 and 15 to support tightened restrictions on gun purchases and increased climate awareness, respectively. The demonstrations, both organized by students, were motivated by concrete policy aspirations and an intent to foster national attention towards their causes.

March for gun control

Travelling from Blair to the Capitol, Blazers first joined students from other participating schools in front of the White House to commemorate the lives lost at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting through 17 minutes of silence.

Students from over 25 high schools in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area came together to protest.

Altogether, the Blair procession totaled to approximately 200 members.

Protesters, escorted by Metropolitan police, then marched down Pennsylvania Ave. towards the Capitol building. After arriving, students gathered around a podium set up for a variety of speakers,

see PROTESTS page A2

YEKATERINA VAKHROMEEVA

POLICY CHANGE, NOT CLIMATE CHANGE With a large and colorful banner depicting the potential perils of climate change, high schoolers from across the country gather in front of the Capitol to be heard by lawmakers.

8,500 teachers rally for funding

Not your average competition

By Sarah Schiffgens

By Uma Gupta

STAFF WRITER

STAFF WRITER

An estimated 8,500 Maryland teachers, parents, and students descended upon the streets of Annapolis on the evening of March 11 to rally for an additional $3.8 billion in funding for Maryland public schools for the next ten years.

Chants of “Education is a right!” and “We want justice for our children!” rang through a sea of red shirts as teacher unions from across the state marched in support of Senate Bill 1030, The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. The bill calls for $1 billion in additional funding in Maryland Public Schools for fiscal years 2020 and 2021 and was originally introduced to the General Assembly on March 4.

The March For Our Schools

see UNDERFUNDING page A3

SHASHI ARNOLD

NEWS A2

AVERY BROOKS

RALLYING THE TROOPS Maryland teachers ring bells and champion signs calling for action on the streets of Annapolis.

Different Careers

Actor Q&A

Una opinión acerca de los gobiernos de Bolivia y Venezuela

The unique jobs teachers had before Blair

Behind the scenes of being an acting profession

OP/ED B1

Kevin Qian

Qian, who started his project in January of 2018, described his research as “an intersection of math and physics.”

Qian developed a method of utilizing quantum phenomena in order to achieve more accurate measurements of electric or magnetic fields.

“Imagine you had to measure the sum of two magnetic fields

insidechips

Bolivia y Venezuela

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The Regeneron Science Talent Search, previously known as the Intel Science Talent Search, is lauded by its hosts as the nation’s most prestigious science and mathematics competition. Talent search alumni have gone on to receive Nobel Prizes, MacArthur Fellowships, and even pioneer the use of CRISPR for gene editing. On Jan. 23, 40 out of 2,000 applicants nationwide were selected to become finalists in the competition and receive $25,000 each.

Although the top ten winners were selected on March 12, those searching for talent need look no further than Blair, where three of this year’s Regeneron finalists can be found working hard to improve the future of science and math-

ematics.

For seniors Daniel Schaffer, Grace Cai, and Kevin Qian, the initial shock and joy of being selected as finalists was followed by a “scrupulous” week-long judging process in Washington D.C. Alongside peers from across the nation, Schaffer, Qian, and Cai had to respond to judge questionings, speak at panels, and attend a formal gala as part of Regeneron’s intense selection process.

Although still recovering from the frenzied week of meeting congressmen and talking to the press, the three seniors were easily able to explain their vastly complex projects to the less STEM-savvy listener.

COURTESY OF KEVIN MOOSE

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LA ESQUINA LATINA C1

SEOYOUNG JOO

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FEATURES D1

see REGENERON page D4

Silver Chips Print Movie marathon Senior editors bingewatch movies well past twilight SEOYOUNG JOO

CULTURE E1

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@silver_chips @silver.chips Silver Chips Print

CHIPS CLIPS E5

SPORTS F2

A2 News silverchips Montgomery Blair High School 51 University Boulevard East Silver Spring, MD 20901 Phone: (301) 649-2864

Student activism surges in March from PROTESTS page A1

Winner of the 2015 National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker

including student organizers, gun violence survivors, and legislators.

Winner of the 2018 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Crown

Legislative impact

Editors-in-Chief: William Donaldson Adenike Falade Managing News Editors: Mindy Burton Miranda Rose Daly Managing Op/Ed Editor: Lucy Gavin Managing Features Editors: Elise Cauton Marlena Tyldesley Managing Culture Editor: Arshiya Dutta Managing Sports Editor: Camden Roberts Ombudsman: Hannah Lee Page Editors: George Ashford Teddy Beamer Elias Chen Mira Diamond-Berman Kie Donovan Itamar Fiorino Prayag Gordy Uma Gupta Amanda Liu Ethan Park Khushboo Rathore Louis Rosenberg Sarah Schiffgens Paloma Williams Victoria Xin La Esquina Latina Editors-in-Chief: Amanda Hernández Jasmine Méndez-Paredes La Esquina Latina Editor: Lourdes Reyes Valenzuela La Esquina Latina Writers: Yesenia Cruz Yenmis Quiñones Alzahra Rodríguez Executive Business Directors: Siena Butters Olena Zelinsky Business Staff: Preston Beatty Liang Lin Alyssa Ma Ray Mizui Merete Oakes Jennifer Ren Suveena Sreenilayam Managing Photo Editor: Avery Brooks Photographers: Emory Brooks Dede Greenfield Maggie Lin Lucy Martin Elenora Rue Yekaterina Vakhromeeva Managing Media Coordinator: Aidan Lambiotte Managing Art Editors: Seoyoung Joo Sally Zhao Artists: Shashi Arnold Elaine Cheng Niamh Ducey Amy Krimm Kelley Li Kennedy Salamat Katrina Warren Gabe Winston-Bailey Ivvone Zhou Managing Design Editor: Hannah Lee Puzzle Editor: Bennett Coukos-Wiley Copy Editors: Sara Kleine Ollie-Angel Nono Catherine Rodriguez Ruby Santana Luna Warren La Esquina Latina Advisors: Dianette Coombs Maria Eugenia Tanos Advisor: Silver Chips is a public forum for student expression. Student editors make all content decisions. Unsigned editorials represent the views of the editorial board and are not necessarily those of the school. Signed letters to the editor are encouraged. Submit your letter to Jeremy Stelzner’s mailbox in the main office or to silver.chips.print@gmail.com. Concerns about Silver Chips’ content should be directed to the Ombudsman, the public’s representative to the paper, at ombudsman.silverchips@gmail.com. Letters may be edited for space and clarity.

April 3, 2019

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One of the main focal points of the march was gathering support for Senate Bill 42 (S42) which instates universal background checks for all gun purchasers at a national level.

“It’s extremely important that we show our legislators right now that we still care a lot about this movement and that we want them to pass [S42],” Bethesda-Chevy Chase Montgomery County Students for Change leader Ethan Tiao said.

Pressure from young activists may have changed attitudes within the Senate in favor of S42, according to Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). He served during the Sandy Hook shooting of 2012, which left 28 people dead. “[Senators] see the handwriting on the wall in public opinion and electoral results,” he said. “There’s a reason that candidates who proactively advocated gun violence prevention won last November.”

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted that the strength of gun lobbyists has been declining as a result of increased grassroots movement.

“As the anti-gun violence movement, in particular the student movement, has gotten stronger, the NRA has gotten weaker,” he said.

“That’s why 18 NRA backed members of Congress lost and we were able to pass background checks. It’s a simple formula. If young people vote, the gun lobby loses.”

The student experience

Blazers expressed a variety of reasons for attendance. The general strengthening of gun control legislation was a major motivator.

“There’s really no need for the types of guns and the amount of guns that people have,” senior Cecilia Gonzalez said.

Many were also prompted by personal stories.

“I’m attending this protest for the Parkland school shooting,” freshman Carly Boots said. “My family was really close to that and one of my family friends was in that school.”

Not only high schoolers made

“Adults in office have failed us, but we will not fail future generations.”

- Dani Miller,

President, MoCo for Change

appearances. At the middle school level, students, accompanied by parents, attended the march. College students also took a stand.

“Young people are young people, and what makes this issue different for us is that we haven’t become cynical to this issue,” said former Student of the Board Member and current college student Matt Post.

Many organizing groups sent speakers to the event as well. Dani Miller, President of MoCo for Change and student at Winston Churchill, began the rally.

“We are here today because we have to be,” she said. “Adults in office have failed us, but we will not fail future generations.”

Trinity Brown, a student of Thurgood Marshall Academy and member of Pathways 2 Power, also took to the podium to advocate for the issue of police brutality. “[The media and elected officials] have failed the black communities that face gun violence every day,” she said in her speech.

MEMES AND DREAMS Students from D.C., port for gun control legislation. One student

Kate Ranta and her son William Ranta, both survivors of domestic gun violence, also spoke out in support of S42. “[S42] can make an enormous difference in domestic gun violence and disarming abusers [who may] come and kill their families,” Kate Ranta said. Fourth grader William Ranta also recognized the importance of speaking out. “We want to end gun violence, and my mom was shot and she wants to tell her story,” he said.

S42 is the companion to House Bill 8 (HR8), which has already been voted and approved on.

“We’ve worked really hard to get it through the House,” said Representative Ted Deutch (FL-22), whose district encompasses Parkland, Florida. “I speak out every chance I get in the House, in committee, at rallies like this, when I’m home in the district, and reminding people that we now have a gun safety majority in the House.”

Political controversy

Despite the widespread support of HR8 by the protesters, Section 3E of the bill, an amendment proposed by the Republicans within the House, has not enjoyed the same popularity. The provision allows any undocumented immigrant who undergoes a background check while purchasing a gun to be reported to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

However, most attendees retained their overall support of the bills. “At this point, we’re prioritizing the immediate action that needs to be taken on gun control,” Bethesda-Chevy Chase Student Government Association president and junior Arjun Akwei said.

Climate strike

The following day, Blazers joined the international strike against climate change by attending the international event on the Capitol lawn, organized by the Youth Climate Strike group.

The rallies were inspired by

YEKATERINA VAKHROMEEVA

Maryland, and Virginia meet at the Capitol to voice their supholds up a poster referencing meme culture, bringing in artistic flair.

The Green New Deal The Green New Deal, introduced on February 7 by New York freshman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), is a resolution that frames an all-encompassing approach to combating climate change. The resolution has been cosponsored by 90 other representatives, all members of the democratic party including all Senators who are presidential candidates.

Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee that spurred commotion after she vowed to strike every Friday until the Swedish government took substantial steps towards carbon neutrality.

At the rally, an estimated total of 5000 youth were present, with approximately 80 Blazers walking out to join the crowd.

The rally began with speeches from local organizers for the Youth Climate Strike in D.C. Speakers included Karla Stephan, a freshman and Walt Whitman MoCo for Change representative, and Nadia Nazar, the founder of Zero Hour.

After the youth organizers spoke, Representative Ilhan Omar (MN-5) took to the podium. Her speech was followed by her daughter, climate activist Isra Hirsi. “[We want] a green new deal,” she said.

“We want the president to call a National Emergency around climate change. We want climate education in grades K-8.”

Many Blazer attendees prioritized the principle of climate change prevention above large-scale policy goals. “I think the Green New Deal is an important step, but I’m here for the climate,” junior Caroline Danielski said.

Middle schoolers, such as Dominic Blackwell, a sixth grader from Thomas Jefferson Middle School, also made their voices heard. “If we don’t stop climate change then kids my age won’t have a future on this planet,” he said.

Haven Coleman, the national leader for the Youth Climate Strike was surprised by the amount of participants. “We were expecting a big turnout, but not this big, so it was a big shock,” she said.

At different locations across the world, other students organized strikes of their own on the same day. Over 1,700 different towns and cities in over 100 countries, including Pakistan and South Korea, planned their own strikes. Nearly all 50 states in the United States participated in the strikes.

Spurred by a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that indicated detrimental temperatures could be reached in as soon as eleven years, the framework proposes changes in all sectors of the economy and government, with recommendations in transportation, healthcare, minimum-wages, and climateoriented construction, among others.

To see footage, scan the QR code!

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April 3, 2019

News A3

Maryland Public Schools underfunded by $3.8 billion

March for Our Schools rally garners thousands of Maryland educators and families from UNDERFUNDING page A1

rally was organized by the Maryland State Education Association (MSEA) in light of a recent Kirwan Commission report which indicated that Maryland public schools are severely underfunded.

The Kirwan Commission was created to improve Maryland’s education system and their funding formula serves as the basis for The Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. The legislation calls for an additional $325 million for fiscal year 2020 and $750 million for fiscal year 2021.

The funds would go towards improving the quality of educational leaders, teachers, college and career readiness pathways, providing more resources for at risk students, greater governance and accountability, and universal pre-kindergarten.

This legislation would be the first time Maryland has updated the way it funds its public schools in 20 years. It comes as new legislators filled the General Assembly following the Nov. 2018 election.

On March 11, more than 150 buses left from every county in the state, with approximately 50 teachers from Montgomery Blair in attendance. David West, Blair social studies teacher and organizer of the rally within Blair, noted the sacrifice many Blair teachers made in attending the march. “A lot of people had to make adjustments to their schedule, they had to get somebody to watch their kids, or they missed classes, or work, or whatever they had to miss, and that is an important consideration and I’m proud of our Blair staff,” he said.

Maryland teachers and families marched from Navy Stadium to the Statehouse, ring-

other speeches, with Elrich stating that, “It shouldn’t matter the color of your skin or your zip code how your education turns out.”

Maxine Salah, a paraeducator in Howard County, attended the rally alongside her colleagues. “What the rally means to me is more funding for our schools, being able to serve our children better, and for myself as a paraeducator, a better wage to live on,” she said.

West expressed that he would like to see the additional funds go to expanding Blair’s building and having more teachers to reduce class sizes.

“There are classes that are too big, so those classes could be smaller [by hiring] more teachers,” he said. “We’re going to have a problem here with the fact that we’re going to have more students than this building was built to house...We’ll have ten portables next year, but what about labs for science? You can’t put a lab in a portable classroom.”

Maryland’s March For Our Schools Rally followed after other major demonstrations in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona which similarly focused on increased educational funding. David Stein, the head Union AVERY BROOKS representative of Blair, anticipated similar TEACHER RECOMMENDED Teachers from across the state march to the Maryland success with Maryland’s rally. “In Maryland, Statehouse to rally in support of the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future. we’re more supportive of our schools in general than West Virginia is, so West Virginia is ing bells and adorning signs which called tional funds were manifold among those in threatening strikes and so forth. What we’re for changes like higher teacher pay to lower attendance. House Appropriations Chair and talking about is putting the funding in to make recidivism rates in underprivileged students. former Baltimore County Public Schools Maryland schools the best in the country,” he Several policy makers from across the state teacher, Delegate Maggie L. McIntosh, said.

An approved funding formula for Maryincluding Montgomery County Executive spoke about closing the achievement gap at Marc Elrich, MSEA President Cheryl Bost, the event. “We are not going to stop for one land state schools is expected no later than and St. Mary’s County President Jill Mor- moment until in Maryland, we say this: the the 2020 legislative session. Currently, Maryris marched with the crowd and delivered achievement gap between white and non- land Senator Chris Van Hollen has introspeeches in front of the Statehouse. white students is forever erased,” she said. duced a similar educational bill entitled the The legislative priorities for the addi- These sentiments were reflected in several Keep Our PACT Act to Congress.

Up and Coming April 5-7, 11-13

April 9

April 17-22

April 30

Spring Musical Performances

Spring Break

Free SAT Test for Juniors

Spring Orchestra Concert

Student and Teacher Awards & Honors Hunter Walterman, Isaac Newman, and Rekha Leonard won Second Prize in the C-SPAN StudentCam Competition.

David Goldberg won the Kennedy Center/Stephen Sondheim Inspirational Teachers Award.

Che Moorhead, Charles Thrush, Will Thorne, Rebecca Santangelo, Emilie Vigliotta, Amina King, Lila Chafe, and Frances O’Connor won Third Prize in the C-SPAN StudentCam Competition.

Justin Hudis won the 2019 Montgomery County Storm Drain Art Contest for the Animals and Stream category.

Preston Beatty, Joseph Byler, Lintaro Donovan, Adia Keene, Audrey Li, Vivian Li, Alyssa Ma, Peter Zhang, and Zach Zhao won first place in their respective events at the Maryland DECA State Career Development Conference.

Liang Lin, Jennifer Ren, Shariar Vaez-Ghaemi, Joy Xu, and Yichi Zhang won second place at the Maryland DECA State Career Development Conference.

Peter Zhang won the National Speech & Debate Association’s Academic All American Award.

Nathalie Molina won First Place at the Johns Hopkins University Photography Art Show.

Priya Dohlman and Momore Alade won an Honorable Mention at the Sidwell Friends Model UN conference.

The Blair Wind Ensemble received Superior Ratings at the District II Band Festival.

A4 News Newsbriefs Supreme Court hears Maryland redistricting case The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Lamone v. Benisek, a case which accuses Maryland of gerrymandering its congressional map to discriminate against Republicans, on March 26. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) filed an appeal to the Supreme Court after a panel of judges in Nov. ordered the state to redraw its congressional districts.

The lawsuit stems from Republican anger after Maryland’s last redistricting following the 2010 census, when expert ratings of the state’s sixth congressional district moved from “Solid Republican” to “Likely Democratic.” Seven registered Republicans who resided in the sixth district claimed that Maryland unfairly lessened the impact of their votes.

The Supreme Court in the past has been reluctant to opine on gerrymandering as a whole. In a prior case, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. hesitated to step into redistricting, an inherently partisan process.

“We will have to decide in every case whether the Democrats win or the Republicans win,” Roberts said in an interview with the Washington Post.

John F. Kennedy to expand, add wellness center The Montgomery County Board of Education approved an addition to John F. Kennedy which includes 19 new classrooms, computer labs, and a multi-faceted wellness center. It will cost $20 million, with construction expected between early-2020 and mid-2022.

John F. Kennedy’s 3,300-square foot wellness center will serve students and their families, offering sports physicals, immunizations, primary care, vision and hearing, and mental health care, the Bethesda Magazine reported. There are similar centers across the county at Northwood, Gaithersburg, Wheaton, and Watkins Mill.

The county prioritizes lowincome communities when they choose schools to host wellness centers. 46.9 percent of students at John F. Kennedy receive Free and Reduced Meals (FARMs); at Montgomery Blair, 36.3 percent of students are on FARMs. Both schools are part of the Down-County Consortium.

Though John F. Kennedy is well below capacity—the school has 1,720 students but can fit 2,122— the expansion will allow for an additional 99 students.

Maryland legislators override Hogan’s school calendar veto The Maryland General Assembly overrode Governor Larry Hogan’s veto on their bill to return school calendar decisions to the counties on March 29.

Hogan issued an executive order that forced schools to start their academic year after Labor Day and end it before June 15 in 2016.

School districts found it difficult to accommodate religious holidays, professional days, and snow days, according to The Baltimore Sun. The Assembly also overrode Hogan’s veto on bills that would raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and would create a new commission to enforce alcohol and tobacco laws, removing power from State Comptroller Peter Franchot.

Hogan’s 2016 order was meant to boost Ocean City businesses and reduce air conditioning costs, according to WBAL. Newsbriefs compiled by Prayag Gordy

April 3, 2019

silverchips

Tishaev and Tinbite nominated as SMOB finalists Election will be held April 24 in classes

the achievement gap, and reform When he was a student at Sligo the English to Speakers of Other Middle School, Tinbite saw how STAFF WRITER Languages program by hiring the underrepresentation of minorimore teachers and ensuring that ty students had a negative impact on they speak the language they are many of his classmates. “I realized Clarksburg junior Zoe Tishaev teaching. Addressing overcrowd- that, well I’m like why are [there] and John F. Kennedy junior Nate ing in the Down County Consor- so many of the things I wanna see Tinbite were announced as candidates for the Student Member of the Board (SMOB) position at the Nominating Convention on Feb. 27.

The election will be held on April 24. Both Tishaev and Tinbite received the highest numbers of Montgomery County Regional Student Government Association (MCR) votes to beat out a wide range of candidates hailing from across the county.

Currently the student member of the Montgomery County Council of PTA’s, Tishaev decided to run for SMOB because she felt that there was a disconnect between the Board of Education and the students they were serving. “When the Board of Education makes decisions, we are the first ones to be impacted, and yet we are being left out of the loop,” she said. “That’s why I decided to run for SMOB and that’s why communication is the number one issue of my campaign.”

COURTESY OF THE TINBITE AND TISHAEV CAMPAIGNS A member of her school’s SGA A NEW RACE John F. Kennedy junior Nate Tinbite and Clarksburg junior since seventh grade, Tishaev prides Zoe Tishaev are the SMOB candidates for the 2019-2020 school year. herself on her close work with her high school’s principal to make improvements at her schools and in tium (DCC) is another priority of done at my school, why is ESOL her community. She is also a mem- Tishaev’s, an area of the county that still understaffed, why are many ber of Maryland Youth & Govern- also has lower graduation rates. programs that we want to see fulment which she claimed, “displays Nate Tinbite is also not new to filled our crumbling infrastructure [her] passion for governmental in- student leadership. He is President is still there,” said Tinbite. struction and the process.” of MCR, previously served as Chief If elected SMOB, he would be Tishaev plans to improve school of Staff for former SMOB Matt the first African American or Hismental health resources, expand Post, and is one of the founders of panic student to hold the role in Achieving Collegiate Excellence MoCo For Change, a student activ- over a decade. This realization led and Success programs across the ist organization that has organized Tinbite to get involved in his comcounty as a means of addressing multiple walkouts for gun control. munity. “And so I realized that we

By Louis Rosenberg

need to address these issues now, and at Sligo Middle school when I was an eighth grader, I really got engaged and passionate in fighting for my friends, especially because many of them were in ESOL, and their voices weren’t being heard,” he said.

Tinbite’s campaign platform includes bringing back in-school drivers’ education courses, increasing the number of school counselors, and updating the curriculum to reflect the county’s diversity. “MCPS needs to implement a long-term solution to things that the DCC have dealt with for years,” said Tinbite.

“As SMOB, I will oversee the creation of these solutions and fight to make sure that they’re being prioritized.”

Tinbite also has pledged to expand the number of student town halls and use social media to reach out to students.

Current SMOB and Richard Montgomery senior Ananya Tadikonda will work with the winner to oversee a smooth transition process. “It was a pretty intense transition period and I intend to replicate that with Nate or Zoe, just so they’re prepared for the position,” said Tadikonda when asked about her own transition period.

When reflecting on her time as SMOB and what advice she would give her successor, she told them to “stay true to yourself and what you represent and your values because you’ll come out of it a much better person and also feeling like you did the most you could for the people who you serve.”

All MCPS middle and high school students will be eligible to vote in the general election on April 24. Voting will be held in classes and the winner will be sworn in this July.

Clearing the smoke on e-cigarettes

Blair parents and staff come together to discuss vaping

By Elias Chen STAFF WRITER

Blair parents and faculty gathered for a presentation and discussion on the dangers posed by teenaged vaping on March 21 at the monthly meeting.

The five-point presentation covered topics ranging from the physical dangers of vaping e-cigarettes and to discussing the widespread advertising campaigns waged by ecigarette companies.

Jose Maduro, Montgomery College counselor and Blair Achievement for Collegiate Excellence and Success program coach, led the presentation.

The presentation was created

by Stanford University and supplemented by Academy of Family Physicians for schools to raise awareness. Maduro compressed the normally 5-hour long presentation down to 45 minutes for the crowd of Blair PTSA Parents and administrative staff.

A handout from the Center for Disease Control was also issued to attending parents, warning them to stay vigilant and providing tips on crafting healthy conversations around vaping and e-cigarette usage.

The meeting was conceived after parents raised the issue to Principal Renay Johnson in order to raise awareness of the dangers of adolescent vaping, which the U.S. Surgeon General declared an epidemic last year. “Parents wanted to know, exactly, what is vaping, what is juuling, and is it happening at Blair?”

Johnson said. “And so, we decided

to have the meeting tonight to say, ‘Yes, it’s happening at Blair, not often, but it’s happening.’”

Vaping among teens has persisted as a lingering problem in the building since the beginning of the school year, prompting administration to respond with many of the same tactics used in the presentation to discourage teen smoking, with the same consequences.

“We started seeing them pop up, and then, you know, it’s like having new sneakers,” Johnson said.

“Kids want to bring it to school and show it off. Well, it’s not appropriate for school. So, when we saw them, we confiscated them, talked to students, make sure they take the cessation class, because it’s just like smoking cigarettes.”

Johnson hoped this presentation can begin a new era of education focusing on the dangers of vaping.

“Hopefully parents will raise their awareness so they can really do more research and really talk to their child,” she said.

Some parents were critical of the presentation’s focus on scare tactics, such as the “exploding e-cigarette” trope and lack of well-rounded scientific evidence. “Honestly, I don’t if there was enough done to talk about in terms of all the other impacts beyond just ‘this could kill you’ and the neurological to take it to another place,” PTSA parent Donald Collins said.

Others saw this as a path to a larger discussion about teenage vaping, recognizing the presentation for its efforts to find a pathway toward later conversations. “Our presenter condensed a five-hour presentation into about 40 minutes, something

MIRANDA ROSE DALY

JUULS IN SCHOOL A Blair student holds a juul, a tool used for vaping, to demonstrate its size and appearance. like that, so I think there’s a lot more we could say for sure,” Blair parent and program specialist for the Caron Treatment Center Amy Pollok said. “But as he said, he only had so much time tonight.”

Both parents and staff agreed that there is much to look forward to in the way of future initiatives to discuss vaping at school. Pollok, who works with educators to discuss teen addiction, said she would like to see the school take more efforts such as the presentation to educate parents and students alike.

“We didn’t even get into how parents should talk to their kids about it. Because it’s… across the board,” she said. “It’s not just one aspect. I

think for parents, knowing what the devices are, and just being more proactive and interested in what their kids are doing is really important.”

Johnson agreed, and discussed plans to create new programs to educate students on the issue moving forward.

“I’m going to have to sit down with my instructional leadership team, and we’ll have to plan a presentation for students,” she said.

“Probably through their homeroom or maybe through their English classes, just like we talk about signs of suicide and we also talk about the counseling will do other programs for students.”

Op/Ed B1

silverchips

April 3, 2019

Are books made less enjoyable when analyzed in English class?

YES:

Hyperanalysis ruins the joy of reading Long, long ago in the ancient time before high school English classes, students actually enjoyed reading. They would brag about reading a Percy Jackson book in one day, and put their names on the library’s mile long waiting list to get the newest copy of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Reading was once fun and effortless without the required, tedious analysis done in English class. Students were not forced to read at a required pace or read dull books with little variety.

Students had the time, without the DEDE GREENFIELD busy work of English class, to read books

By Mira Diamondthat they were interBerman ested in and did not STAFF WRITER dread opening. But the English classes of today suck the pleasure out of reading by forcing students to hyper analyze old books, with no prevalence to their own lives, with useless, redundant essays.

Monotonous assignments that offer no room for personal freedom, often labeled as “busy work,” are the reason some students do not find English class compelling. “The way that they structure assignments around books makes it unfun to read the books,” said Senior Ryan Tse. “It makes the reading process a process of filling in the blanks in the assignment, rather than reading for fun or for any kind of deeper value.” The assignments are time-consuming and provide no benefit for the overall understanding of the book.

Tse did not just find English work uninteresting and unnecessary, but he saw it diminish his overall interest in reading. “For a while the amount of reading that I did decreased because of the amount of work I had,” he said. “And the fact that the reading I was forced to do in English class was unpleasant, probably impacted my desire to make time for reading.”

Reading is not enjoyable when the reader has no choice. “[Reading books in English class] takes the fun out of reading. Honestly, if you force someone to read something they don’t want to read they’re not going to be encouraged to want to keep on reading,” said freshman Lindsey Heggans.

Some teachers claim that the problem with English class does not lie in students’ dislike for analysis, but instead the part

NO:

Analysis is essential to understanding

that students dread much more—writing.

For many high school students, the magic “I don’t think kids are averse to analyzing. of reading a book for pleasure had worn off I think they are averse to writing,” said AP by sixth grade. It is true that school readLanguage and Composition teacher Keith ings are no longer what they used to be, with Anderson. “If we did all this analysis and whimsical stories of magic and cookie-hungry didn’t have to produce essays which were mice no longer gracing the reading lists of graded I bet there would be a lot fewer comhigh school English plaints.” Students do not enjoy reading if it classes. involves writing excessive essays that take In high school, hours to draft. things seem to The hard truth is that the essay skills be more focused taught in English class may not even be on understandapplicable outside of the class itself. What ing literature on a other situations—besides English class—will deeper level, which a student have to answer the question: ‘How often turns students does rhetoric affect the author’s intended away from books purpose?’ Most of the analytical writing in general. Howtechniques taught in English class are useever, the analysis of less in the real working world. “Required literature in class is DEDE GREENFIELD English classes should be about English as a not only an essential craft rather than English as an art,” said Tse. skill that should be

By Ethan Park “By that I mean we should be preparing learned but an opSTAFF WRITER people to write technically, rather than read portunity to discover this book and write a reflection of this book, new interests and literature. Analyzing books which as far as I know is useless unless you in English class gives students a chance to become a lit critic.” understand and relate to works that they may Book analysis and not have picked up in the first learning to write place.

Before specific essays in debating English class may over the not be necessary at presall. Reading by itself ence of teaches knowledge, literary comprehension analysis and even writing in class, skills, so the main it is impoint of English portant to class should be distinguish to get kids to between read as much reading for as possible. “I pleasure don’t think and reading there is anyfor educathing more tion. Students valuable for

KENNEDY SALAMAT a young person to do than are required to read,” said Anderson. If the tedious to read books in English class work from English class only discourages for educational benefits, and oftentimes the kids from reading then its current role is books are not meant to simply be enjoyed. obviously flawed. English class should be They are meant to be learned from and focused on encouraging students to read understood to facilitate intellectual growth. rather than badgering them with boring asReading critically trains students’ brains signments that diminish their drive to read. to think deeply about the text that they are “If you could just convince me that there reading. Although some books, especially was an English class where the teacher basi- those in the literary canon, may not be the cally didn’t do anything and the kids spent most exciting reads, they hold lots of literary all the time reading, I would sign up for that worth. Sarah Fillman, a tenth grade Honors even though it meant losing my job,” said English teacher, recognizes this fact, specifiAnderson. English class is counterproduccally with The Catcher in the Rye. “While I tive if it is only killing students’ love for stopped teaching [The Catcher In the Rye] reading. for a couple of years because it seemed like

students weren’t connecting with [the protagonist], I went back to this idea that it’s just so full of literary value,” Fillman said. “Students often tell me at the end of the book, after I’ve gone over all of the symbols… they’re like, ‘Woah, I would never have gotten that.’”

Students may never be able to reach a deep understanding of books they read without further analysis, and they often need to be trained in class to see these deeper meanings before they can recognize them on their own.

This deeper analysis not only applies to classic works of literature but more modern works as well.

Whether they pertain to social justice or teen life, there are plenty of books being read in English classes today that may pique the interest of the average high school student.

However, the fact that the reading is “required” often deters the excitement of reading these books in the first place.

Despite an initial lack of excitement for some of these books, many of them can lead to further exploration of topics that students may want to learn more about. Students like junior Gladys Jean sometimes end up enjoying literary analysis for its real-world knowledge it gives them.

“There was this one book, [The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian]… on this Native American boy and him living in a reservation,” Jean said. “There was so much that isn’t talked about in school, and we learned about all of these different things. Not only did we analyze it, we did research on Native Americans on reservations and what they go through in their day-to-day lives.”

Teachers like Fillman echo these sentiments, as they try to keep students engaged and involved with the literature. “When a teacher is on fire [excited] about a piece of literature, they can share a little nugget and guide students through, perhaps, a book they wouldn’t have otherwise picked up,” she said.

“That’s why you go to school. You learn to be critical when you read, you learn how to make connections, you learn how to become socially aware.”

Oftentimes, students today are not exposed to pieces of literature that they may end up enjoying. In this age of fast-paced technology and overstuffed schedules, it is entirely possible that many students would never pick up a book past sixth grade if not required to by schools. Students must stop measuring school books for their entertainment value, but rather for their value in learning to read between the lines and look for deeper meaning in the literature. With better reading comes better learning, however unenjoyable it may seem.

voicebox Will Young Junior

Max Schaeffer Freshman

Nicky Frank Sophomore

Justin Sharp Senior

Yohanna Getahun Freshman

DEDE GREENFIELD

“[No]... It makes me see the deeper meaning of things. You see more.”

“[Yes]... It just makes it boring, and then I have to think really hard about what I’m reading.”

“[No]... I actually think it’s better because I’ve always liked to read so then having a teacher who can help you understand more.”

“[Yes]... I don’t want to have to write a paper about a book I didn’t want to read.”

“[Yes]... the analysis part, it’s hard to do... teachers expect us to be so easy with it, but it’s not and it just ruins the mood.”

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B2 Op/Ed

April 3, 2019

Knowing our namesake

Is Montgomery Blair’s complicated history cause to change the name?

By Sarah Schiffgens STAFF WRITER

AN OPINION

As historians gradually move to reshape the American narrative in an effort to be inclusive of the experiences of historically marginalized groups, a light begins to shine on the darker, racist shadows of our founding fathers’ legacies.

American heroes that were once placed on a near-untouchable pedestal—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Lewis and Clark, to name a few—are now being held accountable for their exploitation of slaves and racist sentiments.

Montgomery County is currently reviewing all of its public schools’ names under the pretense of political correctness, and the name Montgomery Blair, Postmaster General under Abraham Lincoln and eponym for our school, may be subject to change due to Blair’s strict anti-abolitionist sentiments during the Civil War era.

While recognizing the racist history of many early American influencers is crucial for social progression, one must also take into account the context of our founding fathers’ time and their contribution to a system of government that would ultimately lead to legal freedom for all Americans.

Montgomery Blair served as both a 19th century lawyer and Abraham Lincoln’s postmaster general during one of the most turbulent times in American history.

Leaving the Democratic party due to the party’s pro-slavery sentiments, Blair joined the anti-slavery Republican party early in his career.

Blair was remembered as a brash and outspoken man who was widely disliked among Lincoln’s cabinet members. While he did support Dred Scott and some abolitionist arguments, he was staunchly

opposed to the Radical Republican belief in universal human rights, and spoke out avidly against them, releasing anti-Radical Republican pamphlets in 1863. He was a largely conservative politician and this was reflected in many of his racial policies, but he always remained loyal to Lincoln’s campaign.

Montgomery Blair was racist. He was said to have “not a trace of the abolitionist spirit,” and feared that the emancipation of slaves would subsequently lower the status of white people; this

IVVONE ZHOU

notion of equality and fraternity between the two races abhorred him. Montgomery Blair was racist, but his legacy spans past his own conservative beliefs. As an attorney, Blair represented Dred Scott, a black citizen who petitioned for freedom from slavery, in a highly prominent 1857 Supreme Court Case. And, despite the Blair clan being known to hold slaves, Blair also helped in the defense of abolitionist John Brown after the Harper’s Ferry raid.

Though he was no model Unionist, his contributions to the anti-slavery cause had won him much abolitionist support.

In early American history, it is rare to come across a political hero that did not hold racist beliefs, as slavery and racial oppression were so deeply embedded and accepted in American culture.

George Washington owned slaves, as did Thomas Jefferson, and Lewis and Clark, and a slew of early Presidents, but does that make their contributions to the Democratic American system of government any less notable? Should we attempt to erase their legacy because of it? While it is crucial that one recognizes that these men were racist, and that our nation was founded upon a viciously racist and oppressive culture, to erase the deeds of these men that fundamentally shaped America would do us a great disservice.

It is imperative that we recognize Montgomery Blair’s anti-abolitionist beliefs as a part of his legacy, but that does not change the fact that he is a central part of Montgomery County history and ultimately aided in the emancipation of slaves in America.

His values do not represent that of our school, but we are tied to his history, and removing Montgomery Blair from our school name would only attempt to erase the story of a man who helped define the Union cause.

Ill advised: why they come to school The pressure that sick students face and how teachers can help

By Paloma Williams STAFF WRITER

AN OPINION

In an ideal world, when students fall ill, they are able to rest. But in this day and age, students are discouraged from staying away from school for any reason. High school students that get sick find themselves in loselose situations.

When students stay home sick, due dates and deadlines quickly pile up, flying towards students and filling them with stress. The way it works at current, students must overexert themselves when it comes to making up work missed while at home. They suffer academically if they miss work, but physically if they push themselves too hard.

Teachers should take it upon themselves to accommodate sick students. However, powering through illness simply to show up is harmful as well.

Junior Liam Olagbaju has experienced the struggle of suffering in silence well.

“Here at school you kind of have to just survive, and just try to focus on school, and then you can be sick when you get home,” he said. Many other students are quite familiar with this agonizing feeling.

Deciding between staying at home from school and showing up is a hard one.

Blair students typically take four to five classes daily that dole out both homework and classwork. On top of being sick, they grapple with the heavy decision of either showing up to school in pain or resting temporarily and dealing with a large workload later on.

Forgiving attitudes or a lack thereof from teachers play a big role in why students come to school when sick. Many teachers have harsh deadlines that give students little wiggle room. “They’re not going to have any sympathy for me,” Olagbaju explained.

Students always have the option to simply stay at home sick with an excused absence from the class, but with this choice usually comes an extensive amount of makeup work to complete. “Especially with the AP Classes there is with some of the kids, a constant presence of if not overt sickness, then fatigue…

This is all very cyclical, right?

You don’t get enough sleep, so you get sick, so you have to make up work, so you don’t get more sleep so it takes you longer to recover, and you’re coming into school and you can certainly see that on kids’ faces,” explained Blair English teacher Mr. Anderson.

Many students power through the pain during school, continuing the cycle. “I always feel bad at school [when I’m sick] because… my health is in poor condition, but I still have to focus and not stay behind [and] it would just be even more stressful,” says sophomore Eden Mengesha.

The work assigned by teachers is almost

always a deciding factor in whether or not students come to school. Not only do students have to make up the work that they were unable to complete because of illness, but they also have to make up work that was completed in class.

Additionally, it is a rare occurrence for students to receive sufficient reteaching of the content they missed while they were absent from class.

Missing school to be sick ELAINE CHENG can be a taxing experience, but if teachers loosened up about missed work policies, they could help students learn the content they missed without added stress. Teachers should explore the idea of excusing any work that isn’t in the formative/summative category in the grade book.

While most students envision themselves remaining at home to recuperate, many students ultimately decide to power through illness and show up anyways.

“When I’m sick, I kind of just have to suck

it up and go to school,” said Olagbaju. “Unless I’m like throwing up and stuff, I have to come to school. If I miss one day of school, they’re going to make me have [so many] assignments.”

This approach also has its downsides.

Being sick during school makes it genuinely hard to concentrate. Teachers often expect liveliness, concentration, attention, and participation. “When you’re sick, you get treated just like every other student,” explained Olagbaju. A sick student must strain themselves in order to fulfill typical classroom requirements. Common illnesses like the flu, a cold, or a sore throat all make it difficult for a student to focus and apply themselves in school. Withstanding pain coupled with required extensive engagement in class is a poor hand that many students are dealt.

When it comes to the common cold or any other occasional sickness, the best way for a student to not fall behind on work is to just not get sick in the first place.

Students could really benefit from more lenient makeup work policies, or even complete excusal for work missed while sick. Everybody gets sick. It is a shame that the fast-paced nature of the world around us lends itself to an environment where people feel too busy to allow themselves time to heal.

It does not have to be this way, however.

“I think we need to really check our egos as teachers and realize that not everything we are assigning is absolutely vital,” said Anderson. “... We need to say ‘here is the one thing that you need to make up, forget the other stuff.’” Teachers should lighten makeup workloads, reach out to the student first, or even excuse sick students from work they missed. There are many small ways that teachers could massively improve the lives of their students.

April 3, 2019 Corrections: February 2019 Text in the February 2019 Lead Editorial incorrectly attributed the introduction of the Senate’s Green New Deal to Senator Jeff Markey, who does not exist. The resolution was introduced by Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey.

Khushboo Rathore’s name was spelled incorrectly on her February 2019 story “State Senator Will Smith to deploy overseas.” It is spelled as follows: Khushboo Rathore.

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Opinion B3

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B4 Editorials

April 3, 2019

The myth of American meritocracy This college admissions scandal should surprise no one It is college admissions season at Blair— and at every high school around the country.

It is a season full of joy and melancholy, one that causes relationships to fray due to the intensely competitive nature of the process.

Tempers run high as students receive curt

rejections, and jealousies boil over when they realize their friends were accepted to the same schools that said no to them.

As emotionally trying as this process is, one of March’s biggest news stories added fuel to that fire. On March 12, the Federal

Editorial Cartoon

Bureau of Investigation (FBI) unveiled a sweeping conspiracy involving dozens of people working to influence admissions decisions for prospective students.

In addition to indicting fifty people in the bribery and cheating scandal—including the beloved Aunt Becky of Full House—the FBI revealed just how upper class parents snuck their kids into the country’s most elite institutions.

According to the New York Times, wealthy parents collectively paid $25 million to a college consultant named William Singer, who would guide parents through a variety of ways to cheat our supposed meritocracy. In some cases, he instructed wealthy parents to seek fraudulent diagnoses of learning disabilities so that their children would have more time testing and less stringent supervision. In others, his company asked parents for tens of thousands of dollars and in return would ensure that the donors’ children’s SATs and ACTs were favorably altered.

The list of transgressions goes on, and each new detail that emerges deepens the outrage that hard-working students feel.

Throughout middle and high school, one of the constant motivators is the idea that if we grind and push ourselves to be the best students we can be, we will be rewarded with an earned acceptance to our university of choice. Although this truth is not entirely lost, this latest college admissions scandal is a slap in the face to our line of thinking.

It says that we have deluded ourselves into believing that the process is based entirely on merit—a delusion that the rich and famous already know to be false. Anand Giridharadas, author of the book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, puts it best in an interview with Joy Reid last month: “What we got to see is that these people don’t believe in meritocracy at all.”

Ensuring that America becomes a

true meritocracy is a layered process that requires an intense amount of effort on the individual and systemic levels. Our first and most immediate concern is with those around us. This scandal provides the perfect impetus to have discussions with friends and family about how and why people get to places of power or subjugation. We must talk about the policies that perpetuate the rising inequality we see today, like legacy

We have deluded ourselves into believing that the process is based entirely on merit. admissions, crippling student loan debt, and mandatory minimum sentencing. We must also talk about the dismantling of systems that level the playing field, like access to affordable healthcare and housing, as well as living-wage jobs.

When the systems are at their best, they mobilize people across the board and contribute to economic growth. When the systems are at their worst, they can be gamed by those with enough capital to sway the scales of justice and morality in their favor.

With the college admissions scandal, we see yet another example of why our systems are working at a level of inequality we have not seen in decades.

For those of us who have the privilege of attending a college or university in the next few years, our task is clear. We must ask ourselves how we got there—was it on merit alone, or were the systems unequally balanced in our favor all along?

The limits of FERPA on student privacy and journalism

AVERY BROOKS

By Hannah Lee OMBUDSMAN

Enacted in 1974, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Acts (FERPA) served to grant students enrolled in a public or private institution funded by the federal government as well as their parents, the privilege of secured privatization of their education records. The implied rights under FERPA vary greatly; students are not only able to view basic aspects of their records, such as GPA, but also able to see the information that the academic institution keeps about

times throughout all of our academic careers, especially during the college application process; Those applying to colleges most often see the phrase “Your FERPA status is waived. You’re ready to apply to college using Common App,” at the top of the Naviance page.

Though the act aims to emphasize how in control we are of our privacy, FERPA gives the administration more control than you think. Meeting the necessary requirements of any college application require you to sign the waiver, such as sending final high school transcripts, teacher recommendations, and mid-year reports. Signing the waiver means having to waive the entirety of your FERPA rights in relation to academic records for the sake of completing your college application.

Cornell College’s registrar page gives a perfect description of just how easily institutions can share information about their students to others without being aware they are even doing so. FERPA allows institutions the right to disclose information without our consent to “school employees who have a legitimate educational interest, school officials who have a need to know concerning disciplinary action taken against a student, and any member of the public in matters relating to sex offenders and information… under relevant federal law.” The broad prospects of FERPA have caused

frustrations on behalf of students, parents, as well as journalists, who are constantly denied access to certain information due to institutions hiding behind FERPA as their only defense.

In September 2016, the campus wide newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill filed a request that “specifically asked for all records of people found responsible for rape, sexual assault, or misconduct by University entities,” only to be met with a refusal under the reason of respecting FERPA. Institutions have the power from FERPA to withhold records on the proceedings in which the accused was responsible for wrongdoing in sexual assault cases. Without these records, those except for administrative officials have no idea whether any student has actually been found responsible for any act of sexual assault or campus rape.

Further, based on the results of a survey conducted by the Columbus Dispatch and the Student Press Law Center, 22 of 100 campuses cited FERPA in a refusal to disclose basic campus crime information.

That means criminal conducts, strings of sexual assaults, and sex offenses that occur on institutions can all be excused from being reported to the police due to a strong adherence to a law intended to protect student privacy.

FERPA’s loose rules, enforced by the

U.S. Department of Education, leave individual citizens completely powerless to institutions when fighting for their rights. In a 2002 ruling of the Gonzaga University v.

Doe, the Supreme Court held that individual citizens have no right to initiate a legal proceeding, even with the belief that their educational records have been released improperly. Further, the DOE has never penalized an institution for a FERPA violation.

The lack of accountability institutions are held to in regards to FERPA deem the law completely ineffective in protecting the students and parents it was originally intended to protect Revisions such as putting violations to action need to be made to have FERPA carry out with the protection it was intended to provide for students and parents.

To connect with Hannah, email her at ombudsmansilver chips@gmail.com, message her on Twitter @chipsombudsman

3 de abril de 2019

español C1

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La Esquina Latina

Silver Chips el 3 de abril de 2019

El activismo estudiantil en acción en MCPS

Los estudiantes de Blair se manifestaron el 14 y 15 de marzo empezando desde (el metro de) Silver Spring hasta la Casa Blanca en Washington DC. Los compañeros de Blair se unieron a otras escuelas para ejercer el derecho a reunirse pacificamente.

El primer acto democrático ocurrió el 14 de marzo y cientos de estudiantes de secundaria, incluyendo a otros estudiantes del condado de MCPS, se dirigieron hacia la Casa Blanca protestando contra la falta de controles para la venta de las armas. Miles de personas se convocaron con sus pancartas e incluso algunos estudiantes dieron discursos sobre la importancia del tema. Los organizadores de #MarchForOurLives también invitaron a representantes del gobierno como Jamie Raskin (demócrata) y a otros miembros de la comunidad, para que respaldaran la legislación que requeriría que hubiese verificaciones de antecedentes para comprar cualquier tipo de arma.

El cambio climático fue el enfoque de la segunda manifestación del 15 de marzo. El reto fue aumentar el conocimiento público y persuasión política sobre el cambio climático. El pasado diciembre, el Presidente Trump proclamó que el cambio climático no es una grave preocupación de los Estados Unidos.

Miles de fervientes jóvenes, de todas partes de los Estados Unidos, participaron y generaron dos de las mayores manifestaciones más impactantes de grupos estudiantiles.

La noticia breve fue escrita por Amanda Hernández

KATHERINE VAKOHROMEEVA

#MARCHFOROURLIVES El 14 de marzo estudiantes de todo el condado de Montgomery e incluso varios miembros de la comunidad se unieron en protesta para apoyar la legislación de control de armas.

EMAP: El nuevo programa diseñado para estudiantes de ESOL La diversidad e inclusividad se expande en Blair

Por Yesenia Cruz ESCRITORA

Blair es una escuela diversa que abre sus puertas para estudiantes que vienen de diferentes países. Para algunos, adaptarse a un nuevo estilo de vida en los Estados Unidos es difícil, especialmente cuando se trata de formar nuevas amistades y hacer tareas y proyectos en un nuevo idioma. Por estas razones, varios maestros han tomado la iniciativa de ayudar a los estudiantes para que el proceso de adaptarse sea menos estresante. Este año, un grupo de maestros han formado un nuevo programa llamado el ESOL Mentors Ambassadors Program (EMAP).

Maestros de ESOL, como la Sra. Block, la Sra. Gil, y el Sr. Gerasimowicz, fueron los que han tomado la iniciativa en formar el programa. “El propósito del programa es ayudar a los estudiantes de ESOL socialmente y académicamente. Los aprendices son nuevos estudiantes de ESOL o estudiantes que tienen dificultades para encontrar su lugar en la comunidad de Blair”, dice el Sr. Gerasimowicz. EMAP está compuesto por estudiantes de todos grados. Cada aprendiz fue emparejado con un estudiante mentor basado en los atributos e intereses similares.

Los maestros encargado del programa han entrenado a los mentores con anticipación para que ellos estén listos y sepan cómo comunicarse con los estudiantes aprendices.

Para monitorear el progreso de los mentores y los aprendices, los maestros han requerido mantener un récord de las actividades que hacen los mentores. Esto les permite a los maestros evaluar y dar comentarios

constructivos, para que el programa pueda alcanzar el mejor nivel de capacidad. Además de esto, el programa también ofrece horas comunitarias a los estudiantes mentores.

Fue en el mes de febrero, cuando los mentores y aprendices se reunieron por primera vez donde los estudiantes pudieron in-

si no eres coherente en ayudar al aprendiz asignado eso le puede afectar en adaptarse a Blair. Sin embargo, también es divertido conocer al aprendiz y encontrar cosas en común”, explicó Rosales.

Angelo Maradiaga, un estudiante mentor en el noveno grado explica su experiencia en

CORTESÍA DE LA SRA. JOHNSON

ESOL MENTORS AMBASSADORS PROGRAM (EMAP) Los estudiantes en el programa posan para una foto después de su primera reunión. troducirse y convivir. Uno de los estudiantes mentores, Noelia Rosales, del grado doce, reflexiona sobre su experiencia en el programa, “Es una gran responsabilidad porque

el programa, “Pues ha sido bien, como es un programa nuevo no hemos tenido tantas complicaciones. Cada vez que tenemos una reunión siempre explican bien las cosas que

tengo que hacer para ayudar a mi aprendiz”.

De acuerdo con un reportaje publicado por The Mentoring Resource Center en cooperación con el Departamento de Educación de los EE.UU., hay muchos beneficios para los programas de mentoría tanto para el mentor como para el aprendiz. “Para los aprendices, estos programas han demostrado un impacto positivo en los sentimientos de competencia, califica- ciones, logros académicos y actitudes de comportamiento social. Para los mentores, se han reportado mejor conexiones con la escuela, la comunicación intrapersonal y las habilidades de resolución de conflictos.” Está claro que la intención de EMAP es mejorar a todos y cada uno de los estudiantes involucrados en el programa. Independientemente de la función que desempeñe el alumno, tendrá un impacto positivo en sus vidas.

Cuando se le preguntó lo que ha logrado en el programa, Rosales destacó como ella ha mejorado en sus habilidades de comunicación en Español. “EMAP me ha ayudado a desarrollar mejores habilidades sociales porque antes tenía miedo de hablar en español [ya que no es mi primer idioma] pero ahora me siento más cómoda al expresarme e ideas en español.”

Como una escuela de casi 3,500 estudiantes, es fácil perderse entre la multitud. La aparición de EMAP y programas similares en Blair está brindando a los estudiantes de ESOL los recursos que necesitan para tener éxito y alcanzar sus metas mientras están en la escuela secundaria. EMAP es un programa que le dará la oportunidad de crecer no solo como estudiante, sino también como un individuo tanto para el mentor como para el estudiante que está siendo enseñado.

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3 de abril de 2019

Falta de democracia en Bolivia y Venezuela Morales y Maduro: Una combinación peligrosa

Por Renata Muñoz ESCRITORA Una Opinión

Bolivia se ha convertido en uno de los únicos países latinoamericanos que apoya al gobierno de Venezuela. El apoyo conflictivo entre Bolivia y Venezuela está cambiando la dinámica de sus ciudadanos, la manera en que aceptan ayuda externa e inclusive podría llevar a los dos países al autoritarismo.

En Venezuela, la crisis humanitaria ha dejado a todos los ciudadanos en peligro. Según la Encuesta Nacional de Condiciones de Vida de la Población Venezolana del 2017, la pobreza creció al 87 por ciento. Además, nueve de cada diez venezolanos es incapaz de pagar por su alimentación diaria. Venezuela ha llegado a este punto después de que Nicolás Maduro asumió la presidencia cuando Hugo Chávez falleció. Maduro centralizó el poder ejecutivo y llenó el gobierno de Venezuela de corrupción.

En Bolivia, el presidente Evo Morales comenzó siendo aliado de Hugo Chávez cuando era presidente. Morales usa la estrategia que usaba Chávez mientras era presidente la cual era relacionarse con ciudadanos de clase baja. Aunque Chávez creó varios programas de bienestar social que eran corruptos y mal hechos, ciudadanos de clase baja se sintieron incluidos en el gobierno por primera vez después de ser ignorados por mucho tiempo.

Morales usó una estrategia similar cuando postuló a la presidencia en 2005, siendo el primer presidente de origen indígena en Bolivia.

Cuando Maduro asumió la presidencia en Venezuela, el apoyo de Bolivia continuó.

La relación íntima de Morales y el gobierno Venezolano alarma a la mayoría de los boli-

vianos. Chávez fue un líder autoritario y Maduro, quien está cerca de ser dictador, tiene gran influencia sobre Morales.

En 2016, Bolivia tuvo un referéndum que cambiaría la Constitución de Bolivia, y permitió que Morales se postulara a la presidencia por un cuarto mandato de seis años.

respeto a las leyes, a la institucionalidad y a la separación de los poderes del Estado, lo que abre el camino al totalitarismo y al dominio del más fuerte, con el consiguiente menoscabo de la libertad del pueblo. Esta sentencia significa un retroceso a la Democracia del país”.

Caricatura editorial

SHASHI ARNOLD

El 4 de diciembre de 2018, el Tribunal Supremo Electoral de Bolivia aceptó la postulación de Morales para la próxima elección de 2019, aunque Bolivianos votaron contra la re-postulación de Morales.

Días después de la decisión, los ciudadanos de Bolivia se volcaron a las calles para protestar al Tribunal Supremo Electoral gritando “Bolivia dijo no”. Incluso los obispos de la iglesia católica de Bolivia salieron contra Morales, diciendo que “Se han roto los principios básicos de la democracia: el

Zoya Galarza, una abogada en Bolivia, piensa que Bolivia se podría convertir en otra Venezuela, dictando que “al vulnerar la norma fundamental dejamos de ser un Estado de Derecho”.

Técnicamente, el hecho que Morales se postule a la presidencia es ilegal bajo los artículos 156, 168, 285 y 288 de la Constitución Política del Estado de Bolivia. Estos artículos limitan la reelección continua de los gobernantes, lo que, aparentemente, Morales intenta hacer. Sin embargo, con

el control de poder que tiene Morales, él ha podido controlar que el Tribunal Supremo Electoral le dé luz verde a la presidencia.

Sin duda, la decisión de buscar elección infinita de Morales ha sido impactada por Chávez y Maduro. La amistad incondicional entre Morales y Maduro asusta a bolivianos, y solo podrían ser mala noticia para el futuro de Bolivia.

La crisis en Venezuela es extensa, con una tasa de desempleo en 33.3 por ciento y el precio de vivienda ha subido a un estimado de 667 por ciento. El gobierno de Venezuela incluso encarceló y deportó al periodista de Univisión, Jorge Ramos. Ramos tuvo una entrevista con Maduro, pero Maduro no aprobó de las preguntas que Ramos hizo sobre la falta de democracia en Venezuela, los prisioneros políticos y la crisis humanitaria.

Si bien mucha gente reconoce que Morales ha logrado varios éxitos en su presidencia, mucha continuidad de políticos disminuye el propósito de la democracia. La democracia no puede seguir con un presidente infinito.

Como boliviana, la relación entre Morales y Maduro es aterradora. Además, si los Estados Unidos decide intervenir de alguna forma en Venezuela, Morales es seguro de reaccionar. La democracia en Bolivia se está desvaneciendo y la amistad con Maduro empeora la situación. Aunque en 2018, bajo la guianza de Morales, Bolivia tuvo el mayor crecimiento económico en Latinoamérica, esa no es una razón adecuada para tener a Morales de presidente por otro mandato.

La relación entre estos dos mandatarios es peligrosa, porque incluye dos países en los que no existe la separación de poder. Con la probable victoria de Morales en la elección de 2019, no hay ninguna duda que Bolivia está en el mismo camino que Venezuela, y el futuro del país podría ser fatal con Morales de presidente.

Una mirada al programa de ESOL en Blair El objetivo es romper las barreras lingüísticas

Por Alzahra Rodríguez y Yenmis Quiñones ESCRITORAS

Afirmamos al comienzo del artículo que donde solo aparecen un nombre o apodo, el sujeto ha elegido en la entrevista que se proteja su identidad.

English for Speakers of Other Languages, también conocido como ESOL, es un programa incorporado en todas las escuelas del condado de Montgomery para estudiantes que no hablan inglés con fluidez o que hablan un idioma extranjero. En ESOL los estudiantes aprenden a desarrollar destrezas que les permiten leer, escribir, hablar y entender el inglés. Según la página oficial de MCPS, 13.3 por ciento de los estudiantes están en ESOL. El programa de ESOL para secundaria consiste en cinco niveles y enseña contenidos específicos que comprenden las áreas de estudios sociales, matemáticas y ciencias.

Además, ESOL ofrece consejería para ayudar en el proceso de adaptación cultural que muchos estudiantes inmigrantes enfrentan.

El objetivo de recibir ESOL es que después los estudiantes tengan el nivel académico de inglés necesario para tener éxito en la escuela y en la universidad.

Los comentarios sobre este programa son positivos. Naydelin Mendoza, una estudiante del décimo grado, dijo, “Me ayudó bastante, porque a veces yo no entendía ciertas cosas, así que le preguntaba a los profesores y ellos me explicaban paso a paso lo que tenía que hacer”. También, muchos estudiantes han notado un cambio en su rendimiento académico ahora que manejan el idioma inglés.“Al principio el inglés era difícil para mí, pero después de ESOL se me hizo fácil

y mis notas mejoraron” comentó una alumna del noveno grado. Otro de los beneficios de ESOL es que ayuda a que los estudiantes se sientan cómodos a la hora de hablar inglés.

Un estudiante del grado once, mencionó lo siguiente,“Estuve en ESOL por cuatro años y me ayudó bastante, porque ahora estoy más cómodo con el inglés y puedo aprender cosas que no podía entender por el idioma. Ahora puedo hacer trabajos en inglés y entender más en la escuela”.

ESOL logra romper las barreras que limitan a los estudiantes avanzar en sus metas académicas. Por ejemplo, una estudiante

e x p r e s ó , “ESOL me ayudó a integrarme y asimilarme las otras clases. Después de ESOL decidí tomar clases más difíciles como AP y honores”.

Además, ESOL no solo tiene un impacto en el desempeño académico de los estudiantes, también les permite poder comunicarse con otras personas. Alexander, un estudiante del onceavo grado contó: “En general me gustó recibir ESOL porque te enseñan vocabulario, como crear oraciones y tener conversaciones en inglés. Ahora soy capaz de comunicarme con personas que solo hablan ingles”. Otro beneficio del programa es que todos los estudiantes bajo el programa reciben almuerzo

reducido o gratis. Estos estudiantes son 33.2 por ciento de los 42.4 por ciento que reciben almuerzo gratis. Muchos de estos alumnos no tienen condiciones ni lujos y muchos trabajan. El programa ESOL no solo ayuda académicamente sino que también en el mundo real a muchos de estos estudiantes le ha abierto una puerta en su lugar de trabajo.

El programa de ESOL consiste de cinco niveles, los estudiantes de nivel uno recibe tres clases de ESOL diarias, los de nivel dos dos clases diaria y los de nivel tres, cuatro y cinco reciben una clases diaria. Las clases son diversas en cuanto grado y género. A muchos de estos estudiantes que sobrepasan las expectativas los colocan en clases de inglés normales al terminar ESOL tres.

Después de completar el programa los estudiantes están calificados con un nivel de inglés universitario. Una estudiante del décimo grado comentó, “Me siento lo suficientemente calificada para tomar clases de inglés a nivel universitario”.

Además, se recomienda arduamente que los estudiantes de ESOL busquen los recursos disponibles en la escuela. Uno de los mejores lugares para obtener consejos sobre la educación post-secundaria es el “Career Center”. El Sr. Hernández, coordinador de información sobre universidades y carreras, junto con los voluntarios, proporcionan una gran cantidad de recursos para los estudiantes de ESOL. Algunos de estos recursos

incluyen, tutoría individual, preparación para exámenes, búsqueda de universidades o becas y listas de oportunidades de trabajo en el área.

La iniciativa del condado de Montgomery para enseñar y ofrecer cursos de inglés a personas que hablan otros idiomas no termina en la escuela secundaria. los adultos (mayores de 18 años) también pueden inscribirse en un curso de inglés básico a través de Montgomery College. A través de este programa, que también ofrece subvenciones para cubrir la matrícula, los adultos de todas las edades pueden aprender y comprender las complejidades de vivir en un nuevo país.

Hay muchas becas estatales y locales disponibles para los estudiantes de ESOL que desean continuar su educación postsecundaria. Dos de estas becas, el “Esperanza Education Fund” y el “Mellfin Scholarship” están diseñadas para los estudiantes que nacieron en otro país. Los premios para el “Esperanza Education Fund” van desde $5,000 a $20,000, mientras que los premios para el “Mellfin Scholarship” son $1,000 por premio.

El programa de ESOL no solo incluye a estudiantes hispanos sino de todas etnicidades, entre estos estudiantes se ayudan uno a los otros y se apoyan a través del transcurso del año. No hay duda de que los programas de ESOL, especialmente el de Blair, ha ayudado a que estudiantes tengan éxito en la escuela a pesar de las barreras del idioma.

El mapa geográfico fue creado por Amanda Hernández con los datos del Departamento de Educación de los EE.UU.

español C3

silverchips

3 de abril de 2019

Una guía para los exámenes estandarizados Trabajando para lograr las metas educativas

Por Lourdes Reyes Valenzuela EDITORA

Uno de los requisitos de graduación de varios condados del país es tomar exámenes estandarizados como el SAT o el ACT a finales del tercer año en la escuela superior.

Al llegar a los Estados Unidos directamente a una escuela secundaria un estudiante extranjero quizás no sepa para qué sirven estas pruebas o en qué consisten. Ambos exámenes son importantes al querer continuar a la educación universitaria porque los admisores universitarios pueden evaluar las capacidades y destrezas de conocimiento de un estudiante. Aparte de estos exámenes, el HSA, el PARCC, y el MISA son requisitos que los estudiantes del condado de Montgomery deben de pasar para poder graduarse. Otros exámenes que pueden ayudar a entrar y recibir créditos universitario son los exámenes Advanced Placement (AP). Estos exámenes se toman después de haber tomado un año completo de una clase rigurosa.

Los exámenes SAT, ACT y Accuplacer El SAT y el ACT son dos pruebas que las universidades usan para evaluar el conocimiento de sus solicitantes. Los dos exámenes evaluan el nivel de matemáticas, el dominio en la escritura y la comprensión del inglés.

Sin embargo, el ACT también tiene una porción de ciencias naturales. Estos exámenes no son la única cosa que las universidades evalúan antes de aceptar a un estudiante. Sin embargo, la puntaje de estos exámenes juegan un papel esencial en la solicitud a una universidad. Estas pruebas se acostumbran a tomar durante la primavera del grado once, el verano del mismo año escolar, o también a principio del grado doce.

El Accuplacer es otro examen, similar al

SAT y ACT, porque se enfoca en evaluar las habilidades de los estudiantes en lectura, escritura, ciencias naturales y matemáticas para determinar que preparados están para cursos a nivel universitario.

Nuestra escuela también ofrece una gran cantidad de recursos para estudiantes. Por ejemplo, la Sra. Lamphier, la bibliotecaria, exhorta a los estudiantes a visitar la biblioteca para usar los libros de preparación del SAT y ACT. “Además de los libros de preparación, ‘The Gale Program’ les proporciona a los estudiantes tarjetas de memorización y otro material de estudio. Los estudiantes pueden visitar la biblioteca yo los ayudaré a configurar sus cuentas,” dice la Sra. Lamphier.

Además de todos estos excelentes consejos, algunos otros recursos incluyen inscribirse en el programa SAT de Khan Academy.

Esta clase de preparación de exámenes estandarizados se ofrece en Blair o en el programa de práctica de SAT en la escuela del sábado.

Los exámenes HSA, MISA y PARCC La preparación para el HSA, MISA, o PARCC, es de suma importancia. El estudiante Joe Sagas, del grado doce, dice que pasar tiempo estudiando en lugares como el “Career Center” es mejor porque hay más silencio y menos distracciones.

El condado de Montgomery tiene dos pruebas de PARCC, una de inglés y otra de álgebra de primer año. El HSA se basa en la clase del gobierno de los Estados Unidos y el MISA consiste en una compilación de contenido de química, física, y biología. Ya que estos exámenes son basados en una materia que el estudiante ha o habría tomado antes, es más fácil intuir como saldrá en estos. Algo que hace Valerie Bonilla, una alumna en el grado once, es “revisar sus asignaciones pasadas, las pruebas, y las guías de estudio”. Por eso es importante cuidar y mantener los pa-

peles que sean devueltos por los maestros de estas asignaturas porque cuando llegue la hora de estos exámenes, podrían ser utilizados como guías de estudio y repaso.

Los exámenes Advanced Placement Los cursos de AP son clases de rigor universitario que se ofrecen en la escuela secundaria. En Blair, hay docenas de clases de AP que cualquier estudiante puede inscribir. Los estudiantes de Blair, especialmente, deben aprovechar la cantidad de cursos de AP que nuestra escuela ofrece.

Además de la variedad en las materias, si los estudiantes aprueban el examen de AP en mayo, son elegibles para recibir créditos universitarios después de la escuela secundaria. El pago de los exámenes de AP pueden parecer costoso, pero las exenciones están disponibles para reducir el costo. La Universidad de Michigan publicó un artículo en el que alienta a los estudiantes a descansar lo más posible la noche anterior a cualquier examen. “Lo mejor que se puede hacer la noche antes de la prueba es dormir bien por la noche.”

Además de esta sugerencia, es importante prepararse para el examen desde AP con mucha anticipación.

Compre o pida presta-

do un libro de preparación y asegúrese de tomar numerosas pruebas prácticas para familiarizarse más con el contenido. Otros estudiantes, como Michael Damtew, un estudiante en del grado doce, opta por “ir a la biblioteca y reservar un cuarto después de la escuela o formar grupos de estudio con amigos.”

Hay que prepararse para estos exámenes con responsabilidad y entrega porque de estos juegan un rol importante en el resumen escolar que ve una universidad. Si se da el caso de que algún estudiante no tenga conexión a internet o ningún dispositivo electrónico en casa, hay un programa que ofrecer la línea de teléfonos Sprint para dar celulares o tabletas a estudiantes que necesiten de estos para estudiar.

La escuela, el internet, y los mismos compañeros ofrecen los recursos y ayudas para poder llevar a cabo estos exámenes con éxito, solo queda que cada uno ponga dedicación, tiempo y esfuerzo para poder salir con gran puntaje de estos exámenes.

Fechas importantes: 9 de abril

16 de abril

17-22 de abril

5 de mayo-17 de mayo

20 de mayo-23 de mayo

27 de mayo

7 de junio

14 de junio

Administración del SAT y el Accuplacer

Vacaciones de primavera

Exámenes de HSA, PARCC y MISA

Graduación para los estudiantes del grado doce

Distribución de las tarjetas de calificaciones

Administración de los exámenes Advanced Placement (AP)

“Memorial Day”— no hay clases

El último día de clases

SH

AS

HI

AR

NO

LD

April 3, 2019

Features D1/D2

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Waiting for the green light

The various pathways to U.S. citizenship Sitting down with her sister and friends for dinner, senior Eve Kuo listens as they discuss green cards and citizenship. Their friends had just received greencards, which was a long and complex process, as it had been for Kuo’s family. Green cards, officially known as Lawful Permanent Resident Cards, are permits that allow immigrants to permanently live in the U.S. Though she has lived in the U.S. for thirteen years, at 17, Kuo remains a permanent resident and plans to apply for citizenship once she turns 18. She does not know how long the process will take; it took her parents a decade to obtain green cards, and half a year to renew her own green card.

The path to citizenship has been a long one for Kuo’s family in the past, but the advantages that c o m e with being a citizen keep her on the path to citizenship.

World of Difference

Although both U.S. permanent residents and citizens may legally reside in the country, they receive different privileges, from jobs to voting. Permanent residents, for example, cannot travel outside the country for more than 364 days at a time, or two years if approved beforehand.

Permanent residents are also

limited in job opportunities. Many federal government jobs are not as easily available for permanent residents as they are for citizens. Blair parent Suman Mukhopadhyay, who works at the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), realized this as he was looking to leave his university job for a high-paying one.

“The best options I was having at that point were U.S. Federal Government jobs in and around this area,” he says. “They had good salaries, so to get a certain job, I had to get the citizenship.”

Kuo, too, feels that non-citizenship significantly limits employment opportunities. “When I was looking for internships, [I found that] some of the federal government-related organizations won’t take you if you’re not a citizen,” she says.

Furthermore, permanent residents cannot vote in federal U.S. elections. Claudia Rodriguez, resident in the Blair area, became a citizen 11 years ago so that she could voice her opinions to the government. “[Without citizenship] you cannot elect officials, you cannot… petition for relatives to come to the country, but once you are a citizen then you have full rights,” she says. Kuo, too, hopes to gain citizenship to become a more active citizen. “I’m most likely going to be living here for a large part of my life… it’s nice to be able to vote,” she says.

Path from Permanency

Permanent residents can apply for citizenship after living in the U.S. for at least five years, and it generally takes about half a year after applying to receive citizenship status.

To become a citizen, many immigrants must prove their potential to contribute to the U.S. government. Mukhopadhyay, who originally entered the country on an EB1 Outstanding Researcher green card, used his career background to also obtain his citizenship. “You have to provide evidence in terms of scientific qualifications and other work… especially from the Western countries,” he says. “[You] have to provide letters of recommendation to prove you are truly an exceptional person and you are going to contribute to United States science and economy in a great way.”

Other permanent residents can obtain citizenship through a parent. Junior Zelalem Wondu held a green card for her entire life until her mother decided to apply for citizenship last year.

Wondu’s mother, like Mukhopadhyay, works in a STEM field and therefore could be fairly confident that the government would grant her citizenship status. Still, the year-long process was long and arduous. “She had

to take a test… it cost hundreds of dollars,” Wondu renot a path to citizenship. calls. As Rodriguez says, many residents must dedicate “It’s not a way for people to stay here permanently. time to studying for the citizenship test, either through You can end up getting your green card, and online practice tests or classes offered by immigration eventually, if you want to, you can organizations. naturalize,” Miles-Hare says.

Though the process was tedious for Wondu’s “[TPS] does allow people to mother, it was comparatively simple for Wondu work, which is great, but it’s herself. She found that the naturalization process not going to help anybody required little information on her end. “It litstay here.” erally just takes some confirmation that I’m As a local resident, Roactually her daughter,” Wondu says. “I driguez has acquaintances didn’t have to take any tests or anything.” who are currently applying for Wondu was able to get her citizenship asylum, which can take years status within just two months of to obtain, in order to remain DE her application. in the U.S. Although similar to PA RT Another path to green cards TPS, asylum differs in that it can ME NT is through a spouse, which involves allow people to remain in the U.S. OF completing interviews. “They have to do permanently. Those who apply for HO ME an interview together, and then do an interasylum generally have already lived in LA ND view separately,” Kuo says, based on the the country for some time. “It may be beSE CU experiences of her sister’s friends. Incause something has changed and now RIT Y terview questions range from the signifthey have a claim for asylum, or icant other’s toothbrush color to what the situation they were fleeing was kind of slippers they wear in order so desperate that they needed to get to confirm that the relationship is here first and then sort it out,” Miles-Hare genuine. says. Asylum applicants cannot be sure The process can involve if and when they will ever get permamultiple sets of documents nent residency or even citizenship. and proving that a perThus, the only son is of good characways for Rodriter. “You want to get guez’s acquaintancall your records es to gain permaand look at all nent residency are a your forms, and grant of asylum, a job offer make sure that they and sponsorship by a U.S. employer, or all make sense,” Ayuda marriage to a U.S. citizen.

Pro Bono Managing Attorney Mukhopadhyay and his wife, who applied for citiLindsy Miles-Hare says. “The other zenship at the same time, enjoyed a relatively smooth thing that can sometimes trip people up citizenship application process. Their only issues came is if they’ve had any sort of criminal activity, at the final stage: the citizenship oath. “The oath… says… or anything that might call their moral character that you have to protect United States against all eneinto question.” Ayuda, a Spanish word which transmies… [even if] you have to pick up arms against your lates to help in English, is a non-profit organization that former country,” Mukhopadhyay says. “My wife was not provides legal assistance to low-income U.S. immigrants comfortable with it, and I was not very comfortable with from anywhere in the world. it either, but since I was looking for a better salary job, I Those without green cards may have a more difficult did not care at that point.” time obtaining citizenship. Temporary Protected Status Miles-Hare notes that there is no one simple way to (TPS) is granted to people who are facing emergency obtain citizenship. “Immigration law is complicated and situations or upheaval in their home country, such as war convoluted, policy is complicated and convoluted and or natural disaster. As Miles-Hare says, TPS is “renewed constantly changing, and the last thing is, of course, that periodically” and lasts for as long as it takes for one’s the facts change,” she says. “It’s not just a matter of filing country to become safe again. However, TPS alone is your paperwork and getting in line… you can follow all

the rules, and you can still be in a very precarious situation for a number of years.”

Life as a Citizen

To Mukhopadhyay and Rodriguez, citizenship status means additional rights and privileges. To second-generation immigrants like Wondu, however, citizenship is no more than a status on a piece of paper.

“I never really had any setbacks because of my citizenship status,” she says. “It really didn’t make much of a difference other than on the paper.”

Nonetheless, citizenship can provide a feeling of increased security to U.S. residents, particularly in a time when the country faces tension and division surrounding the issue of immigration policy. The Trump administration has established immigration policy as a key part of its political agenda. The administration has banned citizens from eight countries and pushed to end the designation of TPS for citizens from Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, and El Salvador. The push, however, was blocked by a court injunction issued to the Department of Homeland Security.

According to Miles-Hare, these proposed policies may force people who have already established lives in the U.S. to leave the country, especially if they are unable to obtain a green card or visa. “If you previously had Temporary Protected Status and it ends, we believe you need to either go home or find another path to legal status,” she says. “We know that a lot of folks cannot go home or it would be incredibly unfair—they’ve been in the states for decades, their children may be citizens, they’ve built lives here, they’ve started businesses.”

Those with TPS are not the only ones who face uncertainty under these new proposals. The Trump administration’s proposal of new immigration policies can be cause for worry, even among permanent residents.

“It’s still a little bit of that fear where [the government has] the power to do something to me, even though I’m legally living here,” Kuo says.

Story by

Amanda Liu Khushboo Rathore Design by Paloma Williams Art by Sally Zhao

April 3, 2019

Features D1/D2

silverchips

Waiting for the green light

The various pathways to U.S. citizenship Sitting down with her sister and friends for dinner, senior Eve Kuo listens as they discuss green cards and citizenship. Their friends had just received greencards, which was a long and complex process, as it had been for Kuo’s family. Green cards, officially known as Lawful Permanent Resident Cards, are permits that allow immigrants to permanently live in the U.S. Though she has lived in the U.S. for thirteen years, at 17, Kuo remains a permanent resident and plans to apply for citizenship once she turns 18. She does not know how long the process will take; it took her parents a decade to obtain green cards, and half a year to renew her own green card.

The path to citizenship has been a long one for Kuo’s family in the past, but the advantages that c o m e with being a citizen keep her on the path to citizenship.

World of Difference

Although both U.S. permanent residents and citizens may legally reside in the country, they receive different privileges, from jobs to voting. Permanent residents, for example, cannot travel outside the country for more than 364 days at a time, or two years if approved beforehand.

Permanent residents are also

limited in job opportunities. Many federal government jobs are not as easily available for permanent residents as they are for citizens. Blair parent Suman Mukhopadhyay, who works at the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), realized this as he was looking to leave his university job for a high-paying one.

“The best options I was having at that point were U.S. Federal Government jobs in and around this area,” he says. “They had good salaries, so to get a certain job, I had to get the citizenship.”

Kuo, too, feels that non-citizenship significantly limits employment opportunities. “When I was looking for internships, [I found that] some of the federal government-related organizations won’t take you if you’re not a citizen,” she says.

Furthermore, permanent residents cannot vote in federal U.S. elections. Claudia Rodriguez, resident in the Blair area, became a citizen 11 years ago so that she could voice her opinions to the government. “[Without citizenship] you cannot elect officials, you cannot… petition for relatives to come to the country, but once you are a citizen then you have full rights,” she says. Kuo, too, hopes to gain citizenship to become a more active citizen. “I’m most likely going to be living here for a large part of my life… it’s nice to be able to vote,” she says.

Path from Permanency

Permanent residents can apply for citizenship after living in the U.S. for at least five years, and it generally takes about half a year after applying to receive citizenship status.

To become a citizen, many immigrants must prove their potential to contribute to the U.S. government. Mukhopadhyay, who originally entered the country on an EB1 Outstanding Researcher green card, used his career background to also obtain his citizenship. “You have to provide evidence in terms of scientific qualifications and other work… especially from the Western countries,” he says. “[You] have to provide letters of recommendation to prove you are truly an exceptional person and you are going to contribute to United States science and economy in a great way.”

Other permanent residents can obtain citizenship through a parent. Junior Zelalem Wondu held a green card for her entire life until her mother decided to apply for citizenship last year.

Wondu’s mother, like Mukhopadhyay, works in a STEM field and therefore could be fairly confident that the government would grant her citizenship status. Still, the year-long process was long and arduous. “She had

to take a test… it cost hundreds of dollars,” Wondu renot a path to citizenship. calls. As Rodriguez says, many residents must dedicate “It’s not a way for people to stay here permanently. time to studying for the citizenship test, either through You can end up getting your green card, and online practice tests or classes offered by immigration eventually, if you want to, you can organizations. naturalize,” Miles-Hare says.

Though the process was tedious for Wondu’s “[TPS] does allow people to mother, it was comparatively simple for Wondu work, which is great, but it’s herself. She found that the naturalization process not going to help anybody required little information on her end. “It litstay here.” erally just takes some confirmation that I’m As a local resident, Roactually her daughter,” Wondu says. “I driguez has acquaintances didn’t have to take any tests or anything.” who are currently applying for Wondu was able to get her citizenship asylum, which can take years status within just two months of to obtain, in order to remain DE her application. in the U.S. Although similar to PA RT Another path to green cards TPS, asylum differs in that it can ME NT is through a spouse, which involves allow people to remain in the U.S. OF completing interviews. “They have to do permanently. Those who apply for HO ME an interview together, and then do an interasylum generally have already lived in LA ND view separately,” Kuo says, based on the the country for some time. “It may be beSE CU experiences of her sister’s friends. Incause something has changed and now RIT Y terview questions range from the signifthey have a claim for asylum, or icant other’s toothbrush color to what the situation they were fleeing was kind of slippers they wear in order so desperate that they needed to get to confirm that the relationship is here first and then sort it out,” Miles-Hare genuine. says. Asylum applicants cannot be sure The process can involve if and when they will ever get permamultiple sets of documents nent residency or even citizenship. and proving that a perThus, the only son is of good characways for Rodriter. “You want to get guez’s acquaintancall your records es to gain permaand look at all nent residency are a your forms, and grant of asylum, a job offer make sure that they and sponsorship by a U.S. employer, or all make sense,” Ayuda marriage to a U.S. citizen.

Pro Bono Managing Attorney Mukhopadhyay and his wife, who applied for citiLindsy Miles-Hare says. “The other zenship at the same time, enjoyed a relatively smooth thing that can sometimes trip people up citizenship application process. Their only issues came is if they’ve had any sort of criminal activity, at the final stage: the citizenship oath. “The oath… says… or anything that might call their moral character that you have to protect United States against all eneinto question.” Ayuda, a Spanish word which transmies… [even if] you have to pick up arms against your lates to help in English, is a non-profit organization that former country,” Mukhopadhyay says. “My wife was not provides legal assistance to low-income U.S. immigrants comfortable with it, and I was not very comfortable with from anywhere in the world. it either, but since I was looking for a better salary job, I Those without green cards may have a more difficult did not care at that point.” time obtaining citizenship. Temporary Protected Status Miles-Hare notes that there is no one simple way to (TPS) is granted to people who are facing emergency obtain citizenship. “Immigration law is complicated and situations or upheaval in their home country, such as war convoluted, policy is complicated and convoluted and or natural disaster. As Miles-Hare says, TPS is “renewed constantly changing, and the last thing is, of course, that periodically” and lasts for as long as it takes for one’s the facts change,” she says. “It’s not just a matter of filing country to become safe again. However, TPS alone is your paperwork and getting in line… you can follow all

the rules, and you can still be in a very precarious situation for a number of years.”

Life as a Citizen

To Mukhopadhyay and Rodriguez, citizenship status means additional rights and privileges. To second-generation immigrants like Wondu, however, citizenship is no more than a status on a piece of paper.

“I never really had any setbacks because of my citizenship status,” she says. “It really didn’t make much of a difference other than on the paper.”

Nonetheless, citizenship can provide a feeling of increased security to U.S. residents, particularly in a time when the country faces tension and division surrounding the issue of immigration policy. The Trump administration has established immigration policy as a key part of its political agenda. The administration has banned citizens from eight countries and pushed to end the designation of TPS for citizens from Haiti, Nicaragua, Sudan, and El Salvador. The push, however, was blocked by a court injunction issued to the Department of Homeland Security.

According to Miles-Hare, these proposed policies may force people who have already established lives in the U.S. to leave the country, especially if they are unable to obtain a green card or visa. “If you previously had Temporary Protected Status and it ends, we believe you need to either go home or find another path to legal status,” she says. “We know that a lot of folks cannot go home or it would be incredibly unfair—they’ve been in the states for decades, their children may be citizens, they’ve built lives here, they’ve started businesses.”

Those with TPS are not the only ones who face uncertainty under these new proposals. The Trump administration’s proposal of new immigration policies can be cause for worry, even among permanent residents.

“It’s still a little bit of that fear where [the government has] the power to do something to me, even though I’m legally living here,” Kuo says.

Story by

Amanda Liu Khushboo Rathore Design by Paloma Williams Art by Sally Zhao

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D3 Features

April 3, 2019

Life before the chalkboard

By Teddy Beamer STAFF WRITER

During his senior year at Blair, Kevin Moose had a dilemma. He did not have a clear idea of what he wanted to do after high school and his family, with nine kids, could not afford a higher education for him. Still encouraged to get a college degree, Moose discovered the Military ROTC scholarship. He applied and was accepted. “I received a 4-year army ROTC scholarship, so I went from no plans at all to [picking] any school in the country and go for free,” Moose says.

George Mayo, the CAP 10th grade film teacher and BNC coordinator, had to find work after he dropped out of college. “I always wanted to be a teacher,” Mayo says. “I made some bad choices and didn’t do so well in college and I had to drop out.”

These teachers did not begin their careers at Blair. They came to teach Blazers after years in other professions, bringing insight from their experiences to the classroom.

Moose graduated college in 1980 and enlisted in the military, as was required by his program. After training to be an Air Defense Artillery Officer in Fort Bliss, Texas, and then training to become an Army Ranger in Fort Benning, Georgia, Moose was stationed in West Germany. Three years later, he returned to the U.S. to recieve official officer training and to study language. “We had a great language school in Monterey, California called the Defense Language Institute,” Moose says. “Probably one of the best language schools in the world.” For six months, Moose was paid to study Italian. “My only job was to go to school and learn a foreign language and it was great.”

After commissioning a nuclear missile site in Italy, Moose was sent to northern New York for two years, but was happy to be taken out of his officer position to attend graduate school at Cornell University. “Besides my wedding and the birth of my kids, probably the happiest day of my life [was when] the Pentagon called and said, ‘Do you want to go

to graduate school?’” Moose says. “I said yes before he could even finish his sentence.”

Mayo did not have the same opportunity that Moose did. After dropping out of

MILITARY MAN

until the end of the Cold War, when the Army was asking for voluntary resignations.

Moose returned to Maryland and pursued a new passion: teaching. He taught as a substi-

COURTESY OF KEVIN MOOSE

Moose served in the United States Military as an officer for 12 years.

college, Mayo found work as a custodian, a landscaper, and eventually as a truck driver, which he stuck with for eight years. “I saw truck driving as a way of basically paying my bills and getting myself to where I could support myself,” Mayo says.

Moose continued to serve as an officer

tute teacher at Good Counsel Private School as he attended weekend and summer school to get the proper credits to teach officially.

Eventually, he applied for a job in the Blair Social Studies department and began teaching in the 2000-2001 school year.

Mayo also had to balance work with aca-

demics in order to get his full teaching degree. “The only way to be a teacher is to go to school and get your degree. So I... drove a truck for a construction company during the day in San Diego, and went to school at night for five years to finish my college degree, get my GPA up, cause it was really low, and then to get my teaching degree,” Mayo says.

As an officer, Moose gained many necessary leadership skills which translate well into teaching. “As an officer you’re talking a lot in front of groups of soldiers all the time, so it was no problem for me to come in and publicly speak in front of kids,” he says. However, experience in public speaking is not all it takes to be a teacher. “Some of my friends, they tried teaching, it didn’t work out well.

If you don’t like working with kids, being on your feet, moving around all day, [then it doesn’t work out].”

Additionally, Moose has first-hand experience with the course content when teaching certain classes, particularly 9th grade U.S. History. “Those things I know very well, and the kids get a kick out of hearing that,” Moose says. “I’ll show them pics of me when I was in Italy and Germany, things like that.”

Like Moose, Mayo believes that he learned valuable lessons from his previous professions. “You have to problem solve,” he says. “You’re dealing with all different types of people as well... you just learn how to interact with a larger variety of people in a way that gets you to get things done.”

Mayo prefers working in a school to his time in landscaping and day labor. As a teacher, he gets to work inside, and he does not have to do physical labor to get his pay. “It’s kind of just a nicer, more enjoyable job than truck driving or, you know, literally digging holes,” Mayo says.

Though Mayo has enjoyed the change in scenery, he still embraces and respects those working day-to-day. Having had to work to make ends meet provides Mayo with a different perspective and greater admiration for those who do the same. “No job should be underneath you. You should be able to do any job if you need to pay your bills, to eat, to support yourself.”

Building by the book How Blair meets the legal requirements for school construction

By George Ashford STAFF WRITER

Deep in the Montgomery County Public Schools website, far from the red text of the emergency announcements and the background videos of children participating in educational activities, lies a 59-page document detailing the appropriate methods for constructing the doors of a Montgomery County public high school. Above it, a 56-page document explains the door requirements for Montgomery County public elementary schools, and below it, a much shorter, twopage document details the thickness and type of glass permitted for use in MCPS windows.

These are the ‘Technical Design Guidelines’: the code containing the exact specifications of how MCPS schools are to be constructed and maintained. Every school building in the county must meet the standards outlined in these documents.

According to Gary Mosesman, a Facilities Team Leader at the MCPS Division of Construction, the core aspect of the code is over 700 pages. That document is supplemented by a myriad of other codes, including the International Green Conservation Code, the Maryland Building Rehabilitation Code, and the Americans With Disabilities Act code.

Many of these are written by the International Code Council, an association that creates a building standard used by governments, corporations, and individuals around the world. The state and county government adopt the ICC’s original building code, along with any changes that they think are necessary. “The International Code Council writes the codes, then the state adopts the codes... and then those codes are adopted by the local agency, in our case it’s the Department of Public Services in Montgomery County,” Mosesman says.

The Montgomery County adapted version

of the code consists of four volumes. The first contains the forms and procedures that contractors and the county must complete during the construction of school buildings, while the second delves into the details of construction. The third volume contains the specifications for plumbing, climate control, and other mechanical systems, and the fourth details electrical system guidelines.

Many of the guidelines require that school construction be in line

requires that each building achieve a certain number of points, determined by the LEED standard, to ensure that buildings are constructed sustainably.

All of these documents exist to ensure that school buildings

with a standard called the are conduLeadership in cive to stuEnergy and Envident safety ronmental Design (LEED) and health.

SHASHI ARNOLD Green Building Rating Sys“The building tem. Created by the U.S. Green Building code is... for the life, safety and welfare of Council, the LEED Green Building Rating the occupants. You want to make sure the System is designed to provide a standard for building has a certain level of safety that’s efficient and sustainable construction. MCPS built into it, and that’s the criteria... from the

building code,” Mosesman says.

Most of the guidelines for MCPS buildings are enforced during the design process.

“When we submit a building permit to the Department of Building Services, they review the plans, and our design teams are required to meet the requirements of local codes,” Mosesman says. However, some regular inspections are required to make sure that schools are still up to standard. “When you have the building up and running, then there’s... an ongoing set of requirements under NFPA [National Fire Protection Act] for certain pieces of the building... that have to be reviewed or followed up on an annual inspection,” Mosesman says.

If a school needs improvements, whether to meet the code or just to add a new feature to the building, it falls into the hands of the Department of Facilities Management.

“If we want to modify anything or request improvements, that all goes through facilities management,” James Funk, Blair Business Administrator, says.

Currently, Blair is not scheduled for any major building changes.

“I think [the county] anticipate[s] [Blair] continuing to grow, Funk adds. “The only plan we have right now for handling that growth is the portable classrooms.”

Blair currently has at least one minor violation of MCPS code, although it is not related to construction. Large paper murals on exit doors, such as the ones in the 230s hallway, are a fire safety violation, according to the MCPS website.

Although students might not see it in their everyday lives, the buildings in which they spend much of their day are painstakingly crafted to ensure that they are safe and healthy. For that, they can thank the building code.

April 3, 2019

Features D4

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Not your average science fair

Blair boasts three Regeneron Student Talent Search Finalists from REGENERON page A1

[and] it turns out it’s not optimal just to measure one and measure the other and add them together.

You can use some quantum phenomena to get a more accurate measurement,” Qian says.

The applications of his quantum metrology project span from the potential improvement of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) imaging to code writing and breaking.

“I guess it’s kind of cool that there’s this new field of quantum technology and that you can use these various… unintuitive phenomena to do things better like faster computers, better measurements, better security, [and] better cryptography,” Qian says.

Although the value of his project has been demonstrated, Qian’s work is far from over. This summer he plans to return to the University of Maryland and continue his research on metrology. Wherever Qian ends up taking his talent, he will carry with him more than just valued research from his Regeneron experience.

“I learned a lot about other people’s projects and them themselves so a big thing I took away from [regeneron] was new friends,” he says.

algorithm focused modeling the behavior of these robots as they explored various locations in space.

Such research is generally applied to military ventures, including search and rescue operations.

“In these locations it’s really dangerous to send in human operatives which is kind of what motivates swarms in the first place,” Cai says. “My particular algorithm would basically just help with shelter seeking and risk avoidance when a swarm is going out and doing their job.”

Aside from using the Regeneron competition to explore a novel topic in her field, Cai said that the competition helped her expand her interests beyond computer science. “It kind of just showed me all the different kinds of research there was out there because mainly I do stuff with computer science which is very different than biological or chemical research or even engineering,” Cai says.

To future Regeneron applicants, Cai emphasized the importance of maintaining perspective.

In the end, it’s not about awards, it’s about research.

“Be chill about the awards and stuff. You celebrate doing the research because that’s like the cool part,” Cai says.

Grace Cai

Daniel Schaffer

After hearing about a concept known as swarm intelligence in 11th grade, computer science veteran Grace Cai was inspired to pursue the novel challenge presented by swarm behavior herself.

“When you think swarms, think swarms of ants or bees except instead of those you have robots and

COURTESY OF ANGELIQUE BOSSE

FOR THE FUTURE Seniors Grace Cai, Daniel Schaffer, and Kevin Qian were all finalists for the 2019 Regeneron Science Talent Search. they’re like little drones basically,” Cai says.

What attracted Cai’s attention

was the ability of these swarms to be controlled across various computers rather than just one. Cai’s

Schaffer built off research which he began in 8th grade at the National Institutes of Health for his Regeneron submission. Although he started the project itself in eleventh grade, Schaffer has long been exploring the evolutionary mechanisms of Eukaryotic cells that store calcium.

“Within eukaryotic cells calcium ions are stored in the endoplasmic reticulum and this protects the rest of the cell from toxic concentrations of calcium,” Schaffer said. “My project was about studying the system.”

According to Schaffer, the potential applications of his research are limited, something he fears may have cost him the competition.

“It has applications to our understanding of eukaryotic evolution but that’s not going to help Joe on the street,” he says.

Additionally, Schaffer’s further work with a protein known as Wolframin may have applications to the study of a rare genetic disorder known as Wolfram syndrome.

While Schaffer’s research paper has been years in the making and offers an in-depth look at a captivating scientific phenomenon, his doubts regarding the value of his research and a self-professed “bad track record” with science competitions nearly stopped him from entering the Regeneron talent search. With $25,000 and a finalist medal to his name, Schaffer was “shocked.”

Having sufficiently recovered from this shock, Schaffer reminds high school researchers like himself to be proud of their work, adding that they alone determine their self-worth.

“These science competitions, they provide a measure of your self-worth as a researcher. It’s a bad measure. You shouldn’t listen to it…. The only thing you need to be a good researcher I’d say is really just be curious and keep trying.”

E1 Culture

April 3, 2019

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One twi-LIT night

We re-watched the saga so you don’t have to

By Camden Roberts and Will Donaldson SPORTS EDITOR AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

DONALDSON’S DEN, March 23— With a total runtime of ten hours and eleven minutes, watching all of the “Twilight” saga films is demanding and entertaining, but an experience few people would pay for—much less attend for free. But in order to provide the most insightful commentary on one of our generation’s most recognizable cultural artifacts, we were all on board.* *Editor’s Note: All of senior staff was invited to this event. Somehow, the only ones actually on board were Will Donaldson, Camden Roberts, Arshiya Dutta, and Avery Brooks. Everyone else had flimsy excuses like “a 103-degree fever” or “...playing a concert at Carnegie hall.”

to Bella.

“She doesn’t even say it back!” Arshiya exclaims.

Bella’s dependence on Edward becomes even more worrying. He breaks up with her and she becomes a skeleton. The montage of her in her room for months on end is heartbreaking, but we have little sympathy for her allowing herself to be defined by a

Avery arrives and we catch her up just in time to see Bella’s desperate flight to Italy to try and stop Edward from killing himself because his weird vampire mind-reading told him Bella was dead. “He tried to kill himself because she died? They’ve known each other for maybe a year…” Avery marvels aloud as Edward strips under a clocktower in an Italian city.

Breaking Dawn, parts I and II

Twilight

We begin the first movie at 5:02, reflecting on the impact these movies had when they first came out. Cam recalls desperately wanting to drive a pickup truck, and Will focuses on the inaccurate representation of student journalism. “The feature’s dead, Angela!” the character Eric cries, indicating that he greenlit a feature about a new student’s existence without consent.

An hour into the first film, our fearlessly critical Culture editor Arshiya Dutta arrives.

Little over two minutes into her viewing experience—she has never seen or read Twilight —she cannot keep it in any longer. “You guys, this is a lot worse than I was expecting,” she says. “This is not a real movie.”

Around this part of the movie, Bella and Edward start to flirt in earnest. In their biology class, they express their growing attraction over onion cells with the steamy dialogue of “It’s metaphase. Do you want to check it?” to which Bella, enraptured, replies, “I believe you.”

Hot. With the plot thickening and the sun beginning to set, we use our AP Lang knowledge and one semester of Women’s Studies to dissect the problematic intricacies of the plot, as well as its accompanying symbols.

“The deer,” Cam realizes, “is a metaphor for Bella.”

We note that the camera never shies away from a shot of the moon, another one of the film’s symbols, no matter the context.

The movie glosses over the revelation of Edward’s bloodsucking tendencies, and we find ourselves watching Bella be needlessly cruel to her father.

She runs to Phoenix when she becomes the target of an evil vampire, and gets herself injured mostly because she’s incredibly gullible.

The movie ends with her and Edward at prom, even though she’s “not like other girls” and doesn’t dance. She wears Converse with her dress to drive the point about her individuality home, and also because it’s 2008.

New Moon

With dusk settling in, and our bellies full of pizza, we watch Bella spiral out of control after Edward breaks up with her at the beginning of “New Moon.” “I feel so bad for the dad,” Arshiya swoons. “He’s my favorite character. [Bella] is so selfish.” As soon as she says this, Bella’s father says “I love you”

bears a strong resemblance to Merida, the ginger heroine of Disney’s “Brave” (2012).

Will spends the next five to ten minutes recreating a Scottish accent (“If ye had the chance to change yurr fate, wudj’a?”), and we lose track of the rest of the movie.

Arshiya leaves as it ends, claiming that she needs to get home for an event the next day, but her vagueness leads us to believe that she is merely too weak to finish the saga.

SEOYOUNG JOO

AVERY BROOKS

POWERING THROUGH Cam and Will refuel with Goldfish halfway through New Moon.

man.

As she begins to pull out of her catatonic state, the filmmakers’ creative choices become more and more chaotic. Every time Bella is in real or perceived danger, they superimpose Edward over the scene, telling her to make better choices. The reasoning behind this is unclear, but we hate that she imagines his controlling nature to comfort herself.

She becomes closer with Jacob, because of an apparent inability to exist without a dominant male presence, which if we didn’t know better, would lead us to believe this was written by a man. “She’s like a parasite,” Arshiya remarks as we watch Bella sit uselessly in his garage watching him fix a motorcycle. The only enjoyment we got out of this is when she accidentally agrees to a date with Mike, and as a panic move brings Jacob along, the most relatable part of the series so far.

The werewolf pack is shirtless all the time, ostensibly so that they don’t destroy their clothes when they shift, but we accept the blatant pandering to the film’s audience.

Conveniently, every time the plot starts to drag, Jacob appears, shirtless, and we refocus on the movie.

Possibly the most notable aspect of this movie is her seeming inability to drive her own car. In “Twilight,” we see Edward chauffeur her around in her truck. In “New Moon,” it’s Jacob. Is she allergic to driving?

Is it a commentary on not letting women behind the wheel? Is it meant to represent her parasitic nature?

CAMDEN ROBERTS

SNACKS We prepared ourselves for the marathon with a very serious Safeway trip.

Just as he is about to reveal himself to the human world, and earn a death sentence, Bella leaps into his arms and saves Edward and their relationship.

Eclipse

“Breaking Dawn Part I” opens as Bella and Edward prepare for their wedding. It is the most colorful movie so far, and inexplicably the only one that is full-screen.

As Bella’s mother tearfully sings a lullaby for some reason, Will’s head hits the back of the sofa.

The wedding ends, and we are treated to a honeymoon sequence that feels more graphic than necessary. The blissful island retreat is brought to a screeching halt as Bella realizes she’s pregnant because her period is two weeks late, emphasizing the need for increased health curriculums in public schools. Maybe she just knows her body, but that is not quite delayed enough to justify her certainty.

Cam takes a nap for the rest of Bella’s pregnancy because it is a solid twenty minutes of her getting beaten up from the inside. The movie continues the theme of being far too graphic during the birth scene and we find ourselves full body wincing every time another one of her bones breaks.

The final movie starts, and we are suddenly wide awake, adrenaline pumping, bracing ourselves for the remaining two hours.

The venom that Edward jammed into his dead wife’s heart after she died giving birth kicks in, and she becomes a red-eyed vampire, the thing she’s been whining about wanting to be for the last four movies. The movie’s creative crew chooses to show this

AVERY BROOKS

MS. SWAN HERSELF Our set-up in the Donaldson’s family room, complete with guitar.

Cam is on the floor, breathing deeply.

“My heart is beating really fast right now. I’ve had a lot of coffee today,” she explains. Half of the night’s second iced coffee stood on a coaster feet away. “We’re on track to finish at about 3 a.m.,” Will notes.

Even compared to the others, “Eclipse” is a truly plotless movie. To be fair, we lost track of about half of it by just chatting over the dialogue, but that was because it had lost our interest completely.

On the relationship front, we continue to note how Edward and Bella are terrible to each other (Team Jacob, of course!).

Our favorite relationships in the movies, despite their cover story as foster siblings, are Jasper and Alice, and Carlisle and Esme.

We are distracted from this conversation by the revelation that Jasper was a Confederate soldier.

There seems to be no narrative benefit to this backstory, and we wonder where Stephenie Meyer stands on the Confederate flag debate.

At around 10:30 p.m., Victoria (the bad vampire) reappears and we realize that she

drastic physiological change by… putting eyeshadow on her? She shows an entertaining lack of care about the whereabouts of her baby for a shockingly long time.

When Renesmee—we love the name—appears on screen for the first time, we are distracted from how scary her CGI is by Will’s comment of: “I wonder how many people from our generation will name their baby Renesmee.” Hopefully, none.

Jacob announces that he has imprinted and our opinions are split immediately. Cam believes that it is in fact terrifying that he fell in love with a baby, and Will feels that the thin excuse of “it’s platonic!” is enough to justify the relationship. Bella is the only character who seems to have a reasonable reaction to this, though she seems to be more upset about Jacob nicknaming the baby “Nessie”— ”you nicknamed my baby after the Loch Ness Monster?!” We think it’s a bangin’ nickname, but that may just be us.

“It feels like we’re not done. Like there should be more,” Cam adds. The clock reads 2:36 a.m., and our two “Twilight” saga superfans, together at the end as they were at

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April 3, 2019

Culture E2

Showing off a new career path How television lights up students’ futures

By Uma Gupta STAFF WRITER

Some students may discover their dream job at five years old, when a firefighter waltzes into their kindergarten classroom with a shiny jacket and breathtaking stories. Others may be inspired to pursue the same occupation as a family member after hearing about it at the dinner table. When it comes to selecting a career path, there is no tried and true method guaranteed to work for everyone.

When classroom visits dwindle to a halt and dad’s job seems too boring to even consider, students turn to a novel source for career-related information: television drama.

Through weekly showings or late night Netflix binges, students may travel from the oval office in “The West Wing” to the operating rooms of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital in “Grey’s Anatomy”. Easier than competing for a coveted and selective internship, experiencing different working environments through television dramas gives future members of the workforce a brand new perspective on different career options.

For students like senior Eden Yosefe, career dramas like “Grey’s Anatomy” have had life changing effects. “It completely changed my view of what it means being a doctor. I never wanted to be a doctor but after watching the show for a couple of years I started thinking about it and… now I’m going to be a pre-med freshman,” Yosefe said.

“Grey’s Anatomy” is an emotional saga following a troupe of surgeons as they take on stomach-turning medical emergencies coupled with personal conflicts. Each episode presents a new medical mystery. Be it to treat a high school student trapped in a cube of concrete or to launch a clinical trial aimed

at curing Alzheimer’s, the doctors of Seattle Grace Hospital are always on call. While many aspects of the Seattle Grace surgeons’ lives are exaggerated, artistic license allows shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” to emphasize personal aspects of a medical career that are often missed otherwise.

For Yosefe, this emotion is key. Before watching the show, she said she had never witnessed doctor-patient relationships in such depth.

“The show portrays the relationship between the patient and the doctor completely different from what we think, and I think it’s great,” Yosefe said.

While shows like Grey’s Anatomy may take liberties to spark interest, junior Abby Russell said that for her, watching “The 100”

inspired her to think about being an astronaut because it presented a simplified portrayal of complex issues like the effects of radiation on the human body. “You don’t really hear about people going to space… and I think the TV shows simplifies the actual ideas of being an astronaut,” Russell said.

“The 100” carries viewers to a post-apocalyptic earth, where astronauts rely on skill and bravery to survive. A combination of science and fiction, the show serves to drum up interest in science careers while telling a stimulating story.

Even shows without carefully formulated plot lines, such as “Fixer Upper”, an HGTV series about renovating Texas homes, can ignite curiosity amongst teenagers exploring career options related to housing.

GABE WINSTON-BAILEY

For senior Cierra Belton, the detail-oriented depiction of home renovation in “Fixer Upper” led to her pursuit of architecture and design. “I started watching the show “Fixer Upper” like a few years ago… and it kind of got me interested in architecture and that was what made me kind of pursue [Thomas] Edison and that’s what I’m doing now: studying architecture,” Belton said.

Thanks to an introduction to architecture derived from TV, Belton now studies architecture as a part-time student at Thomas Edison where she gains work experience and specialized qualifications.

Although Russell, Yosefe, and Belton have benefited from these dramatized portrayals of careers, it is important that students take the word of television networks with a grain of salt. According to a survey conducted by Medscape Medical News, 70 percent of doctors view doctor-patient relationships as unethical, unlike many of the surgeons on “Grey’s Anatomy”. Similarly, NASA claims that not all astronauts will have the opportunity to return to Earth thousands of years after its destruction as do those on “The 100”.

While career-based TV shows have the unique ability to transport students from their couches to a world of occupational drama, they also have the potential to mislead eager students.

With this in mind, it is important to balance the work with the play. Career based TV shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and“The 100” all have the potential to ignite a spark within young viewers, something which can change their lives. As long as students glean inspiration and not education from these shows, the power of career dramas will continue to affect Generation Z and beyond for the better.

Q&A with Alex Michell

Blair alum is now a professional actor

How did you become interested in Shakespeare?

By Mira Diamond-Berman STAFF WRITER

I took a class in college, well a Shakespeare class in college, [because] before I hadn’t really understood [Shakespeare]. So just once I had more experience actually studying it, with the knowledge that this is the career that I want to do.

So that’s why I was more serious about it in college than I was in high school, so I really dove in and realized that I just naturally do well with it and that made me like it a lot more. I got to play Romeo in Romeo and Juliet in college. That was pretty awesome.

Probably the highlight.

Alex Michell graduated from Blair in 2014, where he was involved in Blair’s theater productions.

He went to the University of Miami to study theatre and graduated in 2018. Michell is based in New York City, but he recently worked at the Folger Shakespeare theatre in Washington D.C. where he played Ned Spiget in Nell Gwyn.

How were you involved with theatre at Blair?

I took Ms. O’Connor’s acting class as an elective. I was part of Sankofa and the plays at Blair. Theatre at Blair was always a nice group, so it was something that I always associated with positive vibes. I did Les Mis, and I knew that I loved performing in theater. Sankofa was just awesome because I got to play instruments and stuff. Kind of do my own thing, and just get more in touch with my culture, my African roots.

What are the stigmas associated with being an actor?

Why and when did you decide to pursue acting as a career?

There’s no safety. There is no guarantee of staying employed. I was just doing a show at the Folger Theatre which a pretty dope gig, but right now I have nothing lined up. So I just have to keep on auditioning. Stay positive ‘cause for every fifty auditions you have, you only hear back from one, so you have to be able to deal with a lot of rejection. The biggest thing for me is when people ask me what I’m doing and I tell them that I’m doing acting. They think it’s like a cute hobby that I’m doing for the meantime.

You have to be a very strong person, to be able to handle all of the stress.

I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in college, so I just applied to a bunch of different schools for a bunch of different majors.

The University of Miami was the only school I applied to for theater and I got into that program, and I liked the idea of going to a school in Miami.

So I went there, did their BSA program, and probably the first semester of freshman year I knew I was [pursuing an acting career]

That it’s not a real profession and I mean I guess the stereotypes that they show on TV of the weird theatre kids. Just overly dramatic in your normal life. Self-centered sometimes.

What are the difficulties of pursuing acting as a career?

COURTESY OF ALEX MICHELL

for the long run.

I didn’t really think of [acting] seriously as a career until I got into the theatre program at Miami.

Where else have you worked besides the Folger Shakespeare Theatre?

I’m actually based in New York just be-

cause I’m from here and it’s colder [in New York].

I can stay at home which is why I’m actually doing [work at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre].

But before this I was doing other shows.

I’ve done a lot of extra work in D.C. I’ve worked on the new Wonder Woman movie that they’re filming in D.C. And then in New York, just a lot of short films.

E3 Culture

Behind the screens

International Newsbriefs

How female gamers face in-game sexism

Ethiopian Airline plane crash MARCH 10 - A passenger aircraft operated by Ethiopia’s top national carrier crashed, killing 157 people.

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said that the company will work with investigators in Ethiopia, the United States, and elsewhere to investigate flight 302.

Ethiopian Airlines is arguably the biggest aviation brand in Africa, but the crash put the company’s reputation and safety record into the spotlight.

The Boeing 737 Max has suffered three major crashes in 70 years—a Lion Air flight using the same aircraft crashed in similar circumstances in October, potentially diverting criticism away from Ethiopian Airlines.

New Zealand gun laws strengthened less than a week after shooting MARCH 17 - New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced a ban on assault and semi-automatic weapons less than a week after a white nationalist killed 50 people in two mosques in Christchurch.

The sale of high-capacity magazines and bump stocks, which allow semi-automatics to fire like automatics, will also be made illegal. These measures are to be implemented virtually immediately.

To remove weapons from public access, the government will implement a gun buyback program for military-style semiautomatic (MSSA) weapons.

The prime minister’s cabinet will continue to make decisions on issues surrounding gun licensing, registration, and storage.

The two semi-automatic rifles used by the Christchurch shooter were purchased legally online.

Arrest order issued for Brazil former president MARCH 21 - Former Brazilian President Michel Temer was arrested on corruption charges.

Judge Marcelo Breitas issued an arrest order for the ex-president as well as former Cabinet minister and Temer ally Moreira Franco and eight others.

According to the prosecutors, construction company Engevix paid Temer bribes to build a nuclear power plant in the city of Angra dos Reis in the southern part of Rio de Janeiro.

Prosecutors told reporters that the former president had engaged in pay-for-play deals involving hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes since the 1980s.

Throughout his presidency, Temer was charged three times by the attorney general for corruption and obstruction of justice.

He left office on Jan. 1 and no longer has the partial immunity to avoid prosecution but continues to deny any wrongdoing.

International Newsbriefs compiled by Amanda Liu

April 3, 2019

silverchips

By Kie Donovan STAFF WRITER

Video games have left a lasting mark on 21st century pop culture.

To the generations raised on them, video games continue to provide them with iconic moments, thrilling experiences, and plain old fun.

However, in recent years, the gaming industry has been criticized for sexism against women, from character design, to writing, to marketing. The legitimacy of these claims continues to be disputed by the gaming community, with no consensus in sight.

In August 2014, the gaming community erupted in reaction to what would come to be known as the Gamergate controversy.

This controversy began when an exboyfriend of female game developer Zoe Quinn alleged that she had performed sexual favors for industry professionals and journalists in order to further her career. In the following weeks and months, she received online rape and death threats from some gamers who identified with the #gamergate movement.

The movement was supposedly organized to demand higher ethical standards in game journalism in response to the situation with Quinn.

However, the threats that Quinn received, along with many Gamergaters’ perception that game journalists favor games with heavy feminist or “Social Justice Warrior” (SJW) themes, have contributed to gaming’s misogynistic reputation.

Whether this reputation is warranted and if game journalism is guilty of such a bias varies widely between circles in the gaming community.

The conflict that emerged between gamers and game journalists in 2014 cannot be overlooked.

Many members of the gaming community do not trust game journal-

By Arshiya Dutta CULTURE EDITOR

Arshiya’s Aesthetic is a monthly column where Culture editor Arshiya Dutta expresses her opinions on anything and everything culture and entertainment.

The importance of representation in the media is a topic that cannot be overstressed. In such a media-driven world, it is crucial that everyone, no matter what their ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation is, is represented on screen.

However, as an Indian-American, I have always struggled with identifying with the characters in the films and television I watched. What was probably worse to see were

Ever since Gamergate, a chief concern about sexism in gaming has been the over-sexualization of female characters. Gaming is still male-dominated, with men representing 56% of the game-playing population and 59% of game-purchasing population in the United States, according to the Entertainment Software Association.

Consequently, many female characters are over-sexualized to appeal to the male demographic.

Sophomore and gamer Nathan Waldman has observed the discrepancy in how male and female

character design and is present in multiplayer gameplay.

In particular, he cited an instance in which a female gamer he knew who displayed skill in a match faced backlash from a m a l e counterpart who could not believe that she was female. “[She] was playing Overwatch [as the character] Zarya, and she was doing pretty well inthis match, and one of her teammates did not believe it was her because he was like, ‘No, there’s no way you are playing Zarya that well, is your boyfriend on the controls or something like that,’” Waldman says. “It was really insulting

to her because she was like, ‘No, I put in the hours on Zarya, I know how to do this.’”

Ariana Carbonell, a female coach at The Game Gym, an esports training center in Potomac, added that oftentimes, male gamers do not understand how demeaning these comments are to their female counterparts.

“There’s small offhand comments… that a lot of guys don’t ‘get.’

I’ve had, a lot of times, complete strangers that I’ll play a game with, [and] they’ll tell me afterwards, ‘oh, you’re a lot better than I expected you to be,’ or ‘you know more than I thought you would,’” she says.

Occurrences like those Waldman and Carbonell recalled are not uncommon in the gaming community, and in order to avoid them, female gamers will often masquerade as males in-game.

Female gamers may also assume that other gamers in a multiplayer setting are male, even if this is not always the case.

Waldman attributes such phenomena to the maledominated nature of the industry. “I think [that]... everyone, even people like me who try to be progressive in the way they think about games, associate gaming with young men,” he says.

But game developers are not powerless against sexism in gaming; in fact, many have already taken action to combat it and foster more positive gameplay, as Waldman also points out.

“I think a great example of a robust reporting system is Overwatch.

Not only can you report a toxic player, you can also award people for positive play… I definitely think there are ways for developers to encourage positive play and discourage negative things, negative attitudes, [and] toxic behavior,” he says.

Carbonell thinks that other prominent gamers could play a role in this, as well.

“I think the real solution would be in community leaders, like tournament organizers and top players, just holding people to higher standards, speaking out about issues like this,” she says.

the Asian characters who fit a very singular stereotype-- the quiet nerd, the “funny character” with the heavy accent, the taxi driver, the cashier-- the list goes on.

Asian characters are statistically underrepresented in films and television. According to a study done in 2017 by University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Asian Americans only comprised 4.8 percent of all speaking characters in Hollywood movies. The same study shows that only 1 percent of all leading roles in film are are Asian characters.

Of those very few roles, only one Asian actor has ever won an Academy Award for best actor, Ben Kingsley (whose father is half Indian). Clearly, there is an issue when there are 20,416,808 Asian Americans in the United States as of 2015.

On-screen underrepresentation spreads the message that minorities’ stories do not deserve to be told. Entirely excluding Asian perspectives perpetuates the idea that

they are simply non-existent and unimportant.

Beyond the issue of ignoring Asian people in the media, there is a more extreme practice that Hollywood has also dabbled in: Yellowface. In the classic movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” we can see a prime example of what is now called Yellowface, or where white actors use costumes, makeup, and prosthetics to appear as if they are Asian. Mickey Rooney, a white actor, portrayed Holly Golightly’s Japanese neighbor Mr. Yunioshi, a man with a loud and thick Japanese accent. This is similar to blackface, where white characters use makeup and costuming to appear black.

Historically, Yellowface was common because of a set of codes that were put into place which restricted the portrayal of any interracial relationships between characters on screen, called the Hays Code. This kept the majority of roles from being open to minority actors.

Obviously, these codes are outdated and have been abolished,

but their effects are still apparent to this day. Hollywood has a rather unpleasant tendency to primarily cast white people while whitewashing minority roles.

In the Hawaii-set film, Aloha, director Cameron Crowe cast Emma Stone to play a Hawaiian woman Allison Ng, along with Bradley Cooper and Rachel McAdams to star in the film.

In films like “50 First Dates,” “The Descendants,” “Blue Crush,” and “Pearl Harbor,” directors have similarly used the setting of Hawaii (which is 70 percent non-white), while casting white people to play lead roles.

Despite Hollywood’s blunders of the past, there has been a recent uptick in the portrayal of Asian Americans as lead roles with the rise of films like “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and “Crazy Rich Asians”. But Hollywood cannot stop there. As the Asian population continues to rise in the United States, so should the representation of Asian characters on screen.

ists to represent the industry or its problems without attacking gamers through the lenses of a political agenda.

Even so, the Gamergate controversy and the media coverage it received were instrumental in bringing discussions about sexism in gaming to the forefront of the community.

characters are designed in the games he has played.

“A lot of the time… when [video game] designers say, ‘hmm, we want a nice armor set for a male character,’ in a fantasy game, for instance, they make that a super bulky armor set, and then [they] say, ‘okay, we want a nice female armor set,’ and then they make it bikini armor,” he says.

He also noted that the sexism goes far beyond

KELLEY LI

April 3, 2019

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Archives

E4 Culture

Edited by Miranda Rose Daly, Avery Brooks, and Camden Roberts

SHE PUTS THE ‘ACK’ IN ACADEMIC Nov. 8, 2002

In Silver Chips’ 81st year, we will be continuing the tradition of our dear predecessors by going through our archives and finding the best, most timely, and most local stories.

We, however, will be presenting them by section, not by year. Without further ado, our favorite culture stories.

YOU’RE ADORABLE! OHHH! GEORGE! June 10, 1949

Joan Carl

To begin with, like most people, Joan was born. It all happened in the great state (to quote Joan) of Pennsylvania, December 6, 1930.

When asked how she liked Blair, Miss Carl just smiled, as only she can smile, and said, “Fine, just fine”.

Acting is the main ambition of Blair’s beauteous “Queen.” Stage, screen, radio, who’s particular. She plans to enter Catholic University to study drama.

As for a perfect date, Joan Constance Carl admits there’s that certain fellow! As Joan says, “He’s just tall, dark, and mighty handsome”, and I might add a second year man at West Point (nuff said?).

Aside from acting, Don, collecting records, and modeling, Joan’s pet passions are pink, steak, and ice cream (not together) and spaghetti.

As for historical events in Joan’s life, there are but three, but very exciting -- winning the title “Queen of Blair”, the best looking girl in the senior class.

Joan hasn’t travelled much as [cut out], but she plans to travel as much as possible before she gets married.

George Candish

Don’t fret, girls, I haven’t forgotten about the best looking boy in the senior class. Now as for George, he was born, too -- in Grand Island, Nebraska, August 10, 1931.

George Wallace Candish lived in Ohio, where he attended Worchester High School and finally in 1947 he enlightened the fair community of Silver Spring with his presence and chose Blair as his school.

George’s likes are the friendly atmosphere at Blair, the color royal blue, and blondes about 5’8” with a good figure, good personality, real pretty blue eyes, and a disposition that makes them easy to get along with. His pet peeves are limited to conceited people, and teachers who pile on homework.

(He couldn’t mean Blair teachers?)

George, like Joan, hasn’t any definite plan for the future. He may, as he blunty puts it, “Marry a rich widow, or just a plain but beautiful and gorgeous blonde, who likes to dance in the moonlight to a real smooth orchestra (Oh! I forgot to mention, she can pay for it too), or he might even continue playing (?) his drums in a dance band, or continue eating his favorite food, steak and french fries (what! all your life?) or, just continue living (any resemblance to a bum is purely coincidental, and I might add, you can blame it all on his friend (?) Don Arminger. I interviewed George via Don -- the above result.

But seriously, George is a great guy, a member of the Band, Library Club, Student Council, and Dance Committee.

Blair seniors Joan Carl and George Candish pose to acompany the story on the left.

afternoon or evening dance without esWHY WE’RE NAMED MONTcorts to which only Bliss boys will be invited GOMERY BLAIR is now being formed. Girls interested in the March 6, 1952 Have you ever stopped to wonder why our school is called “Montgomery Blair”?

Why aren’t we Eastern Suburban High School or Silver Spring High School, or why don’t we bear the name of the creek bordering the school grounds, the Sligo?

In 1936, before the school was dedicated, the Board of Education asked for a name for the new school in the suburbs of Washington. The students disliking “Eastern Suburban High School” as our school moniker, suggested and voted upon the names Sligo, Parkside, Greenwood, Montgomery Blair and Broome. The latter name was suggested by the Student Council in honor of the County Superintendent of Schools, but Dr. Broome refused to allow his name to be used.

The second choice, Montgomery Blair, was voted upon and acclaimed unanimously.

The Board of Education then approved the name.

GIRLS PLAN DANCE FOR BLISS SAILORS May 29, 1942 Blairites are “going all out for victory” by participating in a program designed to afford recreation and pleasure for the one hundred sailors at the Bliss Electrical School taking special courses. Joan Foley, the school secretary, has charge of arrangements for a tea dance to be held some time before school closes and for other social activities to continue into the summer.

A list of girls willing to attend an informal

program should see Joan Foley as soon as possible.

The dances will be chaperoned by teachers and parents and no Blair boys will be permitted to attend.

ST. VALENTINE DAY BRING WEDDINGS; ENGAGEMENTS February 11, 1949 Valentine’s Day brings forth thoughts of love and romance, and right in the spotlight is Blair’s first Honor Society president, Martha Barber ‘45, who recently announced her engagement to DeWitt Montgomery of Springfield, Illinois. College and is now a senior at Bryn Mawr.

A spring wedding is forecast for my Phoebe Overdorff ‘48, and Jimmy Harris of Laurel, Maryland.

Phoebe is now employed in the proof department of the American Security and Trust Company. Mr. Harris, who served in Pacific with the Sixth Marine Division, is employed

by PEPCO. Another engaged alumna is Lucia Ford, a junior at Maryland University and a member of Alpha Xi Delta Sorority. Her future husband is Leonard Strott, a graduate junior at University of Maryland, where she is a member of Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity.

Recently married were Jean Baxter and Ralph Peltcher. After graduating from Blair, Ralph attended Colorado State College of Education and served with the Eighth Army Air Force. He is now attending Maryland University.

INTRODUCTION OF WEIGHTED GPA November 24, 1982

STUDENTS OWE SCHOOL $79,228 Feb. 13, 2003 Nearly half of all Blair students had outstanding financial obligations that totalled $79,228 as of Feb. 10. This figure exceeds the previous record set at the end of first semester last year by more than $25,000.

Herein, the columnist is offered a coveted space in a practice session for Blair’s highly esteemed It’s Academic team, tries to prove the superiority of her mental strength and learns the futility of such an endeavor.

I’m shaking with anticipation as I await the next question. Blair’s It’s Academic!

Team surrounds me in their practice room and I know I can’t let them down.

The words form in my mouth and I let them spill out. I just hope I don’t embarrass myself.

“Who invented lightning?” I ask, and look expectantly at the team surrounding me.

Yes, I’ve been given the esteemed privilege of testing the knowledge of some of Blair’s brightest, and uh, most bright students.

I’m sitting in on one of their mind-bending practice sessions, and before the real practice starts, I have the chance to warm up our big-brained Blazers with some practice questions.

“What’s hair for?” I ask. After a frenzy of whispering and conferring, they come up with “to put under your hat.” Okay, that was pretty good. But I’m not satisfied.

“What is the value of pi?”

Sophomore Saul Kinter, who is next to me, buzzes in immediately. “3.141592--” “Sorry, time’s up,” I say. Another point for me, I think smugly.

“Who invented the shoe?” I throw them an easy one.

After the hubbub quiets down (I swear I heard “Julius Caeser” in there somewhere), someone buzzes in with “the little elves in the story.” I stare blankly ahead as they convulse with laughter. Apparently I am the only person who’s never heard of a folk tale involving elves and shoes. My ignorance aside, they still got the answer wrong: it was Robin Hood.

They seem to be getting a little antsy for the “official” more “legitimate” questions, so I decide to let them start their practice.

I make the switch from judge to contestant by doodling furiously in my notebook as the group sponsor, David Swaney, prepares to ask the questions. I’ve even been given a buzzer. I’ve never felt smarter in my life. Immediately I am lost in a sea of intelligence.

Swaney starts to list names, and suddenly someone buzzes in with the answer “ESPN.” A follow-up question asks us to identify the world headquarters of this organization.

After a few false answers, I decide it’s safe to yell the obvious location.

“Alaska!” I say after buzzing in. Kinter leans over and patiently explains that we get only one chance to buzz in per question, so my answer wouldn’t have been counted even if it were right. This makes no sense to me.

Who is this “we” he’s talking about? Eventually it dawns on me.

“Is this three teams?” I ask.

He sighs. “Yes,” he says, looking pointedly at the three teams with tallies written on the whiteboard in front of us, which up until now, I had never noticed.

Columnist Sally Colwell confers with two members of Blair’s It’s Academic! team before buzzing in for a practice question in an attempt to prove her intellectual superiority.

In an effort to encourage more students to take advanced level courses, the board of education has voted to add one quality point to normal grade values in any course designated as honors or advanced placement. Additionally, if a student takes an honor or advanced placement course it will be indicated on his report cards and transcripts.

April 3, 2019

silverchips

E5 Chips Clips

Seconds Away

by Erik Agard (Class of ‘11) and the Blair Puzzle Lords 20. Revised by more than one 22. T-bone or hangar 24. Like someone who often gets a sore “I” 25. *Place for cabooses 27. NBAer Darren Collison 28. *L, M, N, and O 31. ___ agent 32. What all Blair Seniors and Juniors should be doing the week of May twentieth 36. Vase 37. Tie breaker?

38. Chip with cheese 41. Maryland or Virginia to Emil 42. Muslim congresswoman (one of two) 46. Chest duo 50. Unpleasant underarm mark 51. For in Mexicali 52. “I’m in!”

53. *Label on a gift 55. *What you are solving this puzzle with 56. Example 57. Mailed 58. Dwarfed planet (not Pluto) 59. Dir. from Stockholm to Warsaw 60. US gov’t identification 61. How to do well in class

Across

9. Crow’s speech 12. Manilla resident 1. Slimy critters in bed 13. *What you might do in 6. FX TV show on which Michael English Chiklis played Dell Toledo

Sudoku (hard) COURTESY OF WEBSUDOKU

15. ____ Guthrie 16. Gold. Goph in academia 17. “I’m ____ human” 18. Predator of zebras 19. Hotel for a rich fellow

Down 1. Things found on a cowboy boot 2. What a quantity approaches, in math

3. Make one 4. Surname in España 5. E.g. toilet for can 6. Character in Meyer books 7. Starting from now 8. Place for hair care 9. Give what for 10. Soothing plant 11. Seven from long ago 14. Clairol sells them 15. Battle Angel from the cinema 21. Guacamole or tzatziki 23. Dr. ____ from Comedy Central 24. Horse for thou 26. Cardinals: ___:: Red Sox: BOS 28. When to eat a panini 29. Troy NY sch. with STEM students 30. One with thrift 32. Candies from the South 33. Place for a house 34. Spoken, not written up 35. One of eight born to a mother 36. Stands for a camera (two less than a tri-) 39. It’s “tiene que” in La Paz 40. Can, province 43. Dolts 44. Land forms in a wet area 45. Many srcs. for a reporter 47. Micronesian isle 48. Desire for wealth 49. Like a teen who mouths off to you 54. Loc. for climbing 55. Sends a duplicate message

*Note: This is a special kind of a puzzle called a “meta crossword.” There is a secret answer to be discovered. When you find it email it to puzzlepalooza@gmail.com

Check our Twitter (@Silver_Chips) on Friday, April 5th to see the answers to the crossword.

SPRING SAYINGS

SEOYOUNG JOO

April 3, 2019

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AD F1

F2 Sports

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A day in the lift

By Elias Chen STAFF WRITER

Tucked away in a back corner of Blair, all the way down the athletics hallway, past the locker rooms, hidden beside two exits and a stairwell is a jungle of iron and muscle. Chalk flies as metal collides against the metal with each new 45 lbs. plate loaded onto the barbell. Sweat beads on the ground as the next set begins. The usual claustrophobia of legions of sports teams is gone. It is 6 p.m. on a weekday, and only a few teachers and coaches stand around the room, working on their daily reps.

The weight room, much like the athletes who inhabit it, is always on its grind. Whether it’s in the dark hours before the day’s first bell, or in the quiet moments after all athletic and extracurricular events have ended, the weight room’s doors are always open to those who ask. “That’s the thing, it’s never closed,” McMahon says.

Every period of every day, the weight room is filled with students ready to lift and learn. “During the day we teach during fifth and sixth lunch and during all periods of the day,” McMahon explains, prepar-

ing for his sixth period weight training class, “[As well as] before school and afterschool for three hours.”

These unconventional times have made the weight room home to unconventional lifters looking to catch a daily workout. Students who do not belong to an athletic team and would not otherwise have access to the weight room are welcome at any time.

“One of my favorite things is me and Mr. Charles and Ms. Roberts teaching all these weight training classes, there’s a lot of kids who come and bring their friends in afterschool and then they teach them some stuff,” McMahon says.

“It’s nice for me to be able to see my kids want to get more in weight training class by coming in after school, or just some kids who want to stay out of trouble and workout, who want a place to go.”

Most recently, this sense of inclusion has expanded through a new initiative for an all women weight lifting session during the week after school. The head of the program, physics teacher and coach of the girls’ basketball, lacrosse, and JV soccer teams, Amy Ferguson, says the idea began in order to provide space for female athletes of multiple teams, in and offseason, to work

LUCY MARTIN

PUMPING IRON Girls’ lacrosse player Olivia Hardwick works the weight ropes during the all female weight lifting session.

together and improve in the weight room. “I just want to improve female sports at Blair,” Ferguson says. “A lot of these girls, they’re three-sport athletes, two-sport athletes. So we can’t just have basketball, we can’t just have it one sport.

I think the female community needed to get stronger in athletics.”

Additionally, Ferguson is working to dismantle the stereotypes which permeate the weight room in order to create a more comfortable and healthy environment for female lifters. “Some other girls are like ‘I don’t know how to use the weight room, I’m afraid of lifting weights. That’s a guy thing to do,’ so I just want strengthen them and empower them that they can do that,” Ferguson says.

For the female athletes who arrive ready to work out, this atmosphere can be a refreshing breath of air in a room hazy with toxic masculinity. “This all female lift is actually amazing, because when I lift in class, I lift in 6th period every day too, I’m one of three girls in that class,” sophomore Emma Smith, a field hockey player and regular lifter, says. “I don’t get a lot done because I feel as though I am looked down on, and I have to prove myself as a stronger person in that class because I feel like I’m comparing myself to the guys in that class.”

According to Smith, making space for an environment without the constant pressure of male lifters is key to creating a comfortable weight room. “When I went to this female lift it was a lot,” Smith says.

“I felt a lot more comfortable with these other girls who were also at the same strength level as me and I wasn’t trying to compete with them.”

For coaches like McMahon and Ferguson, making the weight room a place where all students, athlete or not, can feel accepted and welcomed is an intensely personal endeavor. “This is my fourteenth year here at Blair, and when I first came into Blair, I would open the weight room after school,” McMahon says. “It’s a nice place to go, it’s like a club. Eligibility rules don’t apply. As long as you’re dressed right, acting right and lifting right, you’re welcome to come.”

April 3, 2019

“Camden’s Yard” is a monthly column where sports editor Camden Roberts expresses an opinion on current events in sports.

The Orioles of last year were ing if not stubborn and I do love historically bad. This year, maybe my name, but the fact remains that if we’re lucky, they won’t be. In a they’ve been embarrassing me for desperate attempt to kickstart a years. rebuild, they traded almost every And for all of those painful decent player they had. Jonathan years, Adam Jones has been my faSchoop went to Milwaukee for a vorite player. Good but not a showmediocre second baseman and a boat, humble but unafraid to speak prospect, and Machado went to LA his mind, and above all, someone for, shockingly enough, prospects. who really seemed to care about First of all, the silver lining is that Baltimore, both the team and the they almost definitely cannot get city. He assumed a leadership role worse. Second, their list of pros- pretty much as soon as he cracked pects is stacked, starting with Yus- the roster eleven years ago and his niel Diaz and Ryan Mountcastle. community service is almost unparDiaz is an outfielder who came over alleled. in the Machado trade, is 22 and has In Mullins’ debut, I watched been lighting up Spring Training. Jones pass the torch, pushing MullMountcastle’s position is still a little ins out of the dugout first, in a place unclear but he started workouts as that had been his for as long as anya first baseman. one could remember. He was beWhile not technically a pros- ing the bigger man, respecting an pect, center fielder Cedric Mullins organization that had never seemed is a young powerhouse. He took to respect him back, but he was over for the much beloved Adam also showing his leadership a final Jones last August, and was incred- time. It would have been so easy ibly consistent for the rest of the for him to step out first as he jogged season. He hit a double in his first to right field, not center. Instead he major league at-bat, and the Orioles welcomed Mullins, introduced the JOO still lost SEOYOUNG 19-12. Nevertheless, it felt rookie to Camden Yards as somelike a turning point. one to be respected.

I’ve been an Orioles fan my The Orioles are serious about whole life. I was named after them, this rebuild. They have to be, to and in recent years they’ve been re- trade Machado and leave Jones unflecting badly on me. It’s not fun to signed.

Mullins stepping out of that dugbe in Boston, and have to explain that you were named after the grass out signaled the start of the new that baseball’s worst team plays era. That RBI double (hopefully) on. I still do, because I am noth- showed us what it’ll look like.

Blair Baseball’s defensive troubles lead to Clarksburg win

By Prayag Gordy STAFF WRITER

The Blazers fell to Clarksburg 8-4 in an almost three-hour long game Thursday for a 0-3 record.

Clarksburg began the game by running up sophomore Jacob Warren’s pitch count.

After a missed fly ball in right field allowed one run to score, Warren bounced back with a strikeout to end the inning.

In the bottom half of the first, Clarksburg managed a three up, three down inning.

Warren continued to struggle in the second. After a mound visit and another walk, he was replaced with senior William Donaldson. The first batter he faced managed a sacrifice fly to right field, allowing a third run.

Donaldson hit the following batter, placing runners at the corners with one out. A few pitches later, sophomore catcher Jason Lott attempted to throw out the runner stealing second, but a dropped catch led to a fourth Clarksburg run. After another walk, Blair turned a double play to end the inning.

The Blazers entered their half of the second down 4-0. With two runners on base; a wild pitch allowed sophomore Charlie Wiebe to score Blair’s first run. Sophomore shortstop Julian Heppen-Ibanez struck out to end the frame as the game hit the onehour mark.

The top of the third began with another error, as sophomore second baseman Oliver Goldman lost a popup in the lights, dropping it and allowing the runner to reach

first. After Donaldson quickly finished the inning, Goldman, Warren, and Donaldson all struck out to end the bottom half.

As Clarksburg’s bench got louder, so did their bats. A dropped flyball to senior center fielder Noah Stern put a runner on second with one out; an error on a ground ball to third left runners on the corners. Donaldson gave up a hard two-run single and was replaced.

To start the bottom of the fourth, sophomore Braden Iwamoto walked. After a single and a wild pitch put runners at second and third with one out, the Blazers scored two runs on sophomore Luis Noda’s single.

The fifth began with a walk and a strikeout, followed by a popup that almost resulted in a collision between Heppen-Ibanez and Goldman. The softball team—which had just mercy ruled Clarksburg—yelled from the stands for the team to communicate more.

Two singles and an error allowed the Coyotes’ seventh run to score, followed by a strikeout to end the side.

Blair’s bench was regaining some energy, and after a walk, a single, and an error, sophomore Yujin Sasaki struck out to end the inning, leaving the bases loaded.

Heppen-Ibanez dropped a popup at short to start the sixth inning. A few batters and one run later, Lott picked off a runner at third as Blair fans cheered.

After a wild pitch advanced another runner to second, Lott picked him off, too.

“They just made some awesome plays in the field, picking off those runners, really stepping up their defense,” Blair physics

teacher and basketball and lacrosse coach Amy Ferguson said.

The final inning began about two-anda-half hours into the game as junior Raffa Perez entered at pitcher. His first batter hit a popup in foul territory, about halfway to third base. Perez ran over to make the catch, though he failed to call the ball and almost

collided with two other players as Blair softball yelled advice from the stands again.

The Blazers managed to piece together a single and a deep double from Wiebe to score a run, but still lost 8-4.

Blair’s next home game is on April 5 versus Springbrook at 7pm.

GOING DOWN SWINGING Varsity baseball gathers for ing on the field during a game against Clarksburg

DEDE GREENFIELD

a team meeton March 29.

April 3, 2019

silverchips

Sports F3

Snow much fun

Middle and high school youth in the Takoma Ski Club

By Teddy Beamer STAFF WRITER

When freshman Rosie Byler skis, she is able to free herself from the stress that she faces. “Skiing distracts me from everything that’s going on,” she says. Byler joined the Takoma Park Ski Club as a seventh grader at Takoma Park Middle School. Junior Nick Beaupre also joined Ski Club when he was in seventh grade, after he moved to Takoma Park from Vermont. As a new student, he heard about it from new friends he met at school. “I heard a lot about it at school,” Beaupre says. Fellow junior Andrew Blower joined at the same time. “My brother had done it, and I was like, ‘Alright I figure it’s a good opportunity for me to get better [at skiing],” Blower says, “[and] just to have fun.”

Ski Club was founded in 2005 as a group of loosely organized students going to the same ski resort in separate cars, just for fun.

16 years later, its popularity has grown to include more than 200 kids—both middle and high schoolers—and requires four busses to accommodate all participants. “We sold out in one day. 225 seats,” Ski Club lead coordinator and physical education teacher at Takoma Park Middle School Bryan Baker said of the most recent trip.

In 2009, Montgomery County cut funding for all ski and snowboarding clubs, causing many ski clubs around the county to close for good. However, former leader Bryan Goehring was able to restart it as a non-profit, sending proceeds to the Special Olympics.

Each season, the organization raises between $4,000 and $7,000 for the Special Olympics.

Goehring stepped down from his position as leader of the club in 2015, so Baker stepped up. When Baker took over, he made several changes, including opening the club to students from schools other than TPMS and Blair. This allowed skiers and snowboarders from Einstein, Northwood, and BCC, among others, to join the trips.

Baker believes that the inexpensive nature of the club is what attracts many families into joining. “If you look on the website, we’re the cheapest [club in the area],”

Baker says. “And we do more trips than the other clubs.” Each trip costs about $185-195 per participant, which is divided into transportation, club dues, and a donation. To keep costs low, they rely heavily on donations from the community and on volunteer chaperones to make sure the operations run smoothly. To express gratitude to those who go out of their way to make sure the opera-

nical, trick-based skiers and snowboarders who like to learn slides, grinds, and jumps.

The park is made of “jumps and rails and boxes and things like that,” Blower says.

The other alternative for the slopes is relaxation at the lodges that are built at the ski resorts. Here, skiers and snowboarders can buy hot chocolate, rest, and take a break from the winter chill.

tions run smoothly, Baker gives tokens of his appreciation. “I try to get my chaperones little gifts, even the people who work at the mountain who help us out,” Baker says.

Having a ski club in Maryland comes with its own set of challenges. The lack of elevation combined with warm weather makes for some less-than-ideal conditions, which is why other ski clubs in the area have more expensive trips to places like Colorado. “The snow isn’t [usually] very good around here,” Beaupre says. “The actual slopes aren’t that fun.” This leads Beaupre and Blower to leave the slopes and practice their skills at the terrain park, their favorite part of the mountain. The terrain park is for more tech-

Ski Club is unique to other sports clubs because of the relatively unsupervised nature of the club. After checking in with chaperones once skiers reach the mountain, they have free range to spend their time on the slopes, at the terrain park, or in the lodge.

“You have to check in with the chaperones every time but other than that you can kind of just go off on your own and have fun and ski by yourself or with your friends,” Beaupre says. This freedom is what many of the club members appreciate about the club.

The busses that students ride up the mountains follow this unstructured style. Students are allowed to choose which bus they ride, with whichever of their friends they want.

Generally, the busses are split up by age groups, with older high school students taking up two busses and middle schoolers taking up the other two.

This physical divide of ages is an indicator of the separation between the high school and middle school students. The age difference can be intimidating to some of the younger members of the club, but as they grow older, more friendships are made.

“When I first started, I kind of only talked to a few people,” says freshman Rosie Byler. “But as I got older and went to the club more often, I met more people and got to know different people in different grades and from different schools”.

Despite the warm weather, Ski Club remains a positive experience for all who participate. Students enjoy it enough to continue into high school, even though the conditions can be sub-par, because they feel welcome and cared for by the Ski Club staff.

“Our club is for the community,” Baker says. “And we want to be open to all kids from different backgrounds, financial backgrounds, and unite them with skiing is what we aim to do.”

SEOYOUNG JOO

Scan QR code to see some epic shredding footage of Skiers from Ski Club

F4 Sports

silverchips

Don’t be a bad sport

April 3, 2019

A deep dive into the worst sports to watch on television

By Ethan Park STAFF WRITER

AN OPINION

Here in America, we really love to watch sports. Heck, we even have a whole section dedicated to them in this newspaper. However, with sports like basketball and football dominating the conversation, it is clear that not all sports have equal entertainment value in America’s high-action, eye-catching, cash-grabbing sports broadcasting culture.

The average sports fan loves the mainstream highlights - LeBron James dunking, Patrick Mahomes throwing a no-look pass, Bryce Harper hitting a home run.

However, not many people talk about bowler Jason Belmonte winning the Professional Bowlers Association (PBA) Tournament of Champions, or Wang Zhen winning gold in the 2016 Olympic Men’s 20 kilometer Race Walk event.

Thus starts this exploration into the dark corners of SportsCenter and Fox Sports, a journey into the world of the worst sports to watch on television.

Stay in your lane

The stage is set. The pins are up. The bowlers are ready to roll.

Under the bright lights of the PBA Tournament of Champions, a prize of $50,000 is at stake.

In one lane sits Jason Belmonte, the “legendary” bowler from Australia, who is trying to cement his place in the halls of bowling legends. In the other lane sits E.J. Tackett, the underdog from Indiana, who looks more like a disgruntled 8th grade substitute teacher than a professional athlete.

Their skill is impressive, to say the least. With technique straight out of Wii Sports they rack up strikes and spares with ease. As impressive as it is, however, the repetition makes it almost unbearable to watch on television. They often bowl only one of two outcomes - a strike or a spare - and the other outcomes are even more uninteresting.

Somehow, the most entertaining part of the sport is reading the names bestowed upon each of the bowlers’ beloved

balls. With names like “Crux Prime,” “Phaze II,” and “HyRoad Nano,” it would not be surprising if these balls transformed into sentient

humanoid robots and joined the likes of Optimus Prime and Megatron in the next Transformers movie.

By the middle of the match, Belmonte is ahead by a sizable margin, and Tackett has no hope of coming back. Belmonte bowls his last spare, and the commentator expresses his excitement by shouting “Skinny jeans! He’s got it!”

Given that Belmonte is, in fact, not wearing skinny jeans, I was not sure whether or not this is some type of common colloquialism in the pro bowling community.

This dive into the world of professional bowling was unfulfilling, to say the least. However, there does seem to be some fanbase for this sport, as the viewership for this particular tournament delivered around

1,131,000 viewers. Why people choose to spend their Sundays watching professional bowling is ultimately beyond me, but the PBA seems to be doing everything in their power to keep the ball rolling.

Slow and steady

Have you ever needed to go to the bathroom really badly, but the bathroom is across the room?

Or has someone ever held the door when you are a bit too far away? If you have, you know the type of walk that you tend to rely on. Caught halfway between a jog and a stroll, this speed-walk has somehow transformed into an Olympic sport - race walking.

Under the hot Rio sun in 2016, an amorphous mob of 74 competitors gets ready for the race walk of their lives. The gun shot sounds. Instead of sprinting to get ahead of the pack, the race walkers start in an urgent stroll, almost as if they are still unsure about how badly they want to get to the finish line.

Referees follow the pack, scrutinizing the technique of the race walkers’ struts. Participants can be disqualified for things like having both feet off of the ground at once and bending their knees.

Although there may be strange technicalities of the sport, one has to respect the competitors’ athleticism.

Their chiseled calves must carry them a whopping 20 kilometers (around 12.4 miles), and their endurance is close to superhuman.

However, that does not take away from the simple fact that this sport is excruciatingly boring to watch.

The entire 20 kilometers took the fastest race-walker over an hour to finish, and that hour is the athletic equivalent of watching paint dry.

The race walkers themselves look bored out of their minds as they loop around the same exact course, like the fitness version of Mario Kart for 60 year-olds.

The competitors drench themselves in bottled water every few laps until the road becomes a sweaty Slip N’ Slide, and “fans” on the sidelines stand and cheer awkwardly as they watch the race walkers limp around for the

AMY KRIMM

inside SPORTS

Weight room see page F2

SEOYOUNG JOO

hundredth time in a row.

The end of the race brings glory to winners like gold-medalist Wang Zhen from China, but everyone else looks dejected and more than ready to collapse.

I do not understand how people find a passion for this that leads them to the Olympics, and I probably never will. But for now, that is fine by me.

There’s a catch

Fishing is an activity of patience.

You wait, and wait, and wait some more. Eventually, after waiting for way too long, you have a shot at reeling in a flopping, gasping, limbless animal that you might take a picture with before chucking it back into the water.

Most would reserve this activity for a lazy summer afternoon. Others make it into a competition.

Over 750 of the most sunburnt, camo-adorned, America-loving anglers gather for a shot at $100,000 in the largest kayak fishing tournament to date.

The competition takes place at Kentucky Lake in Paris, Tennessee, which is a combination of state and city names enough to give a cartographer an aneurysm.

Some may hope that,

with so much money on the line, this competition would be fun to watch.

They would be very wrong.

Half of this sport is hearing the competitors talk about fishing, and the other half is watching them sit in their kayaks. Only a sliver of the competition is actually catching the fish.

The tedium of the sport is too much to bear, despite futile efforts from the host - the Guy Fieri of kayak fishing - to make it exciting.

The scoring system is strange, to say the least. The competitors spread out across the lake and try to reel in as many fish as possible.

They take pictures of fish that are more than 12 inches long and add up the lengths to their grand total.

With no sharks or killer whales in sight, watching middle-aged people in undersized kayaks measuring foot-long bass is the antithesis of compelling content.

Maybe it’s just me, but the only thing that might compensate for

Baseball falls to Clarksburg see page F2

this lack of excitement would be seeing a kayak flip over.

The winner of the competition, Dwayne Taff, stands triumphantly with his $100,000 check. There are different celebrations for different sports. In football, after a championship win, the team usually dumps a jug of Gatorade on their coach. In pro kayak bass fishing, they douse the winner in two family-sized bags of Cheetos.

It is certainly a fitting end to such an odd sport that I most definitely will never, ever, ever watch again.

Honorable mentions

There are plenty of other amazingly horrible sports to watch on television. Included in this category of boringness are other leisure and racing sports that have no place on national or local television, no matter how slow of a broadcasting day it might be.

The first honorable mention is golf, which is probably the most universally heralded “boring” sport to watch on television. It has everything that many sports

fans love to hate - a weird scoring system, a slow pace, and announcers who are physically unable to speak above 10 decibels.

Another wellknown sport that is uninteresting to watch on TV is NASCAR. Visions from Pixar and the Cars franchise as a kid betrayed me as I came across a real NASCAR race on television. The only redeeming quality of this sport

are the crashes, which happen on occasion. The race only gets good by the last few laps, and the rest is frankly not worth your time.

All of these sports mentioned take some level of skill and athleticism that drives people to actually compete. There is no denying the time and effort that these athletes put into their crafts.

However, these aspects do not necessarily translate into entertainment value, leading to painfully dull broadcasting on sports channels that should not exist in the first place.

As long as sports continue to dominate American entertainment, there will always be anomalies.

Whether these anomalies are actually fun to watch may be debatable to some, but to many of us, the answer is a resounding “no.”

Ski club see page F3