February 2017 - Silver Chips Print

Montgomery Blair High School SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND

A public forum for student expression since 1937

silverchips

JV baseball coach passes

COURTESY OF KERI HOFFMAN

JV baseball coach Gordon Pavy

By Julian Brown Former Blair JV baseball coach Gordon Pavy passed away on Thursday, Jan. 26, after a long fight with jaw cancer. Pavy coached the team from 2012 to 2016, when he left to receive medical treatment.

Varsity baseball coach Eric Zolkiewicz, who joined the Blair program in the same year as Pavy, remembers Pavy as not just a good coach, but an extraordinary man.

“He was a great person and a great human being,” Zolkiewicz said.

“We were truly lucky to have him with us at Blair.”

Senior Samuel Strongin played on Pavy’s 2014 and 2015 teams, and said his coach always emphasized the team as opposed to the individual. “He was not going to necessarily do too much sitting down with you and working on a specific skill, but he was a great manager in the way that he put together a winning team,” Strongin said.

In Strongin’s two years on the team, the Blazers went 22-2.

Zolkiewicz recalls Pavy as having an excellent relationship with his players, both on and off the field. “[The players] all loved and adored him. He meant so much to them and the program,” Zolkiewicz said. “It hurt them a lot.”

Pavy was known for having a great love for the sport and for playing the game honestly and with sportsmanship. “[He] believed in kids playing baseball the right way and playing hard and playing right and good sportsmanship,” Zolkiewicz said. “He really loved the game of baseball and he wanted to spread that to his players.”

Minimum wage bill vetoed

By Elias Monastersky On Jan. 23, County Executive Isiah Leggett vetoed a bill to raise minimum wage to $15 by 2020.

The County Council approved the bill with a five-to-four majority on Jan. 17. Council Member Nancy Floreen, who voted against the bill, wanted more information on how a wage increase would affect Montgomery County before adopting one. “We have no idea if we are actually benefiting Montgomery County residents as much as we’re benefiting people who live outside Montgomery County,” Floreen said.

In a letter sent from Leggett’s

office, Leggett explains that he chose to veto because the Council lacks an appropriate time frame and an understanding of the impact that the change could cause.

“I believe in an expeditious and timely study of relevant issues on the fiscal and economic impact of an increase in the minimum wage on Montgomery County,” Leggett wrote. “I maintain that a study will better inform the Council on the direct and indirect impacts on private employers’ bottom line as well as the impact on County government.”

Leggett added that the wage

see MINIMUM WAGE page A5

February 2, 2017 VOL 79 NO 4

Slap shot snapshot

GRIFFIN REILLY

GOING OUT WITH A BANG Seniors Raymond Guo (80) and Eric Zhang (2) hold the varsity hockey team’s defense strong, and help the club coast to an 8-4 victory over long-time rival, the D.C. Stars. The Jan. 27 game also honored the groups’ graduating seniors. See “Funding for sports is now an exclusive club” on F1 to read about club sports and their funding regulations.

Replacement of stadium turf begins

By Serena Debesai The Montgomery County Department of Parks (Montgomery Parks) began replacing the turf in Blazer Stadium on the week of Jan. 22. The project is expected to finish

by March 15 if there are no delays.

Although Blair uses the stadium for athletic events, it is owned by Montgomery Parks. The decision to replace the turf was made by Montgomery Parks, which is also responsible for regular maintenance of the turf.

Montgomery Parks worked closely with MCPS and Blair to arrange the project, according to Montgomery Parks Media Relations manager Melissa Chotiner.

“We coordinate closely with the people that are at MCPS, from the person who manages the facilities of all the school systems, to the people that work directly at Blair High School, the principal, the athletic director,” Chotiner said.

According to Chotiner, the turf was replaced because it was nearing the end of its lifespan. “It had been there for about eight years, and it had deteriorated, and the carpet was worn down,” Chotiner said.

The construction of the new turf will cost approximately $725,000, according to Chotiner. The endeavor is subsidized by the Ballfield Improvements project in the Montgomery County Capital Im-

provement Program.

The construction will impact spring sports, primarily lacrosse.

According to Blair Athletics Director Rita Boule, teams that use the turf will have to practice on the school’s practice field for the first two weeks of the spring season.

“Fingers-crossed, it doesn’t really impact us too much. Spring sports start on March 1, so I don’t think we will have it for lacrosse,” Boule said. “Hopefully around March 15, the field is opened and we can get out there.”

The first games of the girls’ and boys’ lacrosse season are on March 21 and March 22 respec-

see TURF page A4

A state of concern: Medical marijuana in Maryland

By Cole Greenberg Where only first names appear, names have been changed to protect the identities of the sources.

COURTESY OF THE TAKOMA WELLNESS CENTER

A DOPE SELECTION A D.C. dispensary showcases its diverse stock of medical marijuana strains each with different effects.

NEWS A2

insidechips

Safety first

Blue lives matter

Self defense should be taught in schools.

HANNAH SCHWARTZ

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OP/ED B1

It took them a year, but in 2014, the Maryland House of Delegates finally came to a consensus. After months filled withlengthy judicial hearings, Senate refusals, and amendment after amendment, the hard work had just paid off for the busy state legislators.

House Bill 881, effective on June 1 of that year and entitled “Medical Marijuana - Natalie M. LaPrade Medical Marijuana Commission,” was here to stay, passed by a nearly unanimous vote of 42-4. The

bill not only solidified restrictions and guidelines for the distribution of marijuana and the licensing of growers, processors, and dispensaries, but simultaneously prepared for the arrival of dispensaries by 2015.

The first few months flew by and progress had yet to be made.

The state just needed time to work out a few kinks. And then a few months turned into a year. And then that year turned into two years, and Maryland watched as its once ambitious medical marijuana movement came to a lurching stop.

One thousand days without dispensaries later, it seems the only guarantee is that there are no guar-

Police share their thoughts on trust in the community.

JEDEDIAH GRADY

FEATURES C1

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ENTERTAINMENT D1

CHAMINDA HANGILIPOLA

antees when it comes to securing medical marijuana in the Free State.

Growing difficulties For the bill’s co-author, State Delegate Cheryl Glenn, passing medical marijuana legislation in 2014 symbolized more than just words on a paper. Glenn’s tenyear drive in the name of medical marijuana had seemingly reached the end zone. She had listened to the heart-wrenching testimony of Maryland residents who were desperately in need of medical marijuana, and had felt her emotions

see MEDICAL MARIJUANA page C1

Diner dash

Cita a ciegas

Three writers and their photographer scope out the best diners in Maryland.

El amor está en el aire.

Dos estudiantes se conocen.

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CHIPS CLIPS D6

SAMI MALLON

LA ESQUINA LATINA E1

E1 SPORTS F1

A2 News

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February 2, 2017

Prevalence of racially-charged incidents increases Racist and anti-semitic graffiti and vandalism appear at MCPS schools

By Olivia Gonzalez A number of racial incidents occurred at elementary, middle, and high schools in MCPS over the past few months.

MCPS addressed the increase in racial graffiti on school property in a statement to parents from Board President Michael Durso on Jan. 9.

“Please know that MCPS is working with the Montgomery County Police Department and is taking all necessary steps to address these incidents,” Durso wrote.

“These hate-based actions by a small handful of people are wrong and antithetical to our core values of respect and equity, which are fundamental to ensuring student learning.”

The first incident occurred on Oct. 13 at Quince Orchard, when an unidentified person burned images of a swastika and male genitalia into the school’s football field.

A press release from the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) on Oct. 27 detailed the vandalism and identified a suspect vehicle. “Investigators [released] a surveillance photograph of a suspect vehicle that was seen on school property the night before the crime was discovered,” the statement read.

A few days later in October, swastikas were spray painted at Burning Tree Elementary School.

The vandalism was found on school banners, sidewalks, and telephone poles surrounding the Bethesda school.

According to a press release from Oct. 31 by MCPD, the school serves as a meeting place for a local Jewish congregation. A member attending service on Oct. 30 reported the vandalism.

In November, swastikas were also found in the boys’ bathroom at Westland Middle School in Bethesda. According to a Bethesda Beat article, Principal Alison Serino sent a letter home to parents condemning the actions of the perpetrator, shortly after a student reported the incident.

“We are very saddened by this incident. This type of behavior will not be tolerated,” the letter read.

“Once the culprit(s) are identified, consequences will be administered in accordance to the MCPS Code of Conduct.” The bathroom was then secured so building services could remove the vandalism, according to the article.

During the week of Jan. 23, swastikas were also found in the girls’ bathroom at Eastern Middle School. According to a statement

COURTESY OF MCPS

WESTLAND MIDDLE SCHOOL Drawings of swastikas in the boys bathrooms at Westland Middle School were reported in November of 2016. sent out to parents by the school, girls reported the graffiti on two separate occasions.

“In response to these incidents we have again increased our strategies for monitoring the bathroom walls and continue to make schoolwide announcements reminding students of our expectations for their behavior,” the statement read.

Leadership teams will meet with all Eastern students in February to reiterate this message and remind them of their joint responsibility to foster a positive and safe environment throughout the building, according to the statement.

In a video statement posted on Dec. 22, Superintendent Jack Smith urged the community to come together in response to the hate crimes. “We absolutely have to commit as 2016 ends and as we start a new year to rejecting hate speech, to rejecting symbols that are hateful and disrespectful, and just simply wrong,” he said in the

video. “We have to come together as a community and really care about one another, and be respectful, and civil in our communication and our relationships and as we talk about different topics and subjects together.”

At Sligo Creek Elementary School, the words “kill kill kill blacks” were written on the boys’ bathroom walls. A student allegedly reported the incident to a teacher who neglected to report it to administration.

The vandalism was eventually reported by a member of building services, who found the graffiti while cleaning the bathroom. Principal Diantha Swift wrote a letter to the parents and community on Nov. 14 following the incident, but declined to comment for this story.

In an email, Gboyinde Onijala, MCPS Senior Communications Specialist, emphasized that MCPS does not condone hate speech.

“Respect and tolerance are at the foundation of who we are as a school system. Our schools have

been engaging in conversations with students and members of their community,” she wrote. “[We] are working together to ensure all students are provided the opportunity to learn in a school environment that is safe and secure.”

While Onijala could not name the perpetrators specifically, she ensured that they were punished.

“Students that were caught did face consequences in accordance with the MCPS Student Code of Conduct,” she said.

The MCPS Student Code of Conduct lists intentional destruction of property as a serious offense. Severity of each individual’s punishment is determined based on the monetary value of the destroyed property, the student’s age, whether the incident was intentionally planned, the reason the property was destroyed, and whether or not the student knew the property he or she destroyed was valuable.

Punishments vary, ranging from level two teacher-and-ad-

ministrative-led responses, such as community service and peer mediation, to level three administrative support and removal services, such as in-school suspension. Level four punishments involve out-of-school exclusionary responses, and the highest level of consequences are level five long term administrative and referral responses, such as suspension or expulsion.

The Montgomery County Council passed a resolution on Nov. 15 to address the discrimination and hate crimes. “The Council calls on the County’s MC311 system to provide operators and staff with special instructions to assist anyone on how to report and deal with hate crimes and harassment, including information about legal resources and support services,” the resolution read. “When appropriate, MC311 operators should also transfer calls to the Montgomery County Police Department’s non-emergency number and provide information about the Office of Human Rights.”

OLIVIA GONZALEZ

News A3

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February 2, 2017

College Board implements new system for accommodations Students now have easier access to assistance on standardized tests

By Emma Cross The College Board has made it easier for some students with special education plans to get testing accommodations on its range of standardized tests, including the SAT, PSAT 10, PSAT/NMSQT, SAT Subject Tests and Advanced Placement (AP) exams.

The College Board, which owns and administers these standardized tests, implemented the new policy on Jan. 1. In response to complaints about the previous method, the organization updated its system to streamline the process of acquiring accommodations.

The process for obtaining accommodations will now rely more heavily on school documentation of disabilities. “Educators, students, and families have asked us to simplify our process, and we’ve listened. The school staff knows their students best, and we want to cut down on the time and paperwork needed to submit a testing accommodations request,” College Board President and Chief Executive, David Coleman, said in a prepared statement.

According to the MCPS website, an accommodation is “any strategy, service, or facility modification that allows the student to access academic, nonacademic, and extracurricular activities comparable to those available to his or her nondisabled peers.”

Academic accommodations for College Board tests include extended time, computer use, extra and extended breaks, reading and visual accommodations, and use of a four-function calculator.

According to counselor Kirk Simms, some parents have criticized the difficulty in obtaining testing accommodations similar to the assistance their children receive at school. “Many parents have complained, many school districts have complained, as well as teachers and counselors … you just can’t exclude some students and include some, it just not fair practice,” Simms said.

The new accommodations process will now allow easier access to testing assistance if the student has a pre-approved 504 plan

or Individualized Education Program (IEP) from their school. This includes private school students, who will now have automatic approval of their school accommoda-

Junior Aran Mazariegos receives extended time for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and struggled to receive extended time from the College Board in time for his

schools, documentation changes for those seeking accommodation will be visible on the online system by the end of January. Students at private schools who have

Old System

Application to College Board

Approval by College Board

Student with IEP or 504 approved for testing accomodations through school

Accommodation

Approval by College Board

New System

ERIN NAMOVICZ

tion plans.

“Most private school students with a current, formal school-based plan that meets College Board criteria will also have their current accommodations automatically approved for College Board exams,” Coleman said.

In addition, College Board has provided new testing support for English Language Learners (ELL). “ELL students taking a statefunded SAT during the school day will have access to testing instructions in several native languages and approved word-to-word bilingual glossaries,” Coleman said.

AP test. “I didn’t get my accommodations by the day of the test so I had to delay taking the test … It’s on file in school that I get accommodations so my mom and I assumed that it wouldn’t be a problem and we were wrong,” Mazariegos said.

Simms says he is happy about the new system for acquiring testing assistance.

“Sometimes we question as professionals, as to why some [students] do and don’t get accommodations. I am pleased that they have made an amendment to provide accommodations for all students,” he said.

For students at Blair and other public

school-based plans, however, will not see the changes until the end of March.

Junior Jillian Wilson receives accommodations for her attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She emphasized the importance of testing accommodations because they allow students to reach their full potential.

“They’re important because they help kids with learning disabilities ensure that the teachers know they’re just as smart as kids without the accommodations and [show] the College Board that we understand and have the knowledge to take the tests,” Wilson said.

MCPS receives a C on first grade report for school meals County gets its lowest scores in six categories for health and nutritional value

By Leila Jackson Healthy School Food Maryland gave MCPS a C overall in its 2016 School Food Environment Grades. The report, released on Dec. 28, gave MCPS a total of 21 out of 48 points, placing the school district in the C grade range.

Marla Caplon, Director of Food and Nutrition Services at MCPS, said that the report will not influence the county’s future actions. “We’re on our own platform for what we are doing to always look to improve [school] meals,” Caplon said.

Healthy School Food Maryland is a coalition that advocates for local, whole, and safe foods in Maryland schools. Its report evaluated school meals in all 24 counties in Maryland.

Lindsey Parsons oversees the organization of the coalition for Healthy School Food Maryland. “We developed a rubric based on many of the items that we had been trying to work on through legislation and there are 12 items on the rubric,” she said.

The School Food Environment Grades were calculated based on information received from food service employees and members of the School Health Council or Wellness Committees in each school district.

“Through researching online ... looking at wellness policies and other policies and documents from school systems, talking to school service directors, wellness committee chairs and sometimes individual schools and parents, we basically researched the answers to each of those rubric items and produced a grade for each district,” Parsons said.

The rubrics were then sent to the school food service directors of each county before the report was published so that they could make any changes.

MCPS got one of its lowest scores in the category of general transparency, where the county received a score of one; the scores can range from zero to four.

The scores for general transparency were calculated by looking at the level of clarity of ingredient and nutrition fact labels for meals

COUNTY HOWARD FREDERICK MONTGOMERY PRINCE GEORGE’S

water and water bottles category. The county received this mark because water fountains in many schools are located outside of the cafeteria.

In addition, if there are any schools in a school district that prohibit students from carrying water bottles, that automatically

TOTAL SCORE OUT OF 48

GRADE

28

A+

27 21 19

B+ C C

HEALTHY SCHOOL FOOD MARYLAND

and a la carte foods. “[MCPS] just had a list of nutritional information that included carbohydrates but not sugar so it wasn’t the complete nutrition facts,” Parsons said.

According to Parsons, MCPS has updated its website to include more of this information. “It looks like they’ve since changed their website to include some ingredient lists on the main dishes which is awesome,” Parsons said.

MCPS also earned a score of one in the

LEILA JACKSON

gives the county a score of two. “There is one school that we are aware of in MCPS that has a policy forbidding children from carrying water bottles; that was Sligo Middle School,” Parsons said.

MCPS’s wellness policy does not specifically mention that students cannot carry water bottles, according to Caplon. “However in most cases students can carry water bottles, but it’s not listed in our wellness policy,” she said. “The other example as far

as water is every student in an elementary school that gets lunch can have a bottle of water with their lunch at no cost … But that is not part of their criteria so therefore we didn’t get graded very highly in that area.”

An issue for Caplon is how the report is expressed to readers. “I think [the elements in the report card] were pretty clear to me; the concern I have is how it’s translated to readers. Because we are far more than a C,” Caplon said.

Parsons plans to help low-scoring counties improve their school food. “One of my tasks for my to-do list this month is to write up specific recommendations to school districts in Maryland and explain how they can get higher grades for next year’s grades,” Parsons said.

While there have been internal discussions about the report, Caplon said it will not have any impact on school meals in MCPS. “We have our own plan and our own vision, and that’s not just for Montgomery County, it’s for every jurisdiction around the state and the county,” Caplon said.

Sophomore Courtney Wyche said that if she were to grade school meals, she would give them a B-. “I like the variety of food, it’s not always the same menu,” Wyche said.

Although there are many food selections to choose from, she said there are still less healthy options. “Those fries are unhealthy,” Wyche said.

She also said that healthier options might be less appealing to students. “If you have more nutritious things kids aren’t going to eat it,” Wyche said.

Howard County received the highest score with an A+ and a total of 28 points.

Frederick County received 27 points, which earned them at a B+. Prince George’s County received a C and was two points behind MCPS with a score of 19.

A4 News

Newsbriefs

Maryland education report card for 2016 released The Maryland State Department of Education released its annual Maryland Report Card on Jan. 24.

With detailed information about the state, counties, and individual schools, the Report Card provides data on attendance rates, teacher qualifications, average test scores, and graduation.

For the class of 2016, 89.93 percent of Montgomery County students graduated high school.

While higher than the Maryland average of 87.61 percent, Montgomery County ranked thirteenth out of Maryland’s 24 counties.

Blair’s graduation rate was slightly lower than the county’s average at 88.34 percent, ranking eighteenth out of the county’s 25 high schools.

Principal Renay Johnson says Blair has lower graduation rates because of the large number of students who may need more than four years to graduate. “Montgomery Blair has a large ESOL/METS population … It’s really not fair to drop a 16-year-old in ninth grade from another country and expect them to finish in four years,” she said.

Controversy over Springbrook cheers being “too ghetto” Springbrook principal Dr. Art Williams came under fire when he called his school’s cheerleaders and their routine “too ghetto” at a Jan. 17 basketball game against Paint Branch, according to Springbrook’s newspaper, The Blueprint.

The cheerleaders said they base their cheers on those performed by historically black colleges and universities.

They later met with Springbrook’s athletic director, Dan Feher, who told the team that their cheers needed to be more positive, according to The Blueprint. This meant their style of cheering and the content of their cheers needed to be adjusted. According to FOX 5 DC, the team has continued to boycott performances at sporting events.

The cheerleaders declined to comment. Williams and Feher were not available for comment.

Newsbriefs compiled by Laura Espinoza

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Rep. Jamie Raskin speaks to Blair community

By Cole Greenberg On Jan. 18, newly-elected Congressman Jamie Raskin spoke in the auditorium to students and faculty after receiving an invitation from the Blair Interracial Dialogue.

Raskin gave a speech, answered questions, and met with students for approximately an hour and a half.

During Raskin’s appearance he spoke about local youth activism, past and present, and America’s current political climate.

According to junior Iyanu Bishop, an organizer of the event, Raskin spoke about the impact of young people on his political career and encouraged students to engage in the political process.

“He basically talked about how Blair students in Silver Chips got his career started and then he talked about how running against a 32-year incumbent, how it was, and then he was kind of talking about his political career,” Bishop said. “So he was kind of just talking to us about his career and how students really influenced his success and how we can actually make a difference.”

Raskin’s goal was to inspire the youth of Blair. “For me, the hope of political renewal always lies in these new generations of young people coming into adulthood and society,” Raskin said.

According to Kevin Shindel, sponsor of the Blair Interracial Dialogue, Raskin’s visit was a rewarding experience. “You just kind of hope that the kids get a chance to ask some questions, enjoy hearing some stories, and that they find

Magnet program faculty members have prohibited students from participating in research programs where they must pay to earn a position. The change in the senior research project contract was prompted when Magnet faculty members learned that a local institution, the National Graphene Research and Development Center (NGRD), offers a research program that requires payment.

Approval of the contract is required for Magnet students who will conduct a research project under the guidance of a mentor in the summer before their senior year. At a Magnet freshman and sophomore parent meeting on Jan. 17, Magnet Coordinator Peter Ostrander suggested that parents consider internship opportuni-

SAMI MALLON

TALKING POLITICS Rep. Jamie Raskin addresses the Blair community about youth activism and the current political climate. value in what he said... I thought it was pretty successful,” Shindel said.

Bishop, Shindel, and others involved with the Blair Interracial Dialogue, an activist group that formed during the annual Interra-

Turf to finish by March 15 from TURF page A1 tively. Coaches will allot practice slots and locations to the different teams.

Boule is also currently looking into alternative practice spaces. “[Teams] will work on our practice fields, and I am going to look for different … school fields or parks that we can use if we need too,” Boule said.

Additionally, all lacrosse scrimmages will take place at other schools, as a result of the construction.

The new turf will be made with natural and environmentallyfriendly materials. “The infield is

Magnet program bans pay-to-research internships

By Dawson Do

February 2, 2017

ties that do not cost money. The rule, which will start being implemented this year, allows programs that require an application fee or boarding fees.

Ostrander believes that research institutions and accredited universities have more to risk and are transparent unlike the NGRD, whose paid program is atypical. “If [students are] paying that money, [they] expect results, and we have no control or oversight over this organization to make sure they’re doing things in a proper manner,” Ostrander said.

Silver Chips will continue the investigation on the NGRD. Follow @Silver_Chips for updates.

composed primarily of coconut husks and cork. So those materials are 100 percent organic,” Chotiner said.

An enhanced shock absorption pad will also be placed underneath the carpet.

The changes in the turf material are a result of Montgomery Parks’ new partnership with the company Shaw Sports Turf. “We happened to be working with Shaw Sports Turf for a new field we are putting it at Waconia Recreational Park. And we have been very pleased with that process, and we felt that they have a really good product, so we opted to go with them,” Chotiner said.

cial Dialogue event in December, reached out to Raskin. CAP junior Carly Tagen-Dye, one of Shindel’s students, happened to be the daughter of Raskin’s chief-of-staff and aided the group in reaching out to Raskin.

According to Bishop, the group thought it would be impactful to invite a politician like Raskin to come and speak. “In light of everything that’s going to be happening, all of the political drama that’s been going on, we thought that it would be important for a politician from our community to come and kind of inspire them and just remind them that there are still good people out there in politics trying to make a difference,” she said.

Raskin, the father of two Blair alumni and a member of the local community, was happy to visit the school. “I try to go everywhere if I can. I don’t think I’ve ever turned down an invitation to Blair,” Raskin said. According to senior Claire Maske, an organizer and a member of the Blair Interracial Dialogue, inviting Raskin to speak was just the beginning of the activists’ plans.

The group already hosted a nonviolent civil disobedience training session for Blair students on Jan. 12 in preparation for the Women’s March and is already working on more events.

Looking forward, the members hope to distribute a newsletter, host a documentary viewing, and invite more guest speakers, including a South Sudanese child soldier in late February.

The group is hoping to make guest speakers a monthly occurrence. “I think it would be nice to have some kind of guest speaker series, if once a month we can get the auditorium during lunch and make it an ongoing thing and say, ‘this is who’s coming this month,’” Shindel said.

News A5

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February 2, 2017

Two seniors named finalists in Regeneron Science Talent Search

By Erin Namovicz Seniors Sambuddha Chattopadhyay and Rohan Dalvi were selected as part of a group of 40 finalists from across the country in the Regeneron, formerly Intel, Science Talent Search for their contributions to scientific research. Chattopadhyay and Dalvi will win a minimum of $25,000 each, as well as a trip to Washington, D.C. to share their research with other students, scientists, and judges.

The Regeneron Science Talent Search is a competition open to high school seniors who submitted a scientific research paper on original research. They competed for a chance to be named as a semifinalist or finalist, and to share their work outside of their high school. “Traditionally 300 are selected from the United States for being semifinalists, and then of that 300, 40 students are named finalists,” Magnet research teacher Angelique Bosse said.

This year, nine Blair seniors were named semifinalists. Each semifinalist received $2,000 and an additional $2,000 for the school. Blair students submitted projects they had completed for their Magnet senior research projects.

Chattopadhyay’s research looked for a new way to quantify dark energy. “Dark energy is this force, or this mysterious thing that’s causing the accelerating expansion of

the universe, which is kind of trippy,” Chattopadhyay said. “We don’t know too much about it because we have mathematical issues with quantum theories describing the universe. So, I studied a mathematical symmetry that allowed you to understand quantum theories better.”

Dalvi focused on improving a technology called ion mobility-mass spectrometry for his research project, which is a way to look at the structures of biomolecules. “One of the issues with the technology right now is that biomolecules might unfold or separate during the process, so I pretty much looked at modifying the technology,” Dalvi said.

Through his research, he found methods to better preserve the original structures of the biomolecule.

In March, Chattopadhyay and Dalvi will attend a conference in Washington, D.C. to present their projects and compete for the top prize of $250,000. “I’m going to be with a bunch of other people who are really dedicated to the sciences ... So just having the opportunity to meet people who might be doing really interesting things in the future, and having those connections, will be very valuable,” Dalvi said.

These projects were done in collaboration with scientists at local universities. Chattopadhyay worked with University of Maryland professor Thomas Cohen, and Dalvi

CHAMINDA HANGILIPOLA

AT THE TOP Seniors Sambuddha Chattopadhyay (left) and Rohan Dalvi (right) are two of 40 nationwide finalists in the 2017 Regeneron Science Talent Search. worked with Dr. Kaveh Jorabchi and William McMahon of Georgetown University.

These mentors helped the students come up with their projects and guided them throughout their research.

Blair has a long history of placing well

in the Science Talent Search, according to Bosse.

“We’ve had top 10 winners, we’ve had winners of the top prize, we’ve had semifinalists every year that I know of, and probably finalists every year,” she said.

Bill set to increase the minimum wage in Montgomery County denied MINIMUM WAGE IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD 15

WAGE ($/HOUR)

12

9

6

3

0

CURRENT

JULY 2017

VETOED PROPOSAL

THE WASHINGTON POST

ALEXANDER DACY

from MINIMUM WAGE page A1 increase could cause numerous economic problems.

“For example, all things remaining equal, if the Council continues the policy of providing financial support to our non-profit partners for imposed legislated wage adjustments, when the minimum wage reaches $15, there will be a significant financial impact to the County,” Leggett wrote. “Based on our current budget projections, this would be a very difficult amount to absorb, and this does not address the challenge faced by all of our non-profit partners.”

One of the non-profit partners that could have been affected is Medicaid. “Another example of the financial impact of the increase in the minimum wage comes from our Medicaid providers,” he wrote. “They estimate that the move to $15/hour will result in an approximate 5.5 percent increase in the cost of operations each year. Unlike some businesses, Medicaid providers cannot legally pass these increases on to the consumer and will be unable to absorb the significant increased costs.”

Floreen is uncertain about how businesses would have responded to the bill. “One of the concerns is that [businesses] will stop hiring entry-level people or limit the num-

ber of entry-level people because the cost is great and the people haven’t yet been trained,” Floreen said.

Leggett proposed a study to be completed

by July 2017 to determine the effects of an increased minimum wage on businesses in the county. “There is a tendency to cut back on benefits and other things when you have to increase wages and that’s the challenge,” Floreen said. “We wanted to know ... what the experiences were in the real world. We don’t know at this point.”

Leggett wrote that while he vetoed the bill, he still supports the wage increase and wants more time. “I support the effort to move toward $15 per hour over an appropriate timeframe and under certain conditions,” Leggett wrote.

Floreen also expressed concern about how this will mesh with the Montgomery County Earned Safe and Sick Leave Law which became active Oct. 2016.

“Last fall we adopted sick and safe leave which is also now an obligation of employers to provide to their workers,” Floreen said.

“We wanted to see how the combination of the minimum wage requirements and the additional sick and safe leave requirements that apply to everyone, what the implications were for the ability of an employer to continue to make jobs available for people.”

Up and Coming February 8 Report Cards Distributed

February 10-11 Sankofa

February 20 President’s Day - No school for students

March 3 Early Release Day

Student & Teacher Awards & Honors Junior Iyanu Bishop was named as one of 32 nationwide youth ambassadors to the Women’s March on Washington.

Blair’s yearbook, Silverlogue, won a Gold Medalist Certificate from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association.

Seniors Ethan Chen, Richard Chen, Dawson Do, Samuel Ehrenstein, Raymond Guo, Garret Kern, Juliana Lu-Yang were named top scholars in the Regeneron Science Talent Search, and seniors Sambuddha Chattopadhyay and Rohan Dalvi were named finalists.

Seniors Clifford Carter, Desmond Colby, and Eric Zokouri were named to the Maryland Big 33 Elite 100 football team.

Senior Sened Belay was awarded the 2017 Horatio Alger Scholarship.

Senior Alex Coy was accepted into the 2017 Maryland All-State Jazz Band for bass trombone.

Junior Dilhan Salgado and sophomore Jacob Stavrianos placed first and second in the 2016 University of Maryland Math Competition.

Junior Sahil Kochar won the under-1000 bracket at the 2017 Greater Baltimore Scholastic Chess Championships.

B1 Opinion silverchips Montgomery Blair High School 51 University Boulevard East Silver Spring, MD 20901 Phone: (301) 649-2864 Winner of the 2015 National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker Winner of the 2015 Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Crown

Editors-in-Chief: Alexandra Marquez and Alice Park Managing News Editors: Dawson Do and Joshua Fernandes Managing Op/Ed Editor: Aditi Shetty Managing Features Editors: Julian Brown and Cole Sebastian Managing Entertainment Editors: Georgina Burros and Brianna Forté Managing Sports Editors: Grady Jakobsberg Ombudsman: Cole Sebastian Newsbriefs Editor: Dawson Do and Joshua Fernandes Executive Business Directors: Elizabeth Cove and Ariel Zhang Business Staff: Gerrit Antonisse Marianne Benyamin Karen Depenyou Rudi Eilen Julia Henderson Kanani Jiang Honor Kalala Niki Patel Page Editors: Noah Chopra-Khan Emma Cross Alexander Dacy Serena Debesai Laura Espinoza Gilda Geist Olivia Gonzalez Cole Greenberg Leila Jackson Hermela Mengesha Elias Monastersky Christian Mussenden Erin Namovicz Isabella Tilley Henry Wiebe La Esquina Latina Editor-in-Chief: Camila Fernández La Esquina Latina Editors Carlos Fuentes and Andrés Pérez La Esquina Latina Writers: Alisson Fortis Michael Hernández Angie Mejia Sofia Muñoz Managing Photo Editors: Caleb Bauman and Griffin Reilly Photographers: Jedediah Grady Chaminda Hangilipola Sami Mallon Hannah Schwartz Managing Art Editors: Shivani Mattikalli and Alexandra Mendivil Artists: Carly Tagen-Dye Lindsay Harris Marissa He Tiffany Mao Aritra Roy Meghna Sambathkumar Sabrina Tan Puzzle Editor: Neal Sarkar Copy Editors: Sophia Liu and Elia Martin La Esquina Latina Advisor: Dianette Coombs Advisor: Jeremy Stelzner

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, to room 158 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 silver.chips. ombudsman@gmail.com. Letters may be edited for space and clarity.

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February 2, 2017

Equal teacher pay for equal work K-12 education teacher salaries are not paid enough for their effort

By Hermela Mengesha

An opinion Chances are you have probably seen the same image of a tired, overworked, and underpaid teacher in movies. In the case of teacher pay, the problem is often only brought to light in this all-too-familiar stereotype. We want our teachers to be heroes to students, but the persistence of these two-dimensional images of teachers reveals a lack of drive to change anything.

Teachers are underpaid even though, based on the importance of their work and the amount of work they put in, their salaries should be much higher. The lack of concern for teachers’ low wages reflects an overall apathy toward the importance of education. “I think there is an argument to be made that our society doesn’t value education based on what the average teacher pay is,” science teacher Erik Lodal says.

Teachers have the power to inspire students. They can be mentors and push students to do their best. Whether or not a student likes a subject often heavily depends on the teacher.

A quality instructor can change a student’s entire outlook on a class, but a poor one can leave students dreading a subject throughout their education.

A teacher’s role in our society is crucial, but it would be impossible to tell from their paychecks.

The National Association of College and Employers (NACE) found that teachers in the U.S. have an average national starting salary of $30,377. On the other hand, NACE found that other

college graduates who enter fields requiring similar training and responsibilities, such as computer programmers and registered nurses start at higher salaries ($43,635 and $45,570 respectively).

To justify lower pay, some point to breaks teachers receive during the school year such as winter or spring break, or the fact that teachers only work nine months a year. These critics, however, are ignoring the effort teachers put in outside of the classroom. “The time required to do this job well is huge,” Lodal says.

To ensure a quality experience for their students, teachers must often spend hours outside of the classroom preparing for lessons and grading papers. For them, the work day is not over when the bell rings, but their pay hours certainly are.

Science teacher Darcy Sloe depends on her additional salary from teaching at Montgomery College. She also spends hours outside of class designing and updating Blair courses, such as Foundations of Immunology, which she spent an entire summer creating without reimbursement.

“We’re talking hundreds of hundreds of hours,” Sloe says.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), teachers spend an average of 50 hours per week on instructional duties. This includes an average of 12 hours a week on non-compensated school-related activities, such as grading papers or supervising clubs.

Similar to Sloe, social studies

teacher Michael Zick supplements his income by coaching school sports teams year round. Zick feels that teachers are paid well enough, but with one caveat. “I can also say [teachers are paid well] because I’m in a well-funded school district. It’s not the same everywhere,” he says.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, Maryland teachers are the eighth highest paid in the country, at an average of $65,265. “I have experienced teacher pay in places other than Montgomery County, and Montgomery County pays very well,” Lodal says.

This statistic reflects the community’s value of education, which translates into a commitment to supporting teachers.

Although MCPS pays teachers relatively well, the culture of underpaying teachers is prevalent throughout other parts of the country.

To keep more dedicated and experienced teachers, schools must offer salaries that show the

CARLY TAGEN-DYE

value they have for their staff.

According to NEA, “37 percent of teachers who do not plan to continue teaching until retirement blame low pay for their decision.”

Many teachers express that they do not teach for the money.

While that may be true, altruism is no excuse to pay teachers less than they deserve. The simple truth is that to make teaching attractive to young qualified graduates, teacher pay must be increased.

“In every other industry, if you want better people, you offer them more money,” says english teacher Keith Anderson. “If you want to improve education, you need to improve teaching. If you want to improve teaching, you need to pay them more.”

No one expects to get rich teaching. But the expectation of the profession should not be that overworked, underpaid teacher from the movies. Instead, let the driven, hard-working, and wellpaid teacher dominate American culture.

Even on the local level, students’ votes matter

It is important to care about Student Member of the Board candidates

By Laura Espinoza An opinion

It is an all-period day today.

Great. You shuffle down to the media center during English, and SGA members give you a long list of instructions you barely hear. You get on a computer, click around the screen, and forget who you voted for to be the next Student Member of the Board of Education (SMOB).

Every year, an election is held to choose the next SMOB. It may just sound like a fancy title, but the SMOB represents the entire MCPS student body. A student’s vote for the SMOB is the first time they ever elect a government official, one who has a real ability to impact their lives. It is essential for students to make educated decisions about candidates and hold the SMOB accountable during their term.

Applying to run for SMOB starts by simply filling out an application, but students must encourage their peers who want to represent Montgomery County youth to run for office.

There is no way of knowing how many times a student failed to turn in a nomination form because they thought they could not win. Even in 2016, out of the county’s 23,000 sophomores and juniors, only four candidates submitted applications to run for SMOB. There are currently 16 candidates.

If more than two students apply, a nomination convention is held to narrow the field down to two candidates. Each middle and high school sends delegates to this convention, one delegate per

200 students, to vote for the final two candidates. Blair students can sign up to become a delegate through forms available from the SGA room closer to the nomination convention. But if more than fifteen students apply, there is an election to narrow the delegate field. This is an excellent way to become involved in the election process. Those who are not delegates at the convention will only be able to vote for one of the two final candidates in the general election at the end of April.

After the final candidates are chosen, the responsibilities of the individual nominees expand.

Whoever is elected to the Board of Education is the voice of the county’s student body.

The election for SMOB should not be taken lightly, and an uneducated vote is as bad, if not worse, than no vote at all.

Each year, both candidates record a debate where they speak about the issues they care about.

But how many students use the time allotted to watch the video to catch up on sleep or homework?

The two final candidates’ qualifications and opinions are printed and distributed to everyone. But how many papers end up scattered in the hallways and stuffed into recycling bins?

Candidates even create social media profiles, websites, and campaign videos to encourage students to reach out with questions. But how many people actually follow through and make their opinions known?

Most of the time, it can be tedious to pick one candidate when all of them seem the same. Blair junior Charles Goldman, a current

SMOB 2014 votin resu results ts SMOB 2014 voting # of 2014 MCPS students who didn’t vote- 19,308 # of 2014 SMOB voters- 59,659 MONTGOMERY COUNTY REGIONAL STUDENT GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION

SMOB candidate, also believes many candidates have similar policy platforms. “Everyone wants to reduce the achievement gap, everyone wants to shut down the school-to-prison pipeline. We’re going to reform school lunch somehow … and then addressing student mental health. Those are the four pillars of what people usually focus on.”

Because of these similarities, students must engage with candidates’ ideas to vote for a SMOB that has the best solutions. Voting should not be a popularity contest where the coolest name or the nicest hair wins.

The apathy shown by students does not only affect who becomes the SMOB, but also how the students are represented throughout the next school year.

If students do not actively engage with the SMOB, their ideas will never be brought to the Board’s attention. Their needs may never be met, simply because no one is aware of the problems.

Former SMOB candidate Rachit Agarwal believes that communication is important for the elected official. “The more discussion you

COLE GREENBERG

have, the more perspectives you have. And that helps the SMOB, as well,” he says.

Board member Patricia O’Neill also believes students should reach out with concerns. “I think the students need to communicate with the Board just like parents and teachers do,” she says.

SMOBs must make themselves more accessible to this communication, especially on social media.

This means posting what they discuss during meetings in a more accessible format than the long recordings and dense documents the Board uploads.

It can be difficult to engage students with the Board’s work. Current SMOB Eric Guerci believes the SMOB must do a lot of the communication themselves. “You have to create information systems that … don’t create excuses, [in order] to get information right in front of students.”

Students must also reach out to know how they are being represented. Goldman strongly encourages students to contact SMOB candidates. “We want to hear about the issues that are troubling you in your community,” he says.

February 2, 2017

Opinion B2

silverchips

Should teachers grade on a curve?

YES:

NO:

Curves are not an effective way to grade.

Grading on a curve is a fair method.

You thought your grade plummeted because of that test you flat-out bombed.

You are already thinking of every assignment you can redo and every quiz you can retake when your teacher saves you with a simple announcement: “I’m curving the test.” Phew!

Now, because of the curve, BEN DOGGETT your test grade will be bumped Leila Jackson up a few points and you will be saved from a low score, and even worse, a failing grade.

Although a situation like this may arise in a high school classroom, curving grades is a more common practice in college.

Curved grades can help students continue to perform well in challenging classes, because the percentile scores are compared to the highest score in the class. Grading on a curve also helps combat grade inflation, which has become a substantial issue.

One version of grading on a curve involves a teacher taking the highest grade scored on a test or other assignment and counting that as 100 percent. Then, the teacher compares all the other scores to the top one.

This method of curving, also called scaling, is used in high schools almost exclusively for Advanced Placement (AP) classes. “I think most teachers who teach AP do some kind of scaling in some places… that would be the logical thing to do,” AP Economics teacher Brian Hinkle says.

MCPS prohibits the practice of “forcing grades into a normal frequency distribution or any other kind of curve that compares students in relation to others,” according to an MCPS Regulation on Grading and Reporting, but allows scaling.

When teachers curve grades, they may also look at questions students answered incorrectly to identify the topics multiple students might have not understood. Then, they may choose not to include these questions in the final score. “So maybe you have 30 questions but you can’t count 30 questions because let’s say two are bad. Should you throw the bad ones away? Yeah you [have to] throw the bad ones away,” Hinkle says. Curving grades prevents students from being penalized for concepts that were not taught well or were quickly glossed over.

AP Chemistry teacher Eric Prange’s reason for curving is different. “I curve more to kind of match what the AP exam is like,” he says.

To effectively mimic the AP curve, Prange changes the baseline for letter grades. For example, the “A” scoring percentage points are lower than what they would normally be. “The longer I taught, I realized that something that is really nice

about it is that I can throw… challenging questions on a test and I can kind of do it guilt-free because I know that they don’t have to get 100 percent,” says Prange.

Curving grades also addresses grade inflation, which has become a huge problem, especially in private universities. This trend means that students in certain classes are awarded higher grades than previous students in those same courses for doing the exact same work. “I think there’s a sense of, if students or students’ parents are paying for this expensive liberal arts college then all students should do well even if they don’t deserve As,” says Dr. Yoon Park, an adjunct professor of African Studies at Georgetown University. As a solution, the bell curve model is used to ensure only a certain number of students can receive As and most students get an average grade (Bs or Cs).

According to Inside HigherEd, the number of As awarded at four year colleges and universities has been going up five to six percentage points per decade. As are now three times more common than they were in 1960. In the spring of 2012, 62 percent of

School is stressful. Going in everyday and accumulating homework, taking tests, and writing essays takes its toll. But it could be worse.

Curves in classes would make school even more difficult. That ‘A’ which was already so hard to achieve would get a whole lot BEN DOGGETT harder.

Grading Elias Monastersky on a curve is a practice that should not be allowed at all, as it is always detrimental to the student and academic integrity of the school as a whole. It only causes unhealthy competition between students, and it provides them with an unfair grade that is not worthy of their work. Some students are set up to lose and some set up to win.

MARISSA HE

grades at Yale University were an A or an A minus, versus 10 percent in 1963 and 40 percent in 1974, according to Yale Alumni Magazine.

The different methods of curving grades help address certain grading concerns and can be beneficial for students as well.

Scaling, for example, enables students to perform well in difficult classes and avoids taking off points for topics that students widely misunderstood. The bell curve method can help stop grade inflation and places cut-offs on how many students can get a certain grade. Curving by lowering the score that you have to receive to get a certain grade allows teachers to ask challenging questions without students losing points. “I really like the idea of pushing [students] more and seeing what they were actually able to do,” says Prange.

Typically, grading on a curve suggests using the bell curve method. This means that the average score for an assignment would receive an average grade. Say that is a C. Then a smaller percentage of the class would receive a B and an even smaller percentage of the class would receive an A. This sounds fine if the method is used for an especially hard test. The average would boost everyone’s scores to accommodate the grades of the students and the difficulty of the test.

But imagine the average grade for the test was a 91 percent, which is an A. Students who got that score would receive a C for the assessment even though the grade they deserve is an A. Students who earned a 95 percent would have a B. And only the people who got a 99 or 100 percent would have an A.

As Adam Grant of The New York Times writes, a curve “arbitrarily limits the number of students who can excel.”

With this sort of grading, classes that are curved foster animosity between students as they have to compete to get a good grade. Instead of just getting an A by studying hard, now they have to beat everyone else in the class as well. Collaboration is thrown out the window as students have no incentive to work together.

Grant describes it as the students “falling into a pattern of ‘cutthroat cooperation.’” By helping someone else do well, they are only making it harder for themselves. By arbitrarily restricting the number of students that can do well in the class, the curve makes it less likely for people to want to help their classmates.

The curve encourages possible sabotage and other shady methods of inflating grades and reducing competition. Grading on a curve makes an already competitive college even more so. Now the students have to fight for their grades.

An editorial in the Tufts Daily says, “Everyone’s heard the horror stories of collegiate sabotage: students ripping pages out of their peers’ textbooks, pulling fire alarms in the library during finals week or intentionally giving their classmates incorrect notes.”

While these may just be stories, it is not far-fetched for such extreme actions to occur in a highly competitive atmosphere.

It is more effective, in terms of education, to encourage collaboration with students instead of allowing the toxic atmosphere that comes with the curve.

In addition to decreased collaboration in curved classes, the grades received on curved tests are meaningless. If everyone fails a test and then the teacher curves the grade so that they do better, then the students may not have really learned the material. They failed the test for a reason, but they will never have the need to correct their mistake with an inflated grade.

If the average grade on a test is an E, then the professor could turn that E into a C, a passing grade, and thus the process of learning and studying would become meaningless.

While arguments could be made about the benefits of competition in education and that curves make grading easier for the professor, grading on a curve hurts the students who are either having their grades inflated or deflated by a ridiculous amount.

Curves can also result in such inflated grades that the students might end up not learning the class material. Doing well is important, but learning is what students are in school to do. A bad grade on a test or in a class is nowhere near as detrimental to the student as failure to learn.

Grading on a curve is completely unneeded, and the way Blair grades is fine. If a student gets an A on an assignment, it is only fair that an A should be written in the grade book. Curves are not a good way to grade and should not be used or encouraged at the high school or college levels.

voicebox Leo West Junior

Deeya Garg Sophomore

Isabel Anderson Freshman

Jack Russ Senior

“No, because often the grade that they get is just how much they studied.”

“Yes, I think it’s good because your grade is raised no matter what.”

“Yes, it’s a good thing because not everyone is taught the same material the same way.”

Sam Newman Sophomore

BEN DOGGETT

“Yes, I think curves are good because that way people do better.”

“No, either there’s something wrong with the test or with the way the student studied.”

B3 Opinion

silverchips

February 2, 2017

Safety first: Why self-defense should be taught in schools

Physical, mental, and safety benefits of self-defense training should be offered by MCPS

By Erin Namovicz An opinon Imagine yourself walking home along Sligo Creek as the sun disappears behind the trees. It has gotten later than you thought, and soon after you plug your earbuds into your ears, you feel someone grab you from behind.

You either are able to free yourself or risk being assaulted.

Your ability to escape this situation depends on your knack for self-defense, a skill that should be taught in school.

Teenagers are in the most dangerous years of their lives. According to the Rape Abuse Incest National Network, “females ages 16-19 are four times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.” Despite this, MCPS does not offer any preventative programs in schools, where these resources can be readily available for all teenagers.

Self-defense needs to become an integral part of the high school curriculum. By offering martial arts as a physical education (PE) class and self-defense lessons in health class, MCPS can do its part to ensure the safety of its students.

Social studies teacher Kenneth Seat used to run a martial arts club at Blair in which students would learn about various disciplines, but it disintegrated three or four years ago. Now, students such as sophomore Jacob KrackeBock and junior Nina Jeffries, who are interested in martial arts, have to practice outside of school at institutions such as Hill’s Hitters, where they are both red belts.

An education in martial arts is a key component of these students’ sense of safety. “It makes me feel stronger and more confident, especially when I’m walking alone … I feel like I have the skills to defend myself if I ever needed to in the instance that I was attacked,” Jeffries says.

Self-defense also offers mental discipline and physical exercise, a key component of physical education. “It helps with self-control. It helps with not acting out in school.

It helps with not getting in fights with people,” Kracke-Bock says.

Properly trained, a potential victim can defuse most situations that would otherwise become attacks before they lead to violence, says Lauren Taylor, founder of self-defense class Defend Yourself.

These attacks usually come from someone the victim already knows. In her Takoma Park-based class, Taylor teaches students verbal techniques to prevent harassment situations from getting worse. To give them confidence, she teaches these classes of mainly women what to do if a situation turns violent. “Once they know that they have the physical skills to back them up, then they’ll stand up for themselves more in the everyday kind of thing. By the same token, the physical skills can be very empowering,” she says.

PE teacher Robert McMahon agrees that offering self-defense as a class at Blair would give students self-confidence, discipline, and fitness. However, he warns that such a class curriculum does not exist in MCPS, and if one were to be created, it would need a qualified teacher. “Because you

are a certified PE teacher doesn’t necessarily mean you have the knowledge to be a certified selfdefense teacher,” he says.

The biggest roadblock McMahon sees in creating a self-defense class is the cost of insuring it.

“That’s what it comes down to, because today in the world of litigation, everybody wants to sue everybody, and if someone gets hurt, ‘Oh you can’t do that,’” he says.

However, there are ways around the litigation. Blair offers wrestling as an athletic team, and it is a full-contact sport with similar injury concerns as martial arts.

Football is even more dangerous, with high school players suffering 11.2 concussions for every 10,000

games and practices, according to the Institute of Medicine.

For school sports and the former martial arts club, parents sign a waiver to allow their child to participate. A waiver could easily be used to ward off insurance hikes for a martial arts class, which uses protective gear and emphasizes safety. Incorporating verbal self-defense training into health classes, on the other hand, poses no insurance risks.

Taylor, the self-defense instructor, says that she and colleagues around the nation have successfully taught programs in schools where they instruct students on verbal boundary-setting to use in street harassment situations and training to exit abusive relation-

ships.

In the classroom, students can receive instruction and practice hypothetical situations with their classmates verbally without requiring a waiver. Eventually, self-defense should be fully incorporated into the health curriculum, but for now, instructors such as Taylor should join police officers and other guest presenters in health classes.

In a world so concerned with safety, it is absurd that we are not at least offered the chance to learn to defend ourselves. MCPS needs to take the initiative to create a self-defense PE elective and health class curriculum to give its students the self-confidence they need to be safe adults.

HANNAH SCHWARTZ

FIGHT BACK An instructor holds equipment for a Defend Yourself participant to learn a move.

A trend that needs to end: the glamorization of mental illness

Romanticizing mental health issues is dangerous, insensitive, and needs to stop

By Serena Debesai An opinon

“You are the most interesting person … I want weird quirks,” said actress Jennifer Lawrence to actor Jesse Eisenberg, when they both appeared as guests on a 2013 episode of “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” With no context this comment may appear flattering, but actually, it is anything but.

Those quirks Lawrence was referring to? Symptoms of Eisenberg’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), which he has struggled with throughout his life.

Yes, Jennifer Lawrence essentially stated that she wanted to experience OCD, a severe mental illness that can greatly disrupt one’s

lifestyle.

But Jennifer Lawrence is not the only one with warped ideals of mental health. Somehow, in the movement to destroy the stigma surrounding mental illness, it has become common to glamorize or romanticize diseases like OCD or depression.

The glorification of mental illness refers to statements or art that portray these diseases as romantic, desirable or beautiful. Glamorizing mental illnesses trivializes the terrible experiences that those with these diseases face.

Furthermore, it leads to an unhealthy culture where mental illness is viewed as desirable. As a result, those who are not necessar-

SHIVANI MATTIKALLI

ily mentally ill attempt to selfdiagnose in order to seem cool, quirky, or artistic.

Glamorization is everywhere, but it often takes form as art on social media. It is easy to find images romanticizing mental illness by just scrolling through Tumblr; think of haunting, black-and-white pictures of gorgeous girls, overlaid with some cryptic quote about depression.

Even worse are the social media accounts that fetishize eating disorders, posting attractive images of emaciated girls captioned with hashtags like “#thinspo,” short for “thinspiration.”

To those who do have mental health issues, it is obvious that the words “glamorous” and “mental illness” do not go hand-in-hand.

Depictions of mental illness as a beautiful struggle are inaccurate, and contribute to a distorted narrative surrounding these diseases.

Sophomore Sophia Shah suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and describes her experiences with mental illness as painful. “I struggle everyday just to get by and I’ve come a long way since recovering but … it doesn’t really go away,” she says. “From time to time, I still have nightmares and some thoughts trigger it.”

This does not mean that all art surrounding mental illness romanticizes it, and in no way means that those suffering with mental health should not use creative outlets to express their feelings.

Senior Becca Aitken understands that while some may draw artistic inspiration from their struggle with mental illness, it does not mean that the disease should be perceived as beautiful. “It is important to separate the art from the mental illness,” Aitken says.

Glamorization exacerbates the stigma surrounding mental illness by downplaying its seriousness.

Essentially, art and statements that romanticize mental illness can make one feel as though their hardships are inconsequential.

Aitken, who has suffered from anxiety and depression, feels that the portrayal of mental illness as beautiful belittles the experiences she and others with mental illness have faced. “It kind of makes me feel … as if our problems aren’t something that are really real and something that really impacts our lives,” she says. “There is nothing fun about being sad all the time, or being worried about everything.”

Not only is the glamorization of mental illness insulting to those who suffer from mental diseases, it has the potential to be dangerous.

Those who have not necessarily experienced mental illness may misdiagnose themselves in an effort to seem “cool” or “artistic.”

Glamorization leads to misinformation. It becomes easy to confuse momentary feelings of sadness or anxiety with real mental illness when one is bombarded with poetic quotes that attempt to minimize the severity of mental illness.

For example, statements like, “Depression is not a sign of weakness; it means you have been strong for too long,” ignores the fact that depression is a result of chemical imbalances in the brain and may lead one to mistake their brief feelings of hopelessness for depression.

Alternatively, one may feel that because their disease is “trendy” or not something of legitimate concern to others, they should not seek treatment.

Today 18.5 percent of adults ex-

perience mental illness in a given year, and 21.4 percent of adolescents experience mental illness at some point in their life, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Why then is the glamorization of mental illness so rampant if it poses such a threat and impacts so many people?

There is simply a profound lack of education in school curriculums with regards to mental health. Aitken recalls merely glossing over mental health when she took the required health course in school. “In our mandatory health classes, they just touch on [mental health] very lightly and do not talk about it much. I think we also need to promote a kind of educational setting in school that allows people to talk more freely about their mental illnesses … and people can see that it is not fun to have a mental illness,” she says.

The solution to erasing the stigma surrounding mental illness is not to glamorize it. In fact, glamorization detracts from important issues such as the lack of treatment for mental illness, and exposes the absence of proper education regarding mental health.

The dialogue surrounding mental health needs to be changed. More specifically, mental illnesses should be discussed as a result of uncontrollable chemical imbalances in the brain that will not disappear without adequate treatment.

Despite the fact that symptoms may not always manifest physically, mental illnesses are sicknesses. We need to stop making diseases seem enviable and treat them for what they are.

February 2, 2017

Busy work is for the bees

Defending early registration for classes

By Isabella Tilley An opinion

By Noah Chopra-Khan An opinion A guide to success in high school — it is very simple. Mindless reading, writing, and memorizing. Move the information from the textbook to the test. Numb your mind and put your critical thinking skills away. Become a robot. Because if every now and then you happen to learn something, it is just an added bonus, but clearly not a requirement.

Unfortunately, this is the reliable formula for success for students in many classes today. And it is an absolute travesty.

Standardized tests and outdated curriculums amount to more material, which calls for more cramming of information and ultimately results in more busy work and less learning. We need more in-depth projects, group activities, and long-term assignments from which students receive real value to be successful in our classes. Activities like these are less laborious and far more rewarding.

According to dozens of studies compiled by the Buck Institute of Education, the long-term value of these projects and more in-depth assignments is “positive effects on student academic achievement, mastery of 21st century competences such as problemsolving and critical thinking, addressing the needs of diverse learners and closing achievement gaps, and increasing students’ motivation to learn.”

Textbook reading, repetitive worksheets, and five minute activities are good ways to cover more material, more events in history, more protein molecules, and more names of household objects in Spanish. But they do not help students retain critical information, and they are totally ineffective in developing critical thinking skills or problem solving skills that are in high demand in today’s job market.

These skills may be developed in a critical analysis essay about how a certain events in history connect, or in a laboratory

Opinion B4

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TIFFANY MAO

experiment focusing on a certain protein molecule, but certainly not from memorizing facts.

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin was right on the money. Learning by doing and learning by thinking are necessary for real growth and genuine interest from students.

That interest, passion, and excitement is seriously missing in our schools. And it is not because students are lazy. It is not because our teachers are bad either. According to a LiveScience study, “Two out of three high-school students in a large survey say they are bored in class every single day.”

And according to the High School Survey of Student Engagement, it is because the work is not “intellectually engaging.” The students’ time is being wasted. And they know it.

Students do not want less class work, although less homework would be nice. They want more engaging classes and group projects, and to take pride in their work.

Get rid of pointless tests. Throw out busy work. Cover the material through projects and group activities and discussions. Teachers may start to notice something magical taking place in their classrooms. Eyes lighting up with solutions, engaged conversations producing new ideas, and bursts of cognitive functions in the mind of a student that the teacher has all but given up on.

It can happen to all students, without exception, and teachers can help make it happen by eradicating the soul-crushing purgatory that is busy work. That is all it takes to create a fulfilling and rigorous classroom.

Each year, as the deadline to register for classes for the next school year rolls around, some students will inevitably face the list of electives with no idea what to pick. This has prompted some to complain that the deadline for picking courses should be later, in order to give students more time to figure out what they want to take.

There is no evidence, however, to suggest that a later deadline would help students figure out what classes they want to take. A later deadline would only create chaos for counseling and administration.

There is a reason for the early Jan. 31 deadline. Building a schedule for the school and making individual schedules for nearly 3,000 students is a long process, and the deadline gives counseling and administration enough time for it.

According to Master Scheduler Peter Ostrander, between Jan. 31 and mid-summer, the school must use course enrollment to run schedule simulations, which help determine which classes need to be cut, how many students should be in each class, and which classes teachers will teach. Each simulation takes 30 minutes to run, and several days to be reprogrammed with new restrictions to prevent scheduling conflicts.

The final schedule simulation is run around the end of the school year, and during the summer, Ostrander and the counselors continue to iron out conflicts. The earlier the final simulation can be run, the more time there will be to fix conflicts.

Though the Jan. 31 deadline allows counseling and administration to avoid conflict and chaos, it does not always provide this benefit for teachers. Social studies teacher David Whitacre understands that there are reasons for the deadline, but feels that it is crammed in with too many other priorities, like end-of-semester grades. “It’s tied to too many other things going on at the same time,” he says. “You’re trying to promote your classes on your free time … so when you add all that together it just makes it almost impossible to get out there.”

To alleviate the stress of advertising electives and dealing with end-of-semester grades, teachers could advertise their classes sooner. This would also give students more time to think about which classes they want to take, so that they are ready for registration by Jan. 31.

As unfortunate as it is that some teachers feel swamped with end-of-semester work and some students feel unprepared to sign up for electives, the deadline is necessary to prevent conflicts later on.

CLASS REGISTRATION CALENDAR Jan. 31

Early March

February

Students talk to counselors about classes for next year Students sign up for classes

April-July

July

July-August

Master Scheduler uses computer program to match course enrollment with staff allocations. The school will also hire new teachers if a certain department is understaffed.

Blair receives staffing allocations from MCPS. The Master Scheduler compares the school’s tallies to county staffing allocations.

The final schedule simulation is run The final schedule simulation is run ISABELLA TILLEY

B5 Opinion

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THEN: 2001

& NOW: 2016

February 2, 2017

COURTESY OF SILVER CHIPS ARCHIVES

NOT BEATING AROUND THIS BUSH Parading demonstrators at the inauguration of George W. Bush, including several Blair students, are forced into a standstill by Washington, D.C. police at 14th and K St. NW on Jan. 21, 2001.

CALEB BAUMAN

DEJA VU Protesters gathered in Washington, D.C. to protest the inauguration of Donald Trump on Jan. 20. See pages C4 and C5 for full coverage of the inauguration and the Women’s March on Washington.

My Blair: Why I Marched Mary Nkafu, 9

Saleme Eshete, 10

Aran Mazariegos, 11

Willa Murphy, 12

I felt like women needed to be heard and represented in the government.

I thought it was incredible how it wasn’t just D.C. that marched. It was other countries and states that marched. I feel like it’s kind of sad how we had to do this again like it shouldn’t happen in 2017. It was good that we got to do it and I got to be a part of it.

I wanted to bring attention to women and equality, especially to black women just because I don’t think I’m represented as well in anything. I feel like the most disrespected group, and I wanted to bring attention to that.

I remember when we were marching up the street, and I turned around and just the whole block like everything was people and I think that’s something I’ll never forget. It was really cool.

The chants that they had were really funny. One was like, “He’s orange, he’s gross, he lost the popular vote.”

The march wasn’t just for women’s rights. The Black Lives Matter movement was happening too, anti-Trump, and then the women’s.

That was amazing. I want to be part of something like that, especially because everyone started to talk to each other -- the protesters, the people that were marching.

People came from out of state -- I thought that was so amazing.

I feel like it’s so much more necessary to fight for those kinds of things. I sort of regret always leaving it to other people to fight, but now with the new administration.

I’m a male, and I’m a white male. So I feel like I’m just treated better, and I feel like I should be one of the people helping the fight because that would make it easier.

Equality of pay, equal treatment of all races. It was legitimately everything, like all for equality that’s what I was thinking when I went, and that’s how I felt. Because it’s just ridiculous how somebody can just not be treated the same.

I appreciated all the speakers, but I thought it was less focused on the march. I feel like the message is important, but I also feel like the marching was a really big part of the message. And I don’t know it was just very long and drawn out because I was sort of stuck in one spot, and this could be just me with slight claustrophobia, but I just didn’t really enjoy being stuck in one area for four hours.

I was there the whole time. I felt like it was very good and empowering towards a lot of people that had never been to the marches, me myself included because I had never gone to any other marches. I felt like this was a great first one to start on and it really motivated me to go to other ones.

I marched because I felt like this was going to be a historic event in the future and I wanted to be a part of something much bigger than myself in such a positive way.

While it was a women’s march, I think the whole group was focusing on a real diversity of issues both in and out of gender. I marched as a queer woman who was frightened by what Mike Pence has said. I marched as somebody who is incredibly passionate about the environment, and I feel like Trump’s thought that doing nothing with the environment is actually a direct attack on the environment.

And I marched because tangentially to that, I feel like we need more attention especially now to the pipeline issue.

Raphael Kanner, 12 My mom works in women’s rights advocacy so I’d feel bad if I didn’t go. I wasn’t forced to go. I was the first out of the house in the morning… just for human rights in general.

I just felt in general it was really surreal and really cool. At first I got there at nine, and we were near the back, and at two, I looked and like five blocks down, you couldn’t see the back and I just thought that was amazing. Even though it’s bad circumstances, it’s really cool the amount of people that were there.

Isabel Fenton, 11 I disagree very strongly with what our new president has been saying about, well particularly his rhetoric towards women like while he was campaigning. I just wanted to show my opposition for his hate speech and stuff.

I kinda wish that it had been more organized because I think there were so many people there. There wasn’t an organized march like there planned to be. I think we could have made more of a difference if everyone knew what they were doing.

Also, a lot of the speakers were broken so if you were further back you couldn’t really hear what was going on. So a lot of it felt like we were just kind of standing there not doing anything. But it was still really cool to see so many people. It was empowering to be around so many people who felt the same way that I did.

Claire Cassidy, 10 For women’s rights and I wanted to make my voice known that I am not happy with President Trump. I also knew that this would be in history books and I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to look back and to my future children, be like, “I was there!”

I want to say something more inspiring than just the sheer number of people. I get really claustrophobic and there were so many people, which is good because more people, more power to them.

So many people from across the nation, and across the world even, came to this march and just that was something.

Mary Lou Thornton, social studies teacher I’ve been marching since I was 17 years old mostly for the same things. I’m getting sick of marching for the same things. So this time I marched for my grandchildren.

I marched because we had the most qualified candidate not just this century but probably ever, and she was defeated.

It was like a tidal wave that came over me when I realized it around seven p.m. on election night that she was going to lose.

And I was just dumbfounded that this country was still that sexist and would turn on a candidate like Hillary Clinton and vote in an unqualified celebrity to be our president.

I was just dumbfounded by it, so when I heard about the march, I said, “Okay we’re in.” And I started organizing friends and family to come to our house and write our thoughtful signs and go to protest.

But really what was at the root of it was I have a granddaughter who was so excited about Hillary Clinton running for President and was so crushed when she lost.

She’s six.

And she got mistreated at school because they wouldn’t let her join groups because she voted for Hillary, and she had to end up in the principal’s office right after the election, crying, people making fun because girls lose.

I have another granddaughter on the way. I just don’t want my grandchildren, two girls and two boys, to grow up in a world that doesn’t treat people equally.

I’m at a place where I’m going to march every week if it’s necessary to change this.

Want to submit a personal column? Email it to silver.chips.print@gmail.com The Editorial Board will read through all submissions and determine a selection.

What do you think?

Sankara Olama-Yai, 12 I marched to support all the women I knew. I went there to support women’s rights, which are human rights. I went there for my mother because she couldn’t be there. She travelled to France a couple days before so I went there to represent my family and to fight for what I believe in.

It was a great experience. There were a ton of people there and I got to meet a lot of people, see a lot of different faces.

I noticed that there were a lot of guys there, a lot of children, and women. So all kinds of different people working together for a good cause.

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Alia Rice, 11 I marched because I think that it’s important to advocate for women’s rights and equality.

Personally I think that there was a good reason behind it, but I didn’t actually enjoy it that much because I didn’t feel as unified with everyone as I thought I would. I feel like there were also a lot of people who were there for a lot of different reasons and it wasn’t very specific to just women’s rights.

There were people there who were holding up signs for other causes and stuff, so I felt like it was not as focused on women’s rights as I thought it would be.

Scan the code above with a QR reader app, or use the URL http://www.chipssurvey.com/ to access the feedback survey!

Editorials B6

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February 2, 2017

Betsy DeVos poses a threat as Secretary of Education

Blair illustrates the fallacy of ‘one-size fits all’ public schools Later this month, senators will vote on President Trump’s pick for the Secretary of Education position in his cabinet, Betsy DeVos. With a Republican majority in the Senate, she will most likely be confirmed.

As an advocate for moving taxpayer money and students out of public schools, DeVos will pose a monumental threat to students as Secretary of Education.

DeVos’s proposed policies revolve heavily around the idea of “universal school choice,” meaning that families can specialize their children’s education in the school of their choosing. In her own words, successful schooling occurs when “all parents, regardless of their zip code, have had the opportunity to choose the best educational setting for their children.” DeVos’s philosophy is that families should be able to send their children to the school—private, religious, charter, public, or at home—that best fits their needs. However, her ideas also involve dedicating public money to these other schools.

From her Senate confirmation hearings and education platform, it is clear that DeVos is ignorant to the problems in our public schools, which support 91 percent of American students. For the remainder of students, DeVos’s plan will usurp public dollars, weakening public school systems and only serving a small minority.

This has already occurred in Michigan, where DeVos’s push for school choice and charter school growth crippled the public school systems. Over two decades of education policy shaped by DeVos’s financial lobbying, Michigan’s academic progress has failed to keep up with other states. And the charter schools DeVos so ardently advocated for scored worse than their public-school counterparts on national assessments. To

make matters worse, the proliferation of charter schools in the state, particularly in Detroit, Flint, and Grand Rapids (DeVos’s hometown), made it harder for public schools to stay afloat with reduced funding.

Although DeVos claims to encourage choice, her policies would really discourage educational freedom and quality for many, if not most, K-12 students.

Realistically, most people will not be able to or want to take advantage of the extremely specialized schools that DeVos touts. The majority of students, therefore, would be left with public schools that have less money. Then we will have a public education system that truly is “one size fits all,” as DeVos claims it currently is.

Everything that could be specialized would be outsourced to private schools, funded with taxpayer money. Students within public education would be faced with fewer resources and scarce other options.

Privatization of education only benefits students who are fully confident in the style and emphasis of education they wish to receive and does not allow for any exploration. DeVos advocates for free choice, but in the process, disregards students who wish not to choose.

DeVos seems to think that the only path to school choice is a system of charter schools and school vouchers. What she does not seem to realize is that strengthening public schools has the potential to encourage choice in education while still serving the needs of the majority of students.

Blair is an example of a school that strikes a balance between inclusivity and specialization. We have students from all walks of life and all over the county who participate in the Magnet, Communication Arts, ESOL, and academy programs. A

Trump has forced the media onto the defensive

By Cole Sebastian President Donald Trump has thrown a wrench into the gears of journalism, gears that were already in need of large-scale restructuring. Trump, who has openly dubbed the media as “among the most dishonest human beings on Earth,” is shifting what news outlets prioritize and changing the White House’s role in public informa-

Ombudsman Cole Sebastian

GRIFFIN REILLY

tion.

The White House withholding information from the media is nothing new.

Every administration has devised its own strategy of dodging questions and tailoring information to support their own agenda.

The White House press secretary has often served as both a mouthpiece for undisputed information and a guard dog for the admin-

istration’s secrets, leaving White House media correspondents and other journalists to uncover those secrets through investigation.

Trump and White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer present an entirely alternative dynamic. Spicer has turned undisputed facts into great controversy. Spicer disagrees with even the most basic facts and statistics—he claimed that Trump’s inauguration crowd was among the largest in history when in reality it was one of the smallest in recent history. Spicer even refused to report the unemployment rate, although the answer is a widely known numerical figure (4.7 percent) released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, because Trump has claimed the figure is closer to 42 percent.

Spicer is able to get away with blatant lies because Trump has convinced his supporters that his facts are true and that the media’s facts are liberal propaganda. The president’s unwavering dishonesty will redirect the investigative efforts of journalists from uncovering the White House’s secrets to scrounging for the slightest bit of truth from a deceitful administration. The media has always fact-checked and confirmed information coming from the White House.

The difference now is that when Trump and Spicer get caught in a lie, they do not apologize or reconsider. They deny and deny and deny because they know that to a large sect of the population, their word is more trustworthy than any journalist’s.

This is the part where I should talk about how media outlets should adapt to this new environment so that truth can once again reign supreme. I honestly have no idea how that will happen. Journalists are scrambling to find solutions, but the damage Trump has caused may already be beyond repair.

My only hope is that the administration’s lies will become too extreme for any Americans to accept them.

Still, as long as Trump, Spicer, and the rest of their entourage continue to deny undisputed facts, they could hurt their own credibility even amongst their own supporters. Their lies will continue to pile up and we have to hope that each lie will sow more doubt within the American people.

school as big as Blair utilizes all of the funding we receive to cater to the needs of every type of student as best as we can.

The solution to America’s education problems is not to privatize some schools while diminishing the resources devoted

to others. It is entirely possible to cater education to the needs of individual students without risking the quality of public education. If DeVos does not believe us, she should spend a day in Montgomery Blair’s halls.

SHIVANI MATTIKALLI

Letter to the Editor I was surprised to see that in the article entitled, “From courtrooms to classrooms . . .” the Alternative Programs school was consistently referred to as Mark Twain. I am not sure if your students realize that as a school, Mark Twain was closed in 2008. Additionally, Mark Twain was a special education facility (that served students with serious emotional disturbance/disability), which is different from the current Alternative Programs. Although the beginning of the article mentioned that the program was located in the Blair G. Ewing Center, subsequent references refer to the program as Mark Twain without italicizing the reference or using any other notations to indicate that this is not the proper name of the facility. In August, 2009 the Mark Twain building was renamed as the Blair G. Ewing Center. Even though many families still refer to the program as Mark Twain, I think that it is important to correct those references whenever possible. Although for some students Alternative Programs is not a place where they would want to attend school, for many others it has provided the staffing and approach to learning that has allowed them to graduate high school. Having worked there for three years first as a counselor and then as the Pupil Personnel Worker, I see and understand both sides of the issues that were communicated in the article. Still the bigger picture that I do not want people to confuse is the difference in the programming at Mark Twain vs the programming at Alternative Programs since Alternative Programs is still general education/comprehensive programming just as any other school that serves all students and makes accommodations for students with disabilities.

Tia Scott, Pupil Personnel Worker Ms. Scott, At the beginning of the story, the authors clarified that the program is known colloquially as Mark Twain. The article aimed to highlight the points of view of students in alternative programs.

Because student sources referred to the program at the Blair G. Ewing Center as Mark Twain, the authors decided that it would be best to call it as it is referred to by students in order to be more accessible to the student body that our newspaper primarily serves.

The authors tried to clarify the various programs and their names, but did not have enough room to thoroughly explain the history of the entire system, as they tried to focus the story on the students’ stories and on racial disparities in the juvenile justice system.

The Silver Chips Editorial Board appreciates your feedback on this article from the Dec. 21 issue, and we welcome students, staff, and community members to submit letters with comments, suggestions, or critiques.

Eventually, the White House will lose all credibility and voters will know to only trust the media.

That is the hope. That is the best case scenario: a people that cannot trust a single word that comes from their own president.

For now, journalists can only do their best to keep their heads above the water with an administration that seeks to pull them under.

Only through vigilant and unfailing al-

legiance to the truth can the media hope to stay afloat.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Contact the Blair Ombudsman at ombudsmansilverchips@ gmail.com!

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February 2, 2017

Blazing the trail to doctor-recommended marijuana in Maryland

The delays in the arrival of medicinal cannabis and the stories behind them from MEDICAL MARIJUANA page A1 swell — often her eyes, too.

Glenn had experienced the absence of medical marijuana in Maryland first-hand when her brother and mother passed away, never able to access the medicine they needed. So, when state officials named the Medical Marijuana Commission after Glenn’s mother, Natalie M. LaPrade, she felt overwhelmed and closer to her loved ones all at once. She had no reason to doubt the efficiency of the state, or the competency of those working on the commission.

So, Glenn said, she was surprised to discover the commission’s incompetency shortly after her bill was passed in 2014. After a delay on a business fees vote which lasted a little under a year, the commission began accepting applications on Sept. 29, 2015 for a total of 15 cultivation slots, 109 dispensary slots, and an unlimited number of processing slots. And then in late 2016, after another year-long delay on licensing decisions, the commission released the names of its 15 growers and 15 processors, not yet ready to finalize its dispensary choices.

The commission’s original charge was to choose an ethnically, geographically, and racially diverse selection of growers, processors, and dispensaries; which in turn cultivate the plant, transform the plant into a commercial product, and distribute the plant.

The group of selectees, to the embarrassment of the commission, was completely devoid of black growers. “The commission decided to ... do their own thing. They ignored the legislation, the language in the legislation and so the process they use, they claim that it was double blind,” Glenn says, describing the commission’s selection process. “If that system was double blind, Ray Charles can see. Because all you have to do is follow the money and see who received the licenses.”

The lack of diversity attracted legal retaliation and the medical marijuana implementation process slowed down even more as rejected cultivation companies GTI Maryland and Maryland Cultivation and Processing filed lawsuits against the commission.

Amongst the mayhem caused by the commission’s dealings, Governor Larry Hogan worked fast to clean out the state’s wounds by appointing advocate Saundra Washington, a black cancer survivor, to the commission.

Although the postponed votes, untimely lawsuits, and various accusations proved thwarting to the momentum of the cause, surprisingly, the commission released its 102 choices for Maryland dispensaries in December of 2016.

COURTESY OF THE TAKOMA WELLNESS CENTER

A BUDDING SUCCESS The Takoma Wellness Center, a dispensary local to D.C., displays some of their medical marijuana rested on a blue grinder.

The commission made sure to double check for diversity that time.

La la land As one leaves Maryland’s state limits and crosses the border into herb-filled lands of the nation’s capital, the differences between the District and state of Maryland are not immediately visible. There are no massive clouds of marijuana smoke shrouding the streets like foggy weather. Dispensaries do not outnumber Starbucks franchises, as could be imagined in a region of legal dubbies. The only indication that one has just crossed over a state line is a short sign off to the side of the road that reads “Welcome to Washington D.C.” in bold, blue letters.

Once in awhile, if he feels like it that day, Craig Dykstra makes the trip over the D.C. border to check on his medical marijuana investments. Dykstra, a wealthy investor

COURTESY OF THE TAKOMA WELLNESS CENTER

OVER THE D.C. BORDER Unlike unopened Maryland dispensaries, the Takoma Wellness Center and other D.C. dispensaries have been operating since 2013 and have grown in prominance and popularity.

with an easy-going attitude and a love for Hawaiian shirts, was one of the first investors in the Takoma Wellness Center, a local D.C. dispensary.

When Dykstra heard from a friend that the District was handing out free licenses to distribute medical marijuana, he wanted to know more. Dykstra did some research on the topic, and before long, he was investing in a dispensary and two growers, all located in D.C. He favors D.C.’s laws on medical marijuana over those proposed in Maryland for one major reason: D.C.’s qualifications for getting medical marijuana are based on the opinions of doctors rather than lawmakers.

As the bill is proposed in Maryland, only a specific number of illnesses and symptoms qualify for medical marijuana, namely chronic pain, severe nausea, and debilitating disease. D.C., on the other hand, accepts any debilitating condition as recommended by a licensed doctor.

D.C. may have started out with stricter medical marijuana laws and a list of precise symptoms just like Maryland, but since the 2013 voter referendum to legalize non-medical marijuana use in D.C., medical marijuana restrictions have all but vanished.

D.C.’s monthly limit on an individual doubled from two ounces to four ounces.

The District lifted restrictions on dispensaries, allowing residents to purchase from any of the five local medical marijuana distributors in D.C. Legislators even did away with reciprocity laws, meaning tourists who happen to drop by the capital with a medical card from another state now have no problem buying a supply. Maryland has yet to issue medical cards.

D.C. has not seen much economic change yet, but according to the Federal Tax Foundation, “revenues are expected to increase as production expands.” Although there is no Maryland revenue data to compare with D.C., it can be inferred that with looser laws comes more revenue.

The laws of chemistry

Beneath the grassy, orange-speckled surface of the dried cannabis plant lies its vast and perplexing molecular level yet to be fully explored or understood by Western science.

As long as marijuana is classified as a federally illegal substance, federal funding of medical research of it is strictly prohibited by the U.S. government.

Scientists can list the substances inside marijuana, namely tetrahydrocannabinol

(THC), cannabidiol (CBD), and cannabinol (CBN), but when it comes to understanding the full effects of those substances on the human body, uncertainty remains. “The challenge is that it is all anecdotal. You cannot say that if you use this particular strain of this product your ‘x’ will get better. There are no documented cures because doctors and researchers cannot test it,” Dykstra said regarding the health benefits of medical marijuana.

Recently the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine initiated independent studies into the health benefits of marijuana. The results, published last month, showed strong evidence that marijuana can aid in treatment of chronic pain, reduce muscle spasms, and can help manage some effects of chemotherapy, such as vomiting and nausea.

No matter the number of expensive scientific studies done on the effects of medical marijuana, Maxwell Schulbaum knows that the medicine works for him. Schulbaum, a D.C. resident and employee of the Takoma Wellness Center, started using medical marijuana to deal with his severe back pain, headaches, and anxiety.

Studies archived by the U.S. National Library of Medicine link one of marijuana’s compounds, CBD, to be an effective treatment for illnesses such as anxiety and schizophrenia. Further research on the effects of marijuana had been sought after in Maryland by Frostburg State University, but the college had only been able to conduct basic investigations due to heavy regulations from the federal and state government.

Paradoxical precedents

As darkness falls and many Blair students are preparing to brush their teeth or throw on their pajamas, Jim — a senior — is tense. Tonight, he can hear the depressive thoughts louder than usual as they bounce around his head. The stress builds and builds, growing faster as he does his best to cope.

It is not until after Jim takes a hit of his potent, green medicine that he feels better.

The drug calms his body and quiets the chatter of his mind. “It helps me think more clearly instead of getting really pent up and stressed,” Jim explains, slowly leaning back in his chair. “It just helps me calm down and think about everything thoroughly.”

After Jim was diagnosed with depression during his sophomore year, he tried taking prescribed medicine, but nothing worked. It was not until his junior year of high school, when he started using marijuana to selfmedicate himself, that he found the ability to cope.

Regardless of how badly he believes he needs it, Jim would not be eligible for medical marijuana in Maryland due to the narrow list of applicable symptoms.

Although Jim might qualify for medical marijuana in a state like California or in D.C., some states regulate the drug meticulously in order to avoid federal regulation, according to local lawyer Mike Rothman. He says the federal government only turns its eye on a state when medical marijuana regulations become loose and illegal growers run rampant.

“In states where it is widely accepted, the government has been very hands-off,” Rothman says. “But in states like California where it has gone nuts and the state has refused to regulate itself, they have taken an active interest in shutting down the illegal growers and operations.”

Here lies the challenge for Glenn and her fellow delegates on the Maryland House floor. Their laws must be fair and just, yet strict and air-tight.

Right now, Glenn and her fellow Black Caucus members are working to pass emergency legislation designed to fix the diversity problem in the state’s 2016 growing selections.

“I would say conservatively that we are probably looking at 2018 before we have dispensaries up and running, unless we can get a handle on this industry by way of the new legislation that we are introducing and supporting from the legislative Black Caucus of Maryland,” Glenn says.

The scenario brings sensations of deja vu for medical marijuana advocates in Maryland, but this time around they are hoping there will be no delays. Just guarantees.

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C2 Features

February 2, 2017

Beyond the thin blue line: Policing in America

Exploring officers’ thoughts on trust in the community

By Alexander Dacy Officer John Pietanza Sr. pulls up next to a parked stolen motorcycle in his squad car, gets out, and approaches a group of people. Pietanza then tackles the suspect, who fights back, surprised at his detention.

One of the suspect’s friends begins filming the altercation, as Pietanza tries to arrest the suspect while the suspect attempts to flee. When he finally subdues the suspect, Pietanza arrests him and brings him to the car before walking over to the suspect’s friend, who is still filming. Pietanza talks with the bystander, before taking the camera as evidence.

Later, the suspect contends that Pietanza and another officer on the scene used excessive force in detaining him. In the courtroom, Pietanza presents the video to the judge and jury, who review it before dismissing the police brutality complaint.

Just a few years ago, the thought of a police officer in the line of duty being filmed and constantly monitored for their actions would have alarmed many, but today it is becoming more commonplace as police have been targets of community outrage following recent officer-involved shootings.

Police officers across the United States are coming under intense scrutiny for their use of deadly force, especially against minorities. This has led to decreased trust between cops and their communities.

A 2015 Gallup poll indicates that police trust among all Americans has fallen to its lowest level since the early 1990s, with only 52 percent of citizens approving of their officer corps.

An abundance of distrust Police forces have always been in the spotlight, but the level of officer scrutiny has dramatically increased since the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner at the hands of police in 2014. These incidents resulted in a significant decrease of police trust in many communities across the country, particularly those with a significant number of minority citizens. A July 2016 Gallup aggregate poll found that, while 58 percent of white Americans trust police, only 29 percent of black Americans feel the same way.

Such events have also led to increased challenges and precautions among police officers themselves. A January 2017 Pew Research Center report notes that 86 percent of officers believe fatal police acts against African Americans have made their jobs harder, while 76 percent of officers indicate that they are more reluctant to use force against suspects than before these police shooting incidents.

One local officer is quick to point out that many police forces feel that they are being treated unfairly as well. Captain Tyrone Collington of the Takoma Park Police Department cautions against jumping to conclusions whenever someone sees an officer in uniform, and notes that the officers portrayed in these fatal incidents represent a minority of all officers in the country.

“You’ve got to keep in mind that there are over 900,000 law enforcement officers in

CALEB BAUMAN

ON CALL Two Metropolitan Police Department officers patrol the streets on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. Officers nationwide have come under increasing scrutiny recently after a series of police brutality incidents. this country. And what’s being portrayed in the media, you know, that’s less than one percent of the law enforcement officers,” Collington says. “But because [the media] puts these 20 or 30 second clips on, it seems that it is a very widespread issue, when it really isn’t a widespread issue.”

Joseph Smith, the Deputy Chief of Police at Georgetown University, notes that officers are trained to protect the citizens they serve. This especially holds true on a college campus, where the population is generally made up of less street-smart students.

“You know we feel that we have a higher duty to have that kind of a protective relationship with the students,” Smith says.

“The student population, because most of the students are away from home to some degree or another … we feel strongly that we want to create a living and learning environment for them.”

Collington believes that officers should never step out of line and use brutal force.

“That’s what we took our oath to do, serve and protect. We’re not there to abuse people, we’re not there to brutalize people and violate people’s civil rights,” he says. “I think that if that happens, I think a police officer should be held accountable because he’s no better than the person he’s trying to arrest out here.”

Despite increasing nationwide discontent with officers, members of D.C. area precincts have not seen drastic negative changes in the community’s perceived trust

soapbox Has your community’s relationship with the police changed in the last few years? How? “My relationship with the police has changed tremendously just because of all the incidents that have taken place.”

— Lizbeth Villatoro, freshman “My community’s relationship with the police has always been in between good and bad. Lately, though, my community hasn’t had many issues with the police.”

— Nathalie Molina, freshman “When I was little, everyone loved police officers, and now no one wants to even get close to one.”

— Ileana Leonor, junior

of police.

Smith explains that a consistently positive relationship with the campus has helped the police department even in the wake of recent concerns. “We have had very strong community policing here for many years,” he says. “We have a very good relationship with the campus population — students, faculty, and staff. I don’t see that it’s had any major impact on that.”

Collington holds similar feelings. While he notes that some citizens are wary at first when they interact with an officer, these feelings tend to subside as the citizen and the officer engage in a discussion.

“So when they show up, sometimes there’s a little apprehension about dealing with the police,” says Collington. “But then they realize that whatever happened in a different state and different part of the country is not necessarily happening in Takoma Park.”

These sentiments are echoed by some students at Blair as well. While freshman Jennifer Mendoza-Berrios expresses concern about police treatment of black citizens, she says that she does not feel any less safe nor trust the police any less than she did before these reports came to light.

“I trust [the officers] because if I really need them in case of an emergency, they’ll be there,” Mendoza-Berrios says. “There are times where I feel really fishy about a certain police officer, but I still give them the same trust I give to any other police officer.”

Freshman Christopher Watkins agrees with Mendoza-Berrios’ attitudes. He too is concerned about police brutality incidents across the country, but thinks that many innocent police officers are victims of stereotyping. “Not all cops are bad,” Watkins says. “There’s a stereotype that if you’re not doing anything, they just come and attack you … there are different stereotypes about different people and races, and they’re just being stereotyped right now. Not all of them are the same.”

Unity in the community While neither the local officers nor Mendoza-Berrios and Watkins noticed much of a change in police trust in this area, police departments across the metropolitan D.C. area and around the country are working with the locales they serve to improve community trust in police officers.

In 2015, President Obama commissioned a task force to explore 21st-century policing reform, including ways for police departments to improve their methods

and create trust in communities. The task force’s report explains that certain police officers possess warrior-like mentalities, where they aggressively protect the law using whatever means they think are necessary and appropriate.

The President’s group instead recommends that “law enforcement culture should embrace a guardian—rather than a warrior—mindset to build trust and legitimacy both within agencies and with the public.” Furthermore, the report specifies that “law enforcement agencies should also proactively promote public trust by initiating positive non-enforcement activities to engage communities.”

Collington and Smith agree with the ideas in the task force and are engaged in efforts to institute them in their communities. Collington says the Takoma Park Police Department has begun to hold community meetings in which citizens can interact and discuss issues with police officers, with the goal of sharing a different side of the police than the image portrayed in the news.

“We’re trying to be proactive and start having those engagements, having that dialogue, having those interactions that are positive,” Collington says. “We do this through community events and things like that, having police officers leave their cars and go into businesses, introducing themselves to citizens, to business owners, people like that. That’s how you strengthen the community.”

Likewise, Smith says his department has created a plan similar to the one suggested by the task force, focusing on police as guardians instead of warriors. “We’ve developed a five-year strategic plan that focuses on working with the community and we feel pretty confident that it will be a relationship that will continue to grow in a positive way,” he says. “The findings of the task force show that we really need to get back to being guardians … We fully embrace that, and we would encourage any police department to do the same.”

No matter the public’s perception of the police, Collington wants everyone to understand that, at the end of the day, officers are humans, too. “There are people who think that the police are out to get them, out to hurt them. We’re humans just like the next person,” Collington says. “When I take this uniform off, I’m a citizen just like the next person. I have a family. I have kids.

I have grandkids. I wouldn’t want anyone in my family to be mistreated, so I try to treat people, when I give people service, the same way that I would want another police officer to treat my family.”

Features C3

silverchips

February 2, 2017

Not as seen on TV: Immigrants’ expectations of America Students’ perceptions of the United States, before and after they arrived

By Erin Namovicz Growing up in Kenya, sophomore Abdalla Abdalla saw America through the camera lens, and heard about it in the conversations around him. He imagined it as a land of only rich, happy people.

When Abdalla arrived here in August as part of the American Field Service student exchange program, a competitive student exchange program that brings 18 kids from around the world to the United States, he came face to face with the Americans that are not seen on TV: the less fortunate.

“There were poor people, so I saw homeless people in the streets, and see people who are begging for money,” he says.

To students from around the world, America appears to be brimming with opportunity. Once they get here, they find that some of that is true. But it is not until they arrive that other, unanticipated parts of the country come to light.

The American dream Junior Le Do immigrated to the U.S. from Vietnam when he was six years old. His parents told him that America was the path to success and that it was “one step higher than most people in [Vietnam],” Do says. “Because most people in the country do dream of going to the U.S. to learn because U.S. is the number one country right now.”

In Vietnam, he would see family friends visit from America, who would convert their American dollars into Vietnamese currency and have more money than the then-six year old could process. There, to go

to America was to become rich. In America, “the living standards are quite high,” says Abdalla.

Maria Cuadrado-Corrales, a Spanish teacher at Blair, came to the United States from Spain as part of a visiting teacher program.

In Spain, she says that much of the idealism of America dies off once people grow up. “In general there is a lot of interest among young people. People when they get to university are more critical because the politics and the United States is the stronger economy than Spain, so this idea, this historical idea of imperialism is there,” she says.

For freshman Edy Mendez, coming to America last year meant a better life. It also meant reunification with his mother, whom he had not seen since she left him in Guatemala as a baby, bound for the United States. “I was thinking … that I was going to have a better life here with my parents, with my family, that I was going to go to a much better school. And it is better, my friends, the friendships,” he says in Spanish.

With the prospect of a better education and a new relationship with his mother, America under President Obama seemed like the land of opportunity. However, now Mendez is frightened about the power the government holds, and how they could take away his freedom. “Now that Donald Trump has come, I am scared about that, about what he can do,” he says.

countries, daily life in the United States also comes in shocking contrast to these students. “The people in America are more organized,” Mendez says. The structure of school in America came as a surprise for Adballa and Do as well. In Kenya, Abdalla’s classes began at 7 a.m. and did not end until 5 p.m., with a break at 10 a.m. and another break for lunch. There, students

take many more subjects and study all the types of sciences and disciplines of math each year.

In Vietnam where Do went to school, the school day runs from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., and then students go home to eat with their families.

Since he was only in first grade when he left, Do stayed home, but the older kids would go back after lunch for night school. When

Daily differences Though it presents vast differences in opportunities from other

CARLY TAGEN-DYE

he arrived at Franklin Elementary School in Wisconsin, he was shocked by the change. “Here, first grade is from seven or eight to three, so that was surprising. And you eat in the cafeteria, you never go home and eat,” Do says.

Coming from teaching in Spain to teaching in the United States, Cuadrado also found it a challenge to adapt to the school system and the day to day formalities. “Just of the way you interact among the different elements of the education system, meaning parents, students, and teachers. Also, between teachers and administration. The hierarchy is very different from what it is in Europe,” she says.

While Mendez found parts of life in America to be more structured than Guatemala, Abdalla and Do came to note the comparative freedom. At Franklin, Do had much more recess time. Here at Blair, Abdalla also finds the school environment, with its large classes and digital promethean boards, to be relaxed. “People go to school with phones and music and stuff, and also there’s free intermingling between boys and girls, and the short school days,” he says.

Though there was more to America than the glamor he saw on TV, Abdalla says that overall, America has lived up to his expectations. In the U.S., people think about change, Mendez says, more than back home in Central America. Dreams of success in America still fill the heads of friends Do has left in Vietnam. For now, these boys share their common visions of grandeur in the U.S. and continue to strive for the American dream.

Half-day schedules give seniors twice the options

From jobs to football practice, abbreviated schedules allow more time for activities

By Henry Wiebe The bell rings at 11:07 to signal the end of fourth period, but instead of walking to his next class, senior Johnny Pietanza heads through the front doors and into the parking lot, stopping only to say goodbye to his friends and to wave to a security guard.

It is Pietanza’s senior year, and he has opted to have a half-day schedule.

Each year, a handful of students, who have fulfilled almost all class credits required for graduation, are granted permission to have a half-day schedule.

Although many students refer to it as a “half-day schedule,” it also has another name. Counselor Susanne Bray explains. “‘Half-day

schedule’ is a term that I think you all use as students, but we refer to it as ‘abbreviated schedule.’”

Half-day schedules are also almost always restricted to twelfth graders. “It is only for seniors, unless there is some exceptional situation,” says Bray.

Students who wish to attain a half-day schedule must first talk to their counselors to determine whether an abbreviated schedule would be beneficial. They must show that they will be having some sort of job or internship during the day so that the school knows that the time they might otherwise be spending in class is being put to good use. The student’s parent or legal guardian must also sign off on the schedule.

Pietanza knew that he wanted

HANNAH SCHWARTZ

TICKET TO FREEDOM Senior Johnny Pietanza shows off the sticker on the back of his ID that allows him to leave school for his half day internship.

to have a half-day schedule when he saw his sister with one. “When I was a freshman, I had a sister who was a senior who had a half-day schedule,” says Pietanza. “Without her having a half-day schedule, I probably wouldn’t have known that that was a possibility.”

Each day after he leaves school early, Pietanza works as an intern at the College Park State Police Barracks, where his father works.

There, he is able to become closer with his father and gain valuable experience in the workplace. “Not only am I able to help my dad relieve a little bit of his stress from his very demanding job, but it is also nice that I get some work experience in before I go to college and off to the real world,” he says.

Senior Amy Nguyen also chose to have a half-day schedule during her final year of high school.

She explained how crucial it was that she had a counselor who was able to make the process easier for her. “Having a good relationship with my counselor definitely helped with the process because he was extremely supportive and understanding of my decision,” she says. “We both agreed that my time would be better spent working than in a class I didn’t need.”

Nguyen and her counselor believe she is using her time productively, because she chose to get two jobs in order to fill her free time. “I currently work as a tutor for Aristotle Circle and I am a medical records clerk in a doctor’s office located in Holy Cross Hospital,” she says.

During the spring of his junior year, senior Chris Butler approached his counselor about get-

HANNAH SCHWARTZ

FREE TO LEAVE Senior Chris Butler has a half day schedule that allows him to devote more time to his sports, football and track, and his job. ting a half-day schedule. Butler wanted to free up time so he would be able to devote more time to football and track and to get a job.

He described his path to an abbreviated schedule as very simple.

“I just came to my counselor’s office, and I knew the credits that I needed and the credits that I didn’t need … and he just took [the classes] off. I had to sign a little pink form, and he just took them off.

That’s it. Quick, easy process,” he says.

Senior Nolan Bay did not have a half-day schedule during the first semester of his senior year, but he is planning to have one for his second semester.

“I had a semester class that was ending, and another class that I

wanted to drop,” he says. “I realized this left my whole afternoons open.”

He saw that some of his peers were choosing half-day schedules, and this also factored into his decision. Before any plans were actually finalized, Bay first had to clear the schedule with his parents. “I first talked to my friends about it to see what they were doing second semester and see if they had any advice,” he says. “Then I talked to my parents.”

Half-day schedules allow some seniors to gain experience in a job or an internship that may help them in the future.

For many students, this is much more valuable than any full day at school.

silverc

February 2, 2017

Welcoming t NEW preside Day 1: Inauguration The weather forecast for Donald Trump’s inauguration is cold and rainy. It is symbolic of how I feel waking up, full of dread for not only the new president but the idea of talking to the people who had gotten him elected.

I have seen the Comedy Central Trump rally videos, and I have an expectation for what Trump supporters are like: belligerent, grimy, and dumb. To say the least, I am not excited to go down to D.C. and be surrounded by a swarm of celebratory Trump supporters for an entire day.

The sky is a foreboding gray when Gilda and I arrive at the Takoma Metro Station around 10 a.m. The station, as I anticipated, is empty, except for a few protesters and a man in a rainbow costume with the word “poop” on his back.

The metro car is just as empty. Even when we get off at Judiciary Square, it seems like the city is emptier than it would be on a normal day.

part of the inauguration to me is being exposed to views different from my own.

Stepping out of my comfort zone Lorenzo Davis is a tall, articulate 33-year-old from Savannah, Georgia who stands too close and loves to talk. He says he has been with the Trump campaign for 18 months, and in that time he and his brother stayed engaged on a local level, working with the Republican Party in Savannah.

Davis is looking forward to Trump’s “America first” policy. “‘America first’ … would be definitely Americanism versus globalism,” he says, voicing his wariness of interdependent economies like the European Union. “You saw the things get accelerated with the federalization of Europe … they adopt[ed] the monetary system … and it’s really destroyed Europe because it can’t operate with all that hyperpluralism.”

I meet another Trump supporter, EJ Carannante, underneath the Washington Monument, overlooking the mix of protesters and Trump supporters on Constitution Avenue. Carannante is a 21-yearold engineering student from Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey, and says he is excited about Trump’s plans for strong infrastructure. “Job security coming out of college was my number one concern, and Trump is all about building infrastructure in the United States and who builds the infrastructure?” he asks. “Engineers.”

Two other college students, Amir Gur-Ravantab and Anna Halstead, are also at the inauguration to support Trump. They attend Georgetown University, and wanted to take advantage of their proximity to the event. “We figured that we’re close so this is like a once in a lifetime kinda thing,” Halstead adds.

I was not shocked to find that the Trump supporters at the inauguration were optimistic about the future, but one middle-aged man from New Jersey did surprise me with his reaction to the protests. “I just love seeing ‘em,” Mike Maloney says. “I’ve stumbled on Black Lives Matter protests and every kind of protester, and ... they have the right to peacefully protest and I respect that.”

A peaceful clash

Meeting the resistance The streets around the Metro station are practically deserted, filled only with National Guard troops and humvees at every corner. As we walk along a quiet road in Chinatown and approach the National Mall, I begin to hear chants of “no Trump, no KKK, no fascist U-S-A!” reverberate between brick walls.

I nervously approach a woman in a pink knitted hat. Marilyn Kimmerling, a passionate 68-year-old podcast producer from Tacoma, Washington, is protesting because she believes our country is seeing a “neo-fascist takeover,” and she wants to change this. “I’d like to see people your age have a future. If I don’t stand up, then God help me,” she says to me over the loud shouts of protesters.

Other protesters echo Kimmerling’s determination to have their voices heard. Sarah Khatami, a 19-year-old from Boston, is worried about Trump’s plans for a Muslim registry, and his ideas on climate change, but she believes that the protests will have an impact. “Protesting and marching … do a lot, especially with the Dakota pipeline, it did a lot for them, so I think that if we keep doing this it will definitely make a change,” she says.

Of course, going to Blair, surrounded by other liberals, the worries espoused by Kimmerling and Khatami are nothing new to me.

And as inspired as I feel by the protest, by far the most interesting

Davis, Carannante, and Gur-Ravantab agree that the protesters have a right to free speech, but they also express reservations about the protests.

Davis is worried about the protests becoming violent. “You can voice your opinion, you can hold whatever signs, you can carry whatever flag you want … but if you’re going to throw bottles at people … if you’re going to hit someone … that’s not free speech,” he says.

Carannante does not have a problem with the rowdiness of the protests, but does not understand why people were protesting.

“They have every right to protest, [but] I think it’s a little misguided in the sense that a lot of the things they’re protesting for, like equal rights for black Americans or women’s rights, Trump is very much in favor for,” he says.

Gur-Ravantab thinks that Americans should start uniting behind Trump. He voted for Clinton, but is now supportive of Trump. “Now that he’s the president, I’m gonna, like, stand behind him,” he says.

By the time I have finished interviewing everyone, two of my predictions have been proven wrong. It did not rain like I expected it to, and I did not get yelled at by a Trump supporter.

As I make my way through slightly crowded streets, I think about how nobody I met fits the trailer-trash archetype that I had in my mind. There were definitely things that I disagreed with, like Carannante’s assertion that Trump cares about people of color. But actually talking to real people, instead of listening to caricatures, made it difficult to ignore that, Trump supporter or not, nobody’s identity is determined by a single thought or belief.

By Isabella Tilley

Features C4/C5

rchips

the ent Day 2: Women’s March “We won’t go away! Welcome to your first day!” “Not my president!” “My body, my choice!” “Black lives matter!”

As I make my way down Independence Avenue, I am surrounded by people of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds. Each of them is different, but they have one thing in common: They have come to Washington, D.C. to make their voices heard.

Hundreds of thousands of people from across the country have flocked to the nation’s capital on Jan. 21 to participate in the Women’s March on Washington, a movement that started with one woman on Facebook and quickly grew into a demonstration of solidarity among people across America and the world.

The rally Minutes after leaving my house on the morning of the march, I see people making their way to the Metro, carrying handmade signs and sporting pink pussy hats. As I get closer to the platform of the Silver Spring Metro station, I can hear people cheering and chanting as they pile onto the train.

After only a few stops, the train is so packed that no one can move. When the doors open at Smithsonian Station, the train quickly empties and the crowd moves up the escalator, through the gates, and onto the even more crowded streets.

The first thing I see is thousands of people congregating around jumbotrons that are lining Independence Avenue and broadcasting the speakers and performers who are several blocks up the street.

From where I stand, I am packed between countless people, all trying to catch a glimpse of the screens to see Gloria Steinem, Michael Moore, Madonna, or Alicia Keys speak.

The people Bessie Ramos came all the way from Los Angeles to speak up for the rights of her family. “We’re immigrants, we’re women, we’re minorities, and I’m here to fight for equal rights,” she says.

The element of solidarity is also important to Ramos. “It’s inspiring me actually, to be here with everybody. I’m not alone. No one’s alone,” she says.

Ryan Thompson, a marcher from Atlanta, Georgia, who is sporting a rainbow sticker on her cheek, also emphasizes the theme of unity. “It’s just a bonding experience, for us to just see the power that we have in numbers, and know that we can make a difference outside of today,” she says.

Freshman Sadie Cheston-Harris says that the march will convey that many people care about and are prepared to advocate for equality. “All these people came from different areas to show that they really do care about having this country be a great place for everyone, not just for a few people whose families have always been in power,

and who will be in power just because of what they look like and because of their gender,” she says.

Megan Hamouch, an ESOL teacher at Blair who is passionate about attending the march, says that one of the reasons she is marching is to stand up for immigrant rights. “All matters relating to immigrants and immigration certainly are important. Our students are really worried and scared and it’s painful to watch children and families go through that,” she says.

Another Blair ESOL teacher, Jody Gil, says that the march will encourage people to become politically active. “We’re going to be getting involved, people are going to start making more phone calls to members of Congress, and then that trickles down into state houses and local legislation,” she says. “We have to be involved in order to preserve and protect our democracy.”

The meaning Despite the name, the Women’s March means more to some people than exclusively women’s rights. Several of the protesters, including junior Iyanu Bishop, are also concerned with issues of racial equality. “Racism intersects with just about every system of oppression,” Bishop says. “There’s just certain things that women of color go through that white women don’t go through.”

Several protesters also came to the march in objection to President Donald Trump’s inauguration the day before. “The inauguration to me stands for … hate, but the march is something positive and looking forwards towards a better future,” Cheston-Harris says.

The march After the speakers finish around 2:00, we begin making our way toward the White House. Because of the huge crowds, the going is slow, but we pass the time by chanting and singing.

From “My body, my choice!” to “Black lives matter!” to “Not my president!” the enthusiasm is infectious. At one point, the crowd breaks out into a chorus of “This Land is Your Land.” People wave signs, bang drums, blow airhorns, and raise their voices to demonstrate to everyone what issues they care about.

When I reach the White House, I see a fence, along which people are laying down the signs that they brought with them to the march.

Thousands of colorful posters stretch across the White House lawn.

“You can’t take my voice. My body my choice,” “Respect Women of Color,” “Unapologetically LGBTA,” “I will not silently go back to 1950,” “Respect existence or expect resistance,” they read.

Even as people begin to disperse, posters remain, scattered throughout central D.C. Enthusiasm also remains as people discuss ways to stay active after the march ends. “The big issue is us coming together today and doing things in our own communities,” Thompson says. “Going back home and making a difference.”

By Gilda Geist art by Shivani

Mattikalli photos by caleb bauman design by dawson do

C6 Features

silverchips

February 2, 2017

In American Studies, international backgrounds converge Three students with diverse experiences meet in one English class

By Noah Chopra-Khan and Aditi Shetty Yoas Yacob recalls learning English as a kid from the Disney movies and MTV shows he found on cable. Years later, he now finds himself staring down a particularly dense passage from William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, a difficult, confusing read even for those who have studied English all their lives. And Yacob, now a senior, has only taken formal English classes for less than four years.

Yacob’s journey from Hossana, Ethiopia to Silver Spring, Maryland was not easy and picking up the new language has been similarly challenging. Yet just a couple years after immigrating to this country, Yacob is taking American Studies, an Honors level English class, with students from completely different backgrounds. The students in the class have one commonality: fourth period.

Different beginnings English teacher Vickie Adamson intentionally designed American Studies to bring together twelfth graders from all different parts of Blair (academies, CAP, Magnet), in one class focused specifically on the American literary

“It was just cool to see puzzle pieces come together from different perspectives.”

-Shraddha Anand

experience. “With the diversity in America, having different perspectives, knowing there are different ways to look at things, it is very critical that the class be as diverse as it can be,” Adamson says.

Senior Shraddha Anand sits across the classroom from Yacob.

As a Magnet student who has taken many APs and honors classes at Blair, she appreciates the diversity of the class and the different views the students bring. Anand remem-

bers fondly the conversations the class held when discussing The Sound and the Fury. “It was just cool to see puzzle pieces come together from different perspectives,” she says.

Anand, like Yacob, is an immigrant. She came to the United States with her family from India when she was five. Her father was pursuing a Master’s Degree at Harvard, and later a doctorate in economics at Cornell. When her family first arrived, they intended to return to India after a year.

Twelve years later, Anand, her parents, and her brother are the only members of her family in the United States, which she says can get “lonely at times.”

Yacob immigrated to the U.S. much later than Anand, and with a different intention. From the time of his arrival in June 2013, Yacob has known that he and his older sisters were here to go to school. “Our family moved for our education, for [a] better future, the American Dream,” he says.

Yacob’s father, a former high school administrator in Ethiopia, and his mother, a former elementary and middle school teacher, had wanted to move to the United States for many years. In the U.S., his father works as a parking attendant and his mother in child care, while his two sisters attend college.

Senior Derek Lamb is another student in the American Studies class with Anand and Yacob, but he had a starkly different upbringing. For starters, he is a member of the CAP program, and he has lived his entire life in the United States. His father served for many years in the United States Navy, first in California and later in Maryland.

Just like Yacob, Lamb has always been passionate about school and is extremely motivated to succeed. “I just want to do well,” Lamb says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen not trying my hardest at something to be an option.”

Friendly faces Yacob and Anand first arrived here in different decades and hail from different continents, but what struck them most about their new home was the same. “It was the

people,” Anand says. “I guess it was just weird to see so many different kinds of people in one room, where in India basically everyone is Indian.”

The most jarring thing for Yacob upon entering the United States was the obvious change in demographics he noticed in the airport.

“I saw a lot of white people,” he says. “I’m like, ‘How am I gonna get used to this?’”

Yacob is still acclimating to the cultural changes. “I never had that kind of experience interacting with people who were from different cultures, different backgrounds,” he says. The differences he notices produces a concern he still has trouble extinguishing today.

“What I say and what I do might not click with and what I think is okay is not okay with them,” he says.

Lamb, on the other hand, has lived in places with “a fair amount of racial diversity” for most of his life. Lamb mostly spends time with “either theater kids or magnet kids,” but he considers his friends to be relatively ethnically diverse.

Lamb cannot point to a specific reason for the varied backgrounds in his friend group. “It … just falls into place that way,” he says.

For Yacob, however, having a community of specifically Ethiopian Americans helps to ease his transition to the new country. At school, he says that he does not talk to many people who are not Ethiopian.

Within his immediate circle, Yacob speaks Amharic, not English.

When speaking his second language he tends to be nervous and self-conscious, he says, and as a result he does not speak up in class as much as he would like to.

When he reflects on why he does not have many non-Ethiopian friends, Yacob says, “I think the problem is with myself, the fear I have inside of me ... I know that’s kind of my problem, thinking I would not be included.”

Back to the classroom American Studies, though, presents a more diverse group of peers, and Yacob feels that the transition has not been easy. “I don’t really interact with them,” he says of his classmates. “They

kind of finish everything fast and I’m kinda thinking, kinda slow in things.”

Yacob was reluctant at first to take American Studies. Originally he said no, but suddenly changed his mind after a lot of encouragement from his English 11 teacher.

The last minute decision pulled him very far from his comfort zone. “I was really scared,” Yacob says. “I was so scared that the students I’m going to be sitting with are like CAP students.”

Yacob works hard in the class, and it takes up a lot of his time.

“It’s still difficult for me to find the focus in my writing,” he says.

“How other students write... I have trouble doing that. It really takes me like two weeks [or] a week to make my draft and edit it.”

Although Yacob may feel that he lags behind his peers in some skills, Anand feels that all the students in the class, regardless of background, are held to similar standards. “It’s nice to finally be in a place where everyone is just equal,” she says. “We just talk.”

Lamb also enjoys the class for its diversity. His favorite class experience was one day that turned into a long conversation about personal finance in college. “A memorable day not just because we did no work,” he says, “but because I think everyone in the class regardless of their background learned something that was very applicable and tangible.”

The next step Lamb, Anand, and Yacob all plan to attend college in the future.

Yacob would like to study computer engineering. Going to college has been an important goal of his since he got to the U.S. “That’s why I am here,” he says with a grin.

Both of Lamb’s parents work in scientific fields, and he plans to follow suit. “Ironically my father is very into physics and earth sciences and my mother is very into biology, so naturally I gravitate to chemistry, which neither of them know very much about,” Lamb says.

Anand, likewise, has always been sure that college is in her future. “[If] I go to college and stay there for four years and do well, then I can make a lot of money

and buy things,” she says. “For me that’s my thought process, and it’s always been my thought process.”

Although Anand may not like school all the time—“I wish it didn’t exist,” she jokes—she definitely appreciates the opportunities she has.

Her drive for success comes partly from her parents, but another source of motivation is an experience she had on a trip back to India.

When she lived in India, Anand

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen not trying my hardest at something to be an option.”

-Derek Lamb

had been friendly with the daughter of her grandmother’s driver.

Anand returned to the country at age eight for a visit to find that her 16-year-old friend had just gotten married, which meant that going to school was no longer an option. “I know she wanted to go to school, much more than I did,” Anand says. “So that shook me to the core.”

At that moment, Anand decided that she had to take advantage of her time in school in America, to work hard and eventually give back.

“That’s definitely something that’s behind my whole ‘let’s be successful’ thing,” Anand reflects.

“Just to be successful and maybe down the road help other girls like her have a choice in their lives.”

Anand, Yacob, and Lamb were born on three different continents and followed different trajectories to end up, in their senior years, in the same English classroom in a Maryland high school.

All can agree that they are glad to take American Studies. “I’m making progress now,” Yacob says.

“College is not going to be easy, it’s just gonna get much [more] difficult… I’m gonna be prepared for that.”

SHIVANI MATTIKALLI

February 2, 2017

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February 2, 2017

Pancakes! Diners! Bacon! Sausage! Eggs! Oh my!

Four guys meander around Maryland in search of the perfect breakfast

By Cole Sebastian, Grady Jakobsberg, and Julian Brown

College Park Diner

CHAMINDA HANGILIPOLA

Tastee Diner

CHAMINDA HANGILIPOLA

IHOP

In first person It was the suits that first told us something was off. The two men exiting the Rockville Silver Diner were cool and confident, seemingly more prepared for a 007 spy mission than a midnight meal at a diner franchise. We passed the pair on the steps leading up to the door, just making it by them before one turned and said, “You know it’s closed, right?”

One glance at the door and the answer became “yes.” A laminated sign told us that the associates who should have been orchestrating our first dining experience were instead gathering for a dinner in their own honor.

The neon red lights that had once beckoned us like the pearly gates of Oz now marked the first crack in our perfect plan for the evening, and it would not be the last.

Our mission: spend one epic night eating at five diners in the area, reviewing both our late night experiences and the typical breakfast platter and milkshakes at each establishment.

The only catch was that we had to be done in time to make it to school the next day.

“When one diner closes, another is always open.”

- Julian Brown 10:00 p.m.

CHAMINDA HANGILIPOLA

Grady’s Basement

CHAMINDA HANGILIPOLA

Silver Diner

CHAMINDA HANGILIPOLA

This story is accompanied by a video shot

by Chaminda Hangilipola and produced

by Ben Miller. To see the video, scan the code to the left with a QR reader app or use the URL below. https://vimeo.com/201768076

After the disappointment of Silver Diner, we realized we would be in for a night of improvisation.

We were already planning on visiting the College Park Diner later in the night, so we decided to try our luck at the Silver Diner in College Park, because it was just a block away. Unfortunately, it turned out that the Silver Diner restaurants were only serving disappointment that night, as we were once again turned away.

Let down, we moved on to the College Park Diner, a relatively unknown, community joint on Baltimore Ave. With low expectations, we were greeted by a friendly waitress and an unlocked door, something we never expected to be so rare.

Impatiently waiting for our first taste of pancakes, we appreciated the compact, homey environment.

The dining area was made up of one room with the griddle surrounded by a white countertop and booths along the walls.

After a short wait, three pancakes arrived accompanied with two cheese-covered scrambled eggs and three strips of bacon ($10). We were immediately entranced by the warm, buttery pancakes. They were simply fantastic. Fluffy but not chewy, sweet but not sickening, these pancakes lifted our spirits and reignited our love for diners.

The succulent bacon provided a savory touch in response to the syrupy, sweet pancakes. The eggs, whose flavor was amplified by the melted cheddar, completed the breakfast and established a high standard from which to start the night.

The service was accommodating, allowing us to order the weekday breakfast special outside of the designated hours and providing sharing cups for our chocolate milkshake.

The milkshake was huge, worthy of its $6 price. Creamy, rich, and simple, the milkshake did not disappoint our sugar-craved stomachs.

The food came quickly, which was to be expected—we were the only ones ordering. The special was comprised of two large pancakes, two eggs, and two pieces of bacon ($7).

The pancakes were suitable, but nothing to call home about and left us relying too much on the sweetness of the cheap diner syrup. The eggs, underseasoned and over scrambled, crumbled off our forks.

These were not tough eggs to crack.

The bacon was fatty and succulent, the best meat we would get that night.

What Tastee’s lacked in actual taste, they made up for in price, but the thing that left us truly disappointed was the cold, empty atmosphere, completely the opposite of the cozy feeling we had enjoyed at the College Park Diner.

1:00 a.m.

IHOP was our next stop, a sort of baseline that we hoped the other diners would far exceed. Our initial reaction was one of surprise. At one in the morning the restaurant was cozy and populated, giving us a much warmer vibe than that of Tastee’s.

The booth seats, however, were much more disappointing. Years of large bottoms had left them thin and sagging and made them a real pain in the butt for all who used them.

We ordered immediately and our $5 milkshake came soon after, much to the displeasure of our brimming paunches. The shake was much thicker this time around, clearly blended to the highest viscosity and higher in the chocolateto-milk ratio than Tastee’s.

While it was very good, it felt processed and lacked the chunkiness that is key in a traditional diner shake. The perfect swirl of whipped cream on top did nothing to take away from the factory flavor put forth.

The food took much longer to arrive, but this was not surprising—the service appeared to be as tired as we were. Their Breakfast Sampler ($10) contained two pancakes, two eggs, two slices of ham, two pieces of bacon, two sausages, and hash browns. It was hard to appreciate the value of the serving size as our guts continued their indigestive protests.

The pancakes were flavorful, but still lacked the crispness that made the College Park Diner’s pancakes so delicious. The hash browns, which were unique to the IHOP breakfast platter, were deceivingly rich and greasy at first bite, but quickly left a starchy and freezer-burned aftertaste. The rest of the meal was solidly mediocre, not noteworthy enough for our tired minds to process.

“It’s the good kind of crappy.”

- Cole Sebastian

11:30 p.m.

After a 20 minute drive where we enjoyed an abbreviated singalong to the iconic Shrek soundtrack, we arrived at Tastee Diner and quadrupled its late-night population.

2:00 a.m.

After our third round of diner food, we stumbled to the car, longing for the sweet release of sleep.

Other than the background tunes of Kid Cudi, the car ride was relatively silent, with the occasional mumble of tiredness.

We retired to Grady’s basement to take a three hour nap before our pursuit of breakfast the next morning. We managed a few solid hours of winter slumber, interrupted by our photographer’s snotty snores and Grady’s cats’ malnourished meowing.

“My mouth needs a nap.”

- Grady Jakobsberg 6:00 a.m.

We woke with potbellies just as swollen as before and with one more diner to tackle. Heading for Nick’s Diner in Wheaton, our hopes were high, but it was closed. Fudge all (and fudge censorship).

Forced, once again, to improvise, we headed back to the Silver Diner in Rockville. We were pleasantly greeted with warm lights and an unlocked door, things we had learned not to expect.

Ironically, we ambled in to “Walking on Sunshine” playing on a jukebox in the background. Silver Diner had the classic diner vibe and decor with a long counter, burgundy booths, and tableside jukeboxes.

The establishment was pricier and more upscale than the diners of the previous night.

The service was accommodating and friendly; our chocolate milkshake ($7) came already poured in four sharing cups. The milkshake was decent but not worth the hefty price tag. It was not as velvety smooth and chocolatey as we would have liked. Percolated with small chunks of ice, the milkshake did not measure up to the other diners, especially not Tastee’s.

To our surprise, a nearby couple heard us ordering one Lumberjack Breakfast ($13) between the four of us and, without our knowledge, ordered us an additional one. Though we were extremely gracious, one breakfast platter after a night of gluttony seemed daunting enough, let alone two.

Each platter contained three silver dollar pancakes, two scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and fried potatoes. The pancakes, while only silver dollar by name, were on par with the College Park Diner’s in terms of the sweet and buttery flavor of each saucer. However, Silver Diner’s pancakes, like Tastee’s and IHOP’s before them, could not match the crispy shell that made College Park Diner our favorite.

Overall, Silver Diner secured its place as having the second best pancakes of the night.

The eggs had a good texture, but lacked seasoning. The bacon, which had probably sat for a while before reaching our mouths, was dry and way too crisp. The sausage was much better, with a perfect juicy core and crunchy exterior.

7:30 a.m.

We left the diner and only stopped to film an artsy clip of us driving off into the sunrise. Pulling into the Blair parking lot at 8 a.m., we reflected on the last 10 hours of our lives.

Ten hours filled with hope, despair, regret, joy, sorrow, adventure, pain, sleepiness, discomfort, comfort, hunger, sickness, glory, laughter, food, gourmandism, driving, singing, talking, drinking, navigating, yelling, pondering, fighting, cats, beds, and too many damn pancakes.

February 2, 2017

Entertainment D2

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Looking back and flying forward with Sankofa

Sankofa show has grown in cast size and complexity of its message

for the present time.” Adamson emphasizes the significance of helping students learn about their past. “You can’t underestimate the importance of knowing your history in order to take charge and be empowered in your present,” she says.

Culver originally joined Sankofa to teach and to share his culture as well. When he was in Sankofa, Culver was cast as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for a segment of the show. “It was very cool and humbling for me to be able to portray such a seminal figure,” he says.

Junior director Erin Obaonrin took an interest in Sankofa after she watched her older sister perform in it. “I had seen the shows, and I just saw how beautiful they were, so I decided to carry on the legacy,” Obaonrin says. For Obaonrin, diversity is an important aspect of performing in Sankofa. “Blair is such a diverse school, and we have such a big African American community within the school,” she says. “It’s important to participate in a show that showcases us in a better light than society does.”

By Gilda Geist “You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lies. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.”

This year, over 50 Blair students are rising to the occasion and participating in Sankofa.

Blair’s 2017 performance of Sankofa provides a look into black history, heritage, and culture. From Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” to “Oh Happy Day,” Sankofa jumps from poignant speeches and poetry that address past and present race issues, to joyous musical tributes to black heritage. Although this year’s performance of Sankofa will feature a different script and different theatrical and musical works than last year’s, just as much student and teacher enthusiasm and dedication will go into the production.

Year after year, people come back and audition to be part of the annual musical theater celebration of black history. “Everyone that has done Sankofa their freshman or sophomore year is still doing Sankofa,” says senior director Yuchabel Sanon. “Once we get people, they stay.”

Flying forward

Looking back This year, Sankofa is made up of about 50 cast members, each of whom has a role in teaching the audience about black history and culture. Sankofa was not always the extensive and intricate production that it is today. The show itself has evolved and the number of people joining the cast rises each year. Rahman Culver, a Sankofa co-director and social studies teacher at Blair, participated in Sankofa his junior and senior years at Blair in 1995 and 1996. Culver says that the message of the show has become more developed. “The different acts that will be in the production are way more complex than anything that we did when I was here,” he says. “It is, I think, a lot more thoughtful, in terms of the message it is trying to portray.”

One of the ways that Sankofa is able to achieve a straightforward and meaningful message is through English teacher Vickie Adamson’s scripts. According to Adamson,

CHAMINDA HANGILOPA

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY Junior Iyanu Bishop rehearses her solo for Sankofa.

Blair’s Sankofa productions were not always scripted. “It was still a celebration of culture, but it was more like a variety show,” Adamson says. Six years ago, when there had not been a Sankofa performance at Blair since the 1990s, Adamson wrote four scripts to alternate between year after year.

According to Adamson, Sankofa is about more than just entertaining an audience.

“People can sing, people can dance, but what do those songs and dances mean in the context of our culture and our history? And that’s what this show tries to do, it tries to

educate,” she says.

Teaching an audience Education is one reason that Adamson is involved with Sankofa. Incorporating historical and current events into the show is important to her. “I’ll try and make sure that the whole Black Lives Matter movement is in there, because it’s a current political issue that certainly has roots in the past,” she says.

“We have to look at how all of these past dynamics are having some sort of ramification

This year’s Sankofa script takes place in a classroom. In the story, the teacher is educating the students, and consequently, the audience, about black history. According to Sanon and English teacher Michelle Edwards, Sankofa will feature “Still I Rise”

by Maya Angelou, some newer songs by Beyonce, “Oh Happy Day”, historical and contemporary dances, and much more.

After their performances at Blair, Sankofa will display a shortened version of their show at the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture before the end of the year. The museum reached out to Blair after Sara Josey, a now retired Blair teacher, put the museum in contact with Edwards.

The Sankofa cast plans to share their message beyond the Blair community. “We live in the capital of the nation and we have this amazing cultural center and opportunity,” Adamson says. “I think it’s a nice alignment with what we’re trying to do in educating students.”

Fact or fiction? Some Blazers question the supposed truth

Curious students try to discern coincidence from conspiracy for fun

By Serena Debesai Even if you have not watched the iconic film Titanic, you probably know the tragic story. In 1912, the historically famed ship embarked on a journey from England to New York, but crashed into an iceberg and sank into the Atlantic Ocean before reaching its destination. Over 1,500 people lost their lives. It was an unforeseen, terrible turn of events, but nonetheless accepted as an accident.

Senior Julia Jacobson is hesitant to accept the conventional retelling of this tragedy.

She believes that the Titanic may have been swapped with a sister ship called the Olympic, which had already been damaged.

She believes the sinking was a conspiracy – merely a plot to get insurance money. Jacobson is not alone; when things just do not seem to add up, some students turn to conspiracy theories to find the truth.

Everything is not what it seems From the idea that the moon landing was staged to the Illuminati to lizard people, conspiracy theories come in all varieties.

Junior Leo Webber is an adamant skeptic of conspiracy theories. “There always has to be so much going on for [a conspiracy theory] to actually be true,” he says.

That has not stopped Webber from spending many late nights watching YouTube videos and learning about conspiracy theories.

“It’s interesting to look them up and to learn about them, but almost all of them are extremely hard, if not impossible, to believe,” he says.

One of his favorite theories is the phantom time conspiracy. According to Webber, some historical inconsistencies from the early medieval period have led believers of the phantom time theory to believe that the

AVERY LIOU

years 614 A.D. to 911 A.D. never happened.

Instead, they think that all documents from the time period were forged, and roughly 300 years of deliberately fabricated history were added to the calendar. The theory places us in the year 1720 instead of 2017!

Webber is highly skeptical of this conspiracy theory. “[The phantom time theory] is completely ridiculous... There are plenty of records from [614-911 A.D.] and it would be impossible to come up with all of them,” he says.

Social studies teacher Michael Zick also finds conspiracy theories perfect for a good laugh. It is not uncommon for Zick to find himself discussing conspiracy theories in his NSL class. “We talk a lot about power structures and how things get done, and inevitably, some kid will start talking about Jay-Z... and the lizard Illuminati or something,” he says.

Another popular conspiracy theory that has recently exploded on social media is the Mandela Effect. This theory describes a phenomenon in which large groups of people remember something incorrectly. While nonbelievers of the theory blame their faulty memory, others reason that the confusion is a result of time travelers that have altered the past, or a collision with a parallel universe.

You might think this theory is out of this world, but there have been multiple examples of this collective “memory loss.” For example, you might remember the iconic children’s show and book series, The Berenstain Bears, spelled with an “ei”, not an “ai.”

The theory’s name comes from its origins; the Mandela Effect emerged when people began tweeting that Nelson Mandela died in prison in the eighties, although he died in 2013.

Jacobson says that she is not completely sold on the Mandela Effect. “I think that there are a lot of explanations for them, but like it is kind of interesting to look at all of the different things that you really remembered as one thing and are actually something else,” she says.

Fact mixes with fiction For Jacobson, proof is key to a convincing conspiracy theory. “If there is a lot of evidence…and it is pretty consistent and it makes sense, that is what will sell me on it,” she explains.

The large amount of evidence behind it is the reason why she supports the now partially true theory that Shakespeare had cowriters. “Because it was so long ago, there was a lot of compiled evidence,” she says.

The few personal records of the great poet and his lack of education have led many to believe that William Shakespeare of Stratford was simply too ordinary to be

the Bard. This theory is not new; doubters of Shakespeare’s identity have existed for over 100 years. Scholars have proposed that more educated men of the time such as Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford, or Christopher Marlowe collaborated in writing the plays.

Due to increasing evidence and new studies, the Shakespeare conspiracy theory is quickly becoming a reality. In fact, Marlowe was recently credited as a co-writer in the New Oxford Shakespeare edition of “Henry VI”, parts one, two, and three, according to the New York Times. The change is a result of conclusions drawn by a study in which New Oxford Shakespeare scholars analyzed the language in Shakespeare’s plays.

Why conspiracies?

Conspiracy theories do not exist in a bubble; just as there are those who create them, there are also many who attempt to debunk them. So why then do people continue to seek conspiracy theories and believe them?

According to a study led by Jan Willem van Prooijen at the University of Amsterdam, when people believe that they are in control of a situation, they are less inclined to believe in conspiracy theories.

Webber has a similar opinion; he thinks the appeal lies in the satisfaction of finding an answer. “I think it’s about trying to deal with complex situations that people don’t have the answer to, but they want the answer to, even if it goes completely off from what the common consensus is,” he says.

Jacobson likes to keep an open mind and consider the idea that there may be more to things than meets the eye. “I just kind of like the idea that things are not always what they seem and what we have been told about history is maybe not 100 percent how it actually went down.”

D3 Entertainment Blazers of Note

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February 2, 2017

A special way to celebrate Black History Month

Discovering black culture and identity through literature

By Hermela Mengesha In first person

CHAMINDA HANGILIPOLA

Adelaide Harris and Ruby Santana SOPHOMORES “Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice” -that’s what little girls are made of. It is also the name of sophomores Adelaide Harris’s and Ruby Santana’s weekly radio show.

Every Tuesday evening, Harris and Santana spend an hour playing music and giving advice on Takoma Radio. “It’s kind of a combination of discussion and music, advice, and all around a ton of fun,” Harris says.

According to Harris and Santana, “Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice” has a teenage girl angle. “We let you know how the world looks and sounds from our perspective,” Harris says.

Harris and Santana first got the idea to do a radio show from Santana’s mother.

“We heard about it, and I was like, I don’t want to do this alone, it sounds a little hard, so I want my best friend to do it with me,” Santana says.

The close-knit dynamic between Harris and Santana is part of the show’s charm. “I really hope that we get to keep it up for all of high school,” Harris says.

By Gilda Geist

Making out in school is gross, so please stop

Silver Chips offers three alternatives to kissing in the hallways

By Christian Mussenden In first person

GRIFFIN REILLY

Maya Hammond JUNIOR “Ni hao, wo de ming zi shi Maya!” (Hi, my name is Maya!).

Junior Maya Hammond speaks fluent Chinese, a language she first started learning in second grade with private lessons. Her knack for learning the language was put to use last year when she studied abroad in China. She lived in Beijing for a full semester with a host family before returning home. “Being immersed in an environment where they only speak Chinese, [the language] comes a lot quicker,” she said When she came back, she was inspired to start two clubs that reflected her experiences abroad. “I started Chinese Calligraphy club, which is just like Chinese art and like writing characters and stuff,” she says.

She also started Foreign Language Club, where she and the other members meet every month to celebrate various global cultures.

Her proficiency in Chinese will likely make her a valuable candidate for important government positions in the future.

“I’m really interested in the international relations and… [working] for the state department, because if you speak Chinese, you get moved up two GS levels.”

By Henry Weibe

A friend of mine once asked me, “Hermela, how do I be black?” It was a peculiar question that stumped me. She assumed that because I am black, I should certainly know how to be black.

It was a naive line of thinking, but nonetheless, as Black History Month approached, the question stuck with me. If I felt disconnected from my black heritage, how would I properly go about celebrating this month?

When I stumbled upon How to Be Black

by Baratunde Thurston, which answers my questions such as how to celebrate Black History Month, it seemed I had found the book of my dreams. Thurston’s satirical selfhelp book and memoir is filled with comedic advice that leaves you with an impression of blackness that both adheres to stereotypes and breaks from them.

Thurston recognizes the absurdity of attempting to recognize the contributions of an entire race in one month, but nonetheless, he offers 10 suggestions for celebrating Black History Month. Although his advice is often disguised behind humor, with a keen eye, it is easy to see behind that guise.

For instance, he suggests that readers “acquire a new black friend,” perhaps by a Facebook search of “black people.” The all too common idea that being the “one black friend” makes you an expert on black culture, like many other misconceptions, does not survive Thurston’s ridicule. To Thurston, there may not be one correct way to celebrate black history, but there certainly is a wrong way.

He weaves these lessons through stories about his life growing up during the Civil Rights Movement and his experiences as

a comedian. By the end of the book, it be- dium to discuss even the most challenging comes especially clear that there really is no of subjects, Assata Shakur takes on a starkly one black experience. different tone in her book, Assata: An AuNothing is exemplified more than this tobiography. What you will find instead of truth in The Misadventures of Awkward humor is the story of the power and deterBlack Girl by YouTube star Issa Rae. Simi- mination of a black revolutionary during the lar to Thurston, Rae depends on comedy late 1960s and early 1970s. and her life experience to create a series of Shakur was a member of the Black Liberessays, such as an “ABC Guide: Connect- ation Army and became a target in J. Edgar ing with Other Blacks” and “African Dad,” Hoover’s campaign to defame Black Nationthat can help the modern black girl navigate alist organizations. She was accused of murthrough the expectations placed upon her der and other crimes and while she awaited by society. trial, she endured torture, beatings, and was Rae is painfully relatable as she describes at times denied her right to a lawyer. her life being an introvert in a world where The book alternates between Shakur’s black people are expected to be “cool” and early life, when she spent her child“smooth.” Although she discusses hood navigating the Bronx and race lightheartedly and humordealing with her feelings of ously, it is integral to her book. worthlessness and anger, and the Rae approaches race from a ongoing court case. personal point of view, rather Shakur’s description of captivthan a political one. She is disity echoes slavery, but also serves to armingly candid about her excepremind us of the impact of the civil tionally cringe-worthy experirights era on today’s society. Now, ences with hair, relationships, Shakur lives under asylum in and interacting with other Cuba, but still has not lost blacks. She is her fervor. Her greatest a girl withwish is greatness for her out a beat people. in her body The responsibility to in a world celebrate Black History where black Month does not fall solely people must on black people; in fact it dance. For anyis far from it. Black history one who has ever felt is American history; there is that they are somehow no complete account of this not black enough, Rae’s country without the inclubook is a heartwarming sion of black history and and hilariously relatable black culture today. Let us exploration into black celebrate the knowledge of MARIS identity. how far we have come, and SA HE While humor is a great mehow much there is left to do.

Love is in the air at Montgomery Blair High School, as the calendar moves closer and closer to February 14, otherwise known as Valentine’s Day, the holiday of romance and affection. For some students, this is a very exciting time as they try to figure out what romantic gesture to perform for their romantic interest and how to display said affection in the middle of the bustling halls.

For others, this is one of the most dreaded times of the year. Valentine’s Day directly correlates with an increase in students who believe that smack in the center of the hallway in between classes, or in the SAC during lunch, is the perfect place to make out with their significant other.

When it comes to this issue, the problem is not necessarily kissing since it is inevitable that teenagers in relationships will kiss; the problem is that making out in front of the entire Blair community is pretty gross.

Teachers and students both agree that seeing students aggressively pecking at each other during school, sometimes as early as 7:45 in the morning, is not what they want to see.

If you are one of these hallway love birds, out of consideration for your fellow peers and teachers, we here at Silver Chips suggest that you read this list of alternatives for making out in public. Hopefully these tips

are not only used during this particular time of year, but will become solutions for your daily routine.

Option #1: Holding hands/hugging Hugs and hand holding may seem a little childish, but these two are classic, tried and true ways of showcasing your love for someone else. Making out may satisfy a physical yearning for each other, but there is nothing even a bit romantic when it comes to making out in the middle of the hallway between first and third period.

With hugging and holding hands, however, you get the best of both worlds. Not only do you get to be physically closer to your interest, you also get to show off to the world your mate in a cuter and tamer way.

Remember; sometimes less is more.

Option #2: Talking At the basis of any romantic relationship is conversation, and the more you talk to your significant other, the more you can get to know them and assess how compatible you are together. Basically, the more time you spend talking instead of kissing, the better off your relationship will be!

Take the time in between classes or during lunch to maybe ask them questions about their day or anything else that pops

ALEXANDRA MENDEVIL

into your head! The following are some sample questions you can ask if you are having trouble coming up with some yourself.

“What is your favorite color?”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“If you could have dinner with somebody, dead or alive, who would it be?”

“What animal do you connect to on a spiritual level and why?”

And if you want to get really complicated, try asking “How would you solve the situation in the Middle East?”

Not only will you learn more about them, you could possibly learn more in general! By choosing to use those precious minutes together in school for conversation instead of making out, not only are you bettering your relationship, but you are also bettering yourself! There is plenty of time to make out on your own, which segues to the last and final option.

Option #3: Wait!

The school day is not that long! There are some days when the time between 7:45 and 2:30 feels longer than it should be, but put it into perspective. The school day is still only six hours and 45 minutes, 50 minutes longer if you have a ninth period.

The most important thing to remember is that absence makes the heart grow fonder.

After school there is time to do whatever you want, in private.

Egregious public displays of affection have always been an issue at Blair. Chances are you cannot make a trip from room 174 to 310 without seeing a couple head over heels for each other and expressing their affinity by exchanging their body fluids.

Even as the calendar inches closer to February 14, these public displays of affection continue to be a serious cause of concern.

For many, this is one of the greatest times of the year, full of emotion and love, but some take it a bit too far by being unshy about where and when they show their affection, which in turn makes their teachers and fellow students incredibly uncomfortable.

For the sake of those simply trying to make it to their third period on time, try something different to avoid causing traffic jams by making out in the hallways.

February 2, 2016

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Entertainment D4

From wild snowball fights to cozy nights

Students predict and take advantage of the winter weather

By Emma Cross

On those rare winter days when you roll out of bed to see the bright red emergency weather message notifying you of a snow day, it feels like you are reliving the pure joy of your first sight of snow all over again.

While for some, extensive rituals and the chance of a day off is enough excitement, others Blazers explore the cool realm of activities available when fresh snow falls.

From building elaborate snow forts to enjoying a simple cup of hot cocoa, students find creative ways to take advantage of the winter weather.

Rituals, predictions, and traditions In hopes of a snow day, some students go all out to wait for the announcement about school closings. Senior Max Kittner stays up through the night in anticipation of the weather announcements. “[I check] my phone from the hours of like 4 o’clock to 5:30 in the morning, every ten minutes,” he says.

To some, snow rituals are no joke; many students practice the well-known superstitions surrounding snow days. Some students believe they can induce a snow day by doing simple things such as changing the orientation of their clothes.

Senior Danie Stewart has participated in these rituals from a young age, but has not found much success in the traditions. “Putting your pajamas on inside out, I did that a lot … I tried to do the ice cube thing, flushing it down the toilet … I think there’s a spoon under your pillow too, but I’ve never tried that one,” she says.

Students also use other people’s predictions to get excited about potential snow days, whether it be on social media or with family. According to Kittner, the belief and excitement is what is most important. “I … live vicariously through people’s tweets about the snow. I look at Capital Weather Gang … I talk to my little brother and he gets all hyped about it, he actually gets more hyped up about it than me... It’s all about the hype,” Kittner says.

In addition to students, some teachers are just as excited about a day off from school. For the past ten years, Communication Arts Program (CAP) teacher Kevin Shindel has made elaborate predictions for county delays, cancellations and early dismissals.

“One day, usually in October … I tell students to take out their plan books and we start crossing off days that I will predict will be snow days or two-hour delays,” he says.

While Shindel admits his predictions are merely a guessing game, he has found some success in previous years. “I nailed the Snowmageddon of 2010, the February where we had a week off from school,” he says with a smile.

Shindel tells his students that his predictions rely on their complete trust. “It requires total faith in the prediction, the

MARISSA HE

doubters run the risk of not making the prediction come true,” he says.

Not all sunshine and rainbows On the flip side, a school cancellation does not mean a day off with snow angels and hot cocoa for everyone. While students and teachers carry out extensive rituals in hope of snow days, the building services workers prepare for hours of work when the snow arrives.

A snow day for building service worker Marianne Christopher consists of hours of hard work. “When it’s snowing and school’s closed, we come in and shovel all the sidewalks, all the snow… We put salt down. It’s a lot of work,” she says.

While students complain about having to endure the pain of attending school after a snowy night, building services hope for weather that entails manageable work for them. “We’re out there for 4-5 hours, we come in and rest, and then we go back outside. It takes almost 8 hours to do,” Christopher says.

Despite the hard physical labor, Christopher still hopes for occasional snow days just like students because in extreme snow, building services may get one day off before coming in to clean up. “We do [hope for snow days] too. When it snows we can’t come in the first day,” she says.

If you can find it in you to wake up earlier for some sledding in the snow, some of the best spots are much closer than you think. Before crews come to clear the streets of snow, hilly roads can be a great place to sled. “When the streets aren’t plowed, Elm Avenue in Takoma Park — great hilly street, but they plow that thing really fast so you have to get there early,” Kittner says.

Sledding is a great way to take advantage of heavy snowfall, and popular spots for students include the hills by Takoma Park and Silver Spring International Middle School.

“Last year my neighbors built a snow fort in their backyard and they had a full igloo and tunnels.”

—

Emmett Adler

Do not flake on these snow day activities When a snow day does arrive, many students take the break from school as an opportunity to catch up on sleep. But some who love the snow find joy in the activities that come with a day outside.

MARISSA HE

However, to avoid the crowds, there are other locations that offer the same, if not better, entertainment. According to Kittner, some slightly farther locations also host great sledding. “Anywhere along Rock Creek Park … Northwest D.C. if you can get there,” Kittner says.

Junior Emmett Adler prefers to go sledding on a hill near his house. “I think it’s on Heather road, and it’s a really steep hill that’s great for sledding,” he says.

If you are not up for a sledding adventure, snow also allows for fun activities in your local neighborhood using the ice alone. “I have a couple people in my neighborhood… We’ll try and go to the woods or something where you can try to walk on the ice,” Stewart says.

For more accessible entertainment, there are plenty of activities to do right in your own backyard. If there is lots of fresh snow, you can make your own snow cones by adding flavors like lemon or vanilla for a delicious snack. But always be on the lookout for yellow snow!

Alternatively, if you are not up for eating the snow, decorate it! Adding food coloring to spray bottles allows you to turn the snow into a canvas. Grab some cones and let your creativity take over, and the great thing is, if you mess up, it will melt away anyway.

If you are in the mood to channel your inner child’s building block skills, and there is enough snow for it, build a snow sculpture. It can be anything from a simple

snowman to a sculpture of your favorite teacher—let your creativity run wild.

Adler says that in the past, his neighbors have constructed elaborate snow sculptures. “Last year my neighbors built a snow fort in their backyard and they had a full igloo and tunnels,” he says.

Even without creativity, there are plenty of simple activities to enjoy too. Junior Willitta Cooper says she keeps it simple when it comes to snow day activities. “Go outside, build a snowman … have snowball fights,” she says.

Warming up after a day of fun After a long cold day in the snow, when your fingers feel numb, there are plenty of ways to have fun inside your house to warm up. Hot beverages are an essential for making the snow day as cozy as possible.

Cooper says there are a variety of hot drinks for everyone to try. “Hot cocoa, tea … or even warm milk,” she says.

Sophomore Shauna Terhune-Cotter says she simply watches movies to pass the time.

“I drink hot cocoa after doing an activity in the snow. I also get in my pj’s and watch a movie,” she says.

There is only so much binge-watching you can do on a snow day, so take advantage of the extra down time. Try a new way of creating art, whether that be coloring, painting, drawing, or making art out of ordinary household items like string and glue or pasta shells.

If you want to prepare for the cold days ahead, you can even attempt to knit a warm item of clothing for you or a family member.

Speaking of family members, use the snow day as an opportunity to spend time with your siblings. As annoying as you may find younger siblings, these snow days are even more fun for them, so do everything you can to keep them entertained, even if it is something as simple as cutting snowflakes from paper.

Adler says he spends time with his mom when he is stuck in the house because of the snow. “My mom usually cooks a lot because she loves cooking and baking, and that’s always fun to do when you’re trapped in the house,” he says.

Playing board games is always a fun option, too. Even if they are not winterthemed, classics like Monopoly and Scrabble can be a great way to pass the time.

Terhune-Cotter says even shoveling the snow is fun bonding activity. “If you’re bored on a snow day then you can shovel the driveway, take a walk in the snow, make a fire,” she says.

Take advantage of the winter weather this season—while rituals and predictions may not always work out, it is really about the fun of it all. Rituals are a part of the snow day experience, disappointment included.

When the snow days finally come, try to benefit from the environment around you, whether that takes place inside or outside.

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February 2, 2017

New Truth

Across

by Neal Sarkar

Mini

Chips Clips D6

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February 2, 2017

1. Sudden impulse 5. Get riled up 10. “Like that’s gonna happen” 14. Notable caucus state 15. Blackstar singer David 16. Something to strike 17. With 60 across, Trump’s January 20 boast to Obama, maybe 20. Loses control 21. Roaming knights 22. Game with checks 25. Honorary title for Patrick Stewart 26. T on a test 28. Giants Hall of Famer Mel 30. Food service giant 34. Fashionable Christian 35. Turkish shelter 37. Abbrv. for newspaper with the most Pulitzer Prizes 38. 17 across and 60 across together constitute one 41. Words with a certain ring 42. Tempt 43. Stitch’s companion 44. Feature absent from Helvetica

46. Inquire 47. Unit of hay 48. Dirt after some rain 50. One at a keyboard 52. Books of legends?

56. Aviator Earhart 60. See 17 across 63. New Mexican?

64. Support 65. Salt lake state 66. Cultural pursuits 67. Song in the Alps 68. The old you?

Down 1. Wuss 2. Georgetown baller 3. Victor’s declaration 4. Salon treatment 5. Treat poorly 6. Creamy Christmas cupful 7. D.C. School with a Foggy Bottom campus 8. What Dubliners call their nation 9. Backsides 10. Place getting a lot of buzz?

11. Any minute now 12. Fails to be 13. Own (up) 18. Muscle pain

19. Sad in Spain 23. Neurons’ cell bodies 24. Number cruncher, for short 26. Piña colada topping?

27. Helicopter blade 29. Tough to figure out 31. Escargot 32. Washer sequence 33. Porter of the Wizards 34. Orator’s platform 35. Quaint lodging 36. Genesis woman 39. Decline 40. Open up, like legs of bell-bottoms 45. Photographs, eg.

47. ____ Valentine, Charlie Brown (TV Special) 49. Annual Louisville race 51. Jury 52. “Mamma Mia!” group 53. Level, as on a cake 54. Pride parade letters 55. Houston slugger 57. Protestant reformer, in short 58. “Dies ____” (Latin hymn) 59. Arthur of tennis 61. Possessed 62. Hotshot

Sudoku (hard) Across 1. See 16 across 8. Whistle cord 9. Clinton who grew up in the White House 10. Hi-___ image 11. There’s a wholeplanet dedicated to this health pursuit 15. Baltimore baseball team 16. This contructor’s handle on 1 across (he follows back)

Teamwork Makes the C.R.E.A.M Work

Down 1. “Toddlers & Tiaras” network 2. Baby’s cry 3. Subject of Newton’s first law of motion 4. Aleve alternative 5. Graduation day ornaments 6. Before, in poetry 7. Dental certification 11. Cameroonian ruler’s title 12. Anger 13. Blue expanse 14. Ukr. or Lith., during the Cold War COURTESY OF WEBSUDOKU

Hiking Trip

Napalm Man

ARITRA ROY

SABRINA TAN

Submit your comics and art to Silver Chips!

We’d love to hear from you. silver.chips. print@gmail. com

MEGHNA SAMBATHKUMAR

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2 de febrero, 2017

La Esquina Latina

Silver Chips 2 de febrero de 2017

Las citas a ciegas, ¿La solución a tu soledad y soltería?

Una manera interesante y accesible de conocer a tu posible pareja ideal Por Michael Hernández El día de San Valentín se aproxima y aquellos que han sido flechados por Cupido se preparan para celebrar con su “media naranja.” Las tiendas están inundadas de chocolates en forma de corazón y ositos de peluche que dicen “te amo.” El amor se siente en el aire.

Pero también hay muchas personas que celebrarán este día con la familia y amigos ya que están solteros. Una razón puede ser que algunos han sufrido una decepción amorosa o que no hayan encontrado la persona ideal con quien compartir su vida.

Hoy en día existen muchas aplicaciones y métodos de conocer a otras personas a través de las redes sociales y el internet. Gracias a estos métodos uno puede comunicarse con más personas. En este tipo de aplicaciones una persona puede interactuar con otra persona y hacer planes para encontrarse en una cita a ciegas. Una cita a ciegas es cuando dos personas que no se conocen se dan el tiempo de conocerse en un lugar, por primera vez. Allí ellos tienen la oportunidad de conocerse y puede ser que surja una relación, una amistad o una desilusión dependiendo en como los dos conecten y si tienen química.

Los usuarios pueden hacer un perfil donde le dejan saber sus gustos e intereses a las demás personas y así pueden encontrar a alguien con los mismos intereses.

Para estar más seguro en una cita a ciegas es muy importante programar la cita en un lugar público donde haya mucha gente alrededor al igual que siempre llevar el teléfono celular por cualquier inconveniente.

Aquí en La Esquina Latina quisimos alegrar la época de San Valentín para dos estudiantes en Blair, con todos los gastos pagados. Durante el transcurso de dos semanas buscamos estudiantes, chicos y chicas que estuvieran interesados en participar en una cita a ciegas. Cuando le preguntamos a los estudiantes habían una de dos reacciones, un instantáneo si o un no con una incredulidad. Hubo muchos estudiantes interesados pero no pudimos escoger a todos.

A los que anhelaban participar les dimos una encuesta de compatibilidad para crear la pareja ideal. Las personas más compatibles fueron, Stephanie Montes de Oca del on-

ceavo grado y Willis Moran del décimo grado. Stephanie Montes de Oca tiene raíces guatemaltecas y mexicanas, a lo contrario a de Willis Moran, de descendencia anglosajonas.

Programamos la cita que tomó lugar el sábado, 21 de enero a las 8 de la noche en el restaurante Nando’s Peri Peri en el corazón de Silver Spring. El cual sirve comida portuguesa y que estableció su primer restaurante en Sudáfrica. Escogimos este lugar porque muchas parejas jóvenes eligen este lugar para pasar tiempo juntos, disfrutando de un delicioso platillo. Además porque en el centro de Silver Spring se encuentran muchos establecimientos como un cine, restaurantes, la pista de patinaje y el centro comercial de City place, en donde muchos jóvenes disfrutan juntándose con amigos o en pareja después de la escuela.

Nuestro equipo editorial decidió

SAMI MALLON

CHARLANDO

Los dos disfrutan de una deliciosa cena mientras empiezan a conocerse.

se encontró con otro de nuestro miembros en la pista de patinaje en Veterans plaza. Mediante un radio portátil, nuestro equipo se comunicaba para dirigir a los dos participantes hacia el destino final,

compatibles. Pero antes de llegar al lugar de la cena Willis decidió comprar una rosa roja para su cita.

Este detalle fue algo inesperado que Willis pensó que le daría una buena primera impresión, que-

SAMI MALLON

UN MOMENTO ESPECIAL Willis sorprende a Stephanie con un capullo de una rosa antes de la cena. encontrarse con Stephanie y Willis en diferentes lugares antes de la cena para hacer el encuentro más emocionante. Stephanie se encontró con un miembro de nuestro equipo en la tienda Forever 21 del centro comercial City place yllis

ESTRATEGICAMENTE Willis sonríe para hacer que

el restaurante Nando’s Peri Peri.

Los nervios de los dos chicos participando en la cita a ciegas estaban a flor de piel cuando nos acercábamos al lugar de la cena.

Ellos estaban muy ansiosos por saber con quién habían sido más

SAMI MALLON

su cita, Stephanie se sienta mas

cómoda.

brando el hielo entre los dos más rápido.

Al encontrarse los dos en las afueras de Nando’s, Willis decidió esconder la rosa detrás de él. El romance se sentía en el aire y cuando él vio a Stephanie se la dio. Con una sonrisa de oreja a oreja Stephanie tomó la rosa y los dos entraron al restaurante. Los dos entraron al afamado restaurante Nandos que se encontraba con mucha clientela un sábado por la noche. La espera para encontrar una mesa no la sintieron ya que interactuaron en la línea de espera.

Lo que pasó en la cita a ciegas patrocinada por La Esquina Latina quedó para la historia amorosa de Stephanie y Willis. Los dos participantes confesaron previamente que esta era su primera cita a ciegas y la primera cita para Willis.

Antes de ir a la cena ellos estaban muy ilusionados en conocer quizás a la persona que podría cambiar su soltería. Ellos sorprendentemente habían estado juntos en el equipo de campo abierto de Blair el año pasado pero nunca habían cruzado una palabra.

Lo primero que noto Stephanie fue el aspecto físico de Willis y como iba vestido, ella comenta, “Creo que él no se vistió mal pero esperé que fuera más formal.” Ella también expresó que había escuchado rumores de pasillos que a él le gustaba coquetear mucho y que no era un chico serio.

Stephanie y Willis disfrutaron mucho de la cena y los momentos que compartieron juntos. Ella dice, “Nos fue bien pero no sentí que encontré al amor de mi vida.

La pase bien conversando con él y comiendo un plato muy exquisito.” Lamentablemente Stephanie confesó que Willis no era el tipo de chico que ella andaba buscando. Por otra parte Willis dijo “La pase bien y me alegró que no hubo ningún silencio que incomodara la cena, hablamos mucho de deportes y lugares en donde nos gustaba comer.”

La ubicación de la cena, Nando’s Peri Peri les encantó a los dos participantes de la cita a ciegas.

Stephanie comenta, “Me fascinó el restaurante por la comida deliciosa pero no me gustó que fuera en el centro de Silver Spring por el hecho de que muchos estudiantes de Blair frecuentan el lugar.”A pesar de todo, los dos tienen mucho en común como por ejemplo tienen hermanos, pasión por los deportes y amor por la comida.

Stephanie dice, “No estaba muy nerviosa porque yo había salido con el mejor amigo de él un mes antes y no tomé la cena muy en serio.” Willis confesó haber estado más nervioso pero por dentro aunque no lo expresó exteriormente.

Después de la cena ellos fueron a caminar por el centro de Silver Spring y recorrieron varias tiendas. Ahí ellos siguieron hablando y compartiendo de una hermosa noche estrellada. Luego se dirigieron hacia la pista de patinaje donde estuvieron mirando a personas patinando. Observaron a las personas que hacían piruetas y a los que perdían el balance y caían en la pista. Finalmente se despidieron con un abrazo y se dijeron adiós, los dos tomaron rumbos opuestos.

Esta historia de amor, tristemente no tuvo el mejor final ideal pero tal vez pueda que surja una amistad. El mes de febrero es un mes mágico donde el amor está por todas parte, es una oportunidad para expresar cómo uno se siente acerca de su ser querido. Además de dar la oportunidad a muchos de comenzar un nuevo capítulo en sus vidas con la persona que aman y aprecian.

2 de febrero 2017

español E2

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Ponga sus cuentas de Netflix y Amazon Prime a uso

Disfruta las mejores películas que estas aplicaciones tienen para ofrecer en español Por Carlos Fuentes Los días de desear encontrar una buena película en la televisión son cosa del pasado.

El alquilar películas se ha convertido en una inconveniencia que toma tiempo y energía y también, muchas de las cadenas comerciales han declarado bancarrota a raíz de la proliferación de aplicaciones como Netflix, Hulu o Amazon Prime para entretenerse con sus series y películas favoritas. Netflix y Amazon siendo las aplicaciones más populares ya que ofrecen películas, programas y hasta telenovelas en español para disfrutar un día de maratón de episodios y de películas. Estas aplicaciones ganaron esta popularidad por su amplia variedad de programas desde peliculas de accion, dramáticas, de misterio, de comedia hasta películas para niños. Este articulo es una lista de unas de las mejores películas y series en español que están disponibles para ver por Netflix y Amazon Prime. ¡Películas que deberías considerar ver!

como un plan solo para tener suficiente dinero para pagar su quimioterapia lleva a Walter y su compañero José en una serie de episodios trágicos y dramáticos. Llenos de acción en donde se ve el desarrollo de Walter Blanco, profesor de química y un genio científico, a su identidad falsa, “Heisenberg.” Se convirtió en el amo del imperio de metanfetamina, por poder crearla y traficarla eficazmen-

Metástasis, la versión colombiana de la famosa serie Breaking Bad Si no has oído de la serie, Breaking Bad, has vivido debajo de una piedra por los último 9 años. La serie Breaking Bad es considerada como una obra maestra desde principio a fin, ganando 16 premios Emmy y dos premios de Golden Globe. Con el éxito de Breaking Bad, hubiera sido absurdo no traer la historia del personaje ficticio Walter Blanco al mundo hispano. Metástasis, el cual originalmente tomaba lugar en el estado de Nuevo México cambió a la capital colombiana, la ciudad de Bogotá. Metástasis sirve como un recuento directo de la serie que toma inspiración, relatando la vida de Walter Blanco, un profesor de química que descubre que tiene cáncer en los pulmones y recurre a crear metanfetamina para poder venderla y proveer ingresos a su familia. Lo que empezo

hay rumores que dicen que un virus está convirtiendo a la gente violenta. Los dos se quedan atrapados con otros residentes del edificio y unos policías. Cuando llaman a la policía, los oficiales deciden que es muy peligroso dejar que el virus se propague por las calles. Los personajes sin opción teniendo que tratar de sobrevivir en el edificio infestado por zombies. La película prospera

ARITRA ROY

te. Para los que ya están familiarizados con Breaking Bad, lo bueno de esta serie también es su debilidad, es casi una copia exacta de Breaking Bad, escena por escena. A pesar de esto, todavía vale la pena mirarla la próxima vez que uno no sepa qué ver en Netflix.

REC, para que los que no le gustan dormir en paz Esta película clásica de España hecha por Jaume Balagueró y Paco Plaza contribuyó a la popularización de películas de horror de metraje encontrado como las películas de Paranormal Activity y Quarantine. La historia sigue una reportera con su camarógrafo grabando el trabajo de los bomberos investigando unos apartamentos donde

en su habilidad de establecer un ambiente oscuro y silencioso antes de que zombies aparezcan. La adrenalina sube y puedes sentir los latidos del corazón aselerando por el susto. REC es definitivamente unas de las mejores películas de horror en ingles y español. Es un requisito ver esta película para aquellos que aman la adrenalina. Ademas esta pelicula te quitara el sueño. Esta película es disponible para ver por Amazon Prime.

El orfanato, ¡Basta con el suspenso!

Similarmente a Rec, La película el orfanato fue hecha en España, verdaderamente hay mucho talento en este país en el mundo del cine. Esta película dirigida por el director J.A.Bayona es una película de misterio y

drama que se trata de la desaparición de un niño. La conección con el pasado ominoso del orfanato el cual esta embrujado.

La película comienza con el personaje de Laura regresando a vivir al orfanato en donde se crió. Poco después de la mudanza su hijo adoptado empieza a actuar extraño. Quien crea una relación con un amigo imaginario y luego desaparece sin dejar rastro. Meses después sin tener éxito en la busqueda, Laura consigue la ayuda de un medio, el cual contactaria a fantasmas quien le revela a Laura que el orfanato tiene un pasado de asesinatos. La responsabilidad cae en las manos de Laura en descubrir los secretos del orfanato para encontrar su hijo. El orfanato se alimenta en acumular suspenso mientras al mismo tiempo da pedacitos de información a la audiencia para dejar que uno realmente pueda juntar las piezas y resolver el misterio. Como todas las buenas películas de misterio, al final cuando todo se revela uno se da cuenta que cada detalle y escena es importante. Esta película se recomienda a uno que le guste el suspenso y el misterio en las películas. El orfanato se puede encontrar en Netflix y Amazon Prime.

Conclusión Con el adelanto de la tecnología es evidente un mejoramiento de muchas formas de entretenimiento como por ejemplo con Netflix y Amazon Prime que son ejemplos de la evolucion de como ver los programas de televisión y peliculas. Si no le gusta ninguna de estas películas no se preocupe, hay una gran selección de películas y series para cualquier gusto de persona. Al estos ofrecer una gran variedad de entretenimiento. Uno puede optener una cuenta de Netflix o Amazon Prime por alrededor de diez a quince dólares al mes. Lo más probable es que esta compra cambie su vida.

La gran evolución del romance a través de las decadas Los jóvenes del siglo XXI exploran las nuevas alternativas de cortejo

Por Angie Mejia En tiempos pasados, cuando a un hombre tenia interes y le gustaba una chica, le llevaba rosas, le decía piropos sanos y muy románticos, pedía permiso a sus padres para sacarla a pasear e incluso le llevaba serenata. Ya pasado un tiempo prudente, le pedía que fuera oficialmente su enamorada, pero con mucho respeto. Hoy es muy diferente ya que ese romanticismo de tiempos anteriores se ha ido deteriorando poco a poco. Ahora, cuando a un muchacho le gusta una chica, solo basta invitarla a salir con un mensaje de texto. Los gestos románticos del pasado ya sólo se pueden recordar a través de películas románticas o historias que hemos escuchado de nuestros familiares.

Sin embargo, no significa necesariamente que el romance se haya muerto, sino que es diferente al de los viejos tiempos.

Muchas personas ahora identifican a su pareja como “novio o novia,” algo que en los años pasados, no se decía cuando se empezaba la relación. Primero se conocían, se enamoraban y conversaban con los padres de los dos del deseo que tenían de casarse.

Solo después de conseguir el consentimiento de los padres pasaban a decir que eran novios porque el matrimonio estaba próximo.

Los símbolos románticos como las flores y chocolates son detalles que uno generalmente recibe en días como el Día de San Valentín y en su cumpleaños. Pero años atrás, era común recibirlos así en cualquier día para recordarle a la persona amada que siempre estaban pensando en ella. Otros signos de amor incluyeron la creación de un disco con canciones que dedicaban a la persona que aman. Ahora, estas canciones se puede encontrar en Youtube o en iTunes que pueden simplemente hacer una lista de reproducción de canciones.

También, las cartas amorosas eran una

forma de expresar el interés por alguien.

Estas escritas a mano reflejan la dedicación, amor y tiempo que muchos se tomaban para hacer sonreír a su ser querido. Hoy la mayoría de la comunicación de parajes es por medio de los mensajes de texto y las redes sociales. Sin embargo, todavía hay personas

casa y pedía permiso a los padres. Ahora, usualmente reciben textos de “estoy afuera” o normalmente se encuentran con la persona en un lugar determinado donde se citan para hacer una actividad como ir a comer o bailar.

El baile al igual que el romance ha evolucionado y cambiado a lo largo de los años. En las reuniones sociales del pasado, la música suave y canciones románticas como las baladas eran per-

MEGHNA SAMBATHKUMAR

que escriben bonitos mensajes para sus seres queridos.

Aaron Boris del doceavo grado comparte su reacción al recibir un poema manuscrito por alguien a quien ama, “A mí me parece mucho más personal y permanente que simplemente decir eso por texto. Tal vez era el hecho de que ella había escrito físicamente cada palabra en lugar de simplemente textear lo que lo hizo mucho más especial.” En el caso de salidas, en los tiempos antiguos el hombre era quien invitaba a la mujer a salir, la recogía de la puerta de su

fectas para una pareja. No fue hasta la década de 1980 que la gente comenzó a explorar la idea del baile como una manera íntima de conocerse. Ahora el baile lento y romántico no se ve debido a su menor popularidad entre los jóvenes, dejando este tipo de música incomparable con las canciones de hoy en dia. Elizabeth Orellana del onceavo grado comenta, “Las canciones lentas no se escucha con tanta frecuencia en los clubes porque la mayoría de los jóvenes no van para encontrar una pareja.”

Actualmente, los servicios de citas en internet es común debido al aumento de

la accesibilidad tecnológica. EHarmony, un servicio de citas en linea público, calcula que alrededor del 40% de los estadounidenses utilizan servicios de citas en línea, y el 27% de ellos son 18-24 años de edad, que ha aumentado de sólo el 10% en 2013. Aplicaciones comunes para los jóvenes como Tinder, es uno de los nuevo métodos para encontrar a una pareja hoy en dia, o simplemente a alguien con quien divertirse, algo que no había en los viejos tiempos. La gente encontraba a sus parejas en lugares públicos como las escuela, reuniones, amigos mutuos, o por casualidad.

Aparte de las razones de entretenimiento, las personas a veces utilizan las redes sociales para llegar a conocer a una persona mejor e incluso expresar que les gusta. Antes expresar el amor por alguien era más directo y en persona, debido al hecho de que la tecnología no era lo común. Muchos dependen de sus celulares para tener más confianza y poder expresar sus sentimientos. Boris también expresa que es intimidante ser directo cuando se trata de declarar el interés por una persona. “Creo que ambas personas tienen la misma cantidad de miedo, pero tu teléfono te da una sensación de seguridad puedes hacer cualquier pregunta.

No tienes que enfrentarte a la posibilidad de ser avergonzado públicamente si te rechazan.Te sientes libre al decir y hacer preguntas que normalmente no harías a alguien en persona, porque tienes más confianza.”

Aunque el romance de hoy no incluye el baile lento o una serenata con una guitarra a su enamorada, esto no significa que los sentimientos sean menos. Hay sólo diferentes maneras de demostrarlo en cada generación.

El amor es un sentimiento puro y genuino que debe ser compartido.

E3 español

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2 de febrero, 2017

Dialectos indígenas se oyen en muchos pasillos de Blair

El español y portugues no son los unicos idiomas hablados en Latinoamerica Por Sofiía Muñoz

Latinoamérica es conocida como ser una de las regiones más grandes en donde todas las personas hablan un solo idioma, pero ese concepto es falso. La realidad es que un gran número de personas que viven en las Américas crecen hablando otros idiomas y mayoría son caracterizados como dialectos indígenas. Mexico, Centroamerica, Sudamerica y el Caribe tienen aproximadamente 600 grupos indígenas, de los cuales 40 millones de latinoamericanos son miembros. Muchas personas se equivocan en pensar que las personas latinoamericanas todas son de la misma raza o hablan el mismo idioma. Hoy en día, la gran mayoría de la población habla el idioma oficial de su país, que en gran parte es el español. Lo que tienen en común muchos de los países latinoamericanos es que los dialectos y grupos indígenas no tienen la representación adecuada en el gobierno del país. Sin representantes políticos ni reconocimiento oficial de sus dialectos y esto limita la influencia indígena y los dialectos.

Latinoamérica es normalmente asociada con idiomas como el español y el portugués porque la mayoría de los gobiernos de estos países en la región los tienen como “el idiomas oficiales.” Una de las ideas falsas es que las personas en esa región solo hablan el español, en realidad el portugués es el idioma más hablado en Sudamérica con 204 millones de personas, y esto es debido a la gran población brasileña. El segundo idioma más hablado en Sudamérica es el español, que es el más hablado en la región latinoamericana con 400 millones de personas. En las islas caribeñas también hay gran influencia francesa donde 8 millones de personas hablan francés o el francés creole. Después de la gran influencia española y portuguesa, los siguientes idiomas más hablados son el quechua (9 millones de personas), el aymara (2.2 millones de personas), el guaraní (5 millones de personas), y el náhuatl (1.5 millones de personas). Esos son los

dialectos considerados como ser indígena.

Las diferentes regiones latinoamericanas son importantes de considerar cuando uno analiza los diferentes idiomas y dialectos porque la gran mayoría de la población indígena se encuentra en las zonas rurales de los países. Así como hay gran diferencia en los modismos del español en diferentes países latinoamericanos, hay diferencias entre los dialectos indígenas que vienen de diferentes

modernos. Debido a las barreras naturales y de los países, antes era común que la poblacion indigena solo hablaba su propio dialecto y no hablaba el español. Noelia Rosales del décimo grado cuenta sobre su abuela peruana quien creció en una situación similar en donde su puebl o hablaba quechua. La abuela de Rosales habla quechua y español al mismo nivel pero, “prefiere hablar en quechua. Ella está más cómoda hablandolo. ”Aho-

TIFFANY MAO

grupos indígenas. Muchos de los grupos indígenas origináron de los grupos históricos latinoamericanos como los Incas, Aztecas, y Mayas y su propio dialecto se desarrolló a lo que hoy se conoce como los dialectos indígenas

ra es más común que las personas indígenas hablen su idioma natal y también el español, ya que hay más facilidad de ir a la ciudad.

El uso de los dos idiomas también es algo importante para Magda Elizabeth Méndez

del noveno grado, quien vivió en Guatemala durante su niñez. Méndez cuenta que su primer idioma fue el mam, que es un dialecto indígena de orígenes Maya.

Como la mayoría de personas de origen indígena o que viven en una región indígena, Méndez cuenta que, “Empeze a hablar en Mam y despues cuando entre en el colegio empecé a hablar un poco en español pero… en mi casa solo hablaba en mam.” Este tipo de educación es muy común entre personas de regiones indígenas porque los gobiernos latinoamericanos enseñan las clases en el idioma oficial y ahí es que las personas aprenden a hablar y escribir en español. Hoy en día, el saber leer y escribir en los dialectos indígenas no es muy común ya que no hay muchas clases ofrecidas por los gobiernos latinoamericanos y así que como muchos, Mendez solo sabe hablar Mam. En la vida contemporánea se ha notado que ha bajado el número de personas que son capaces de hablar, leer, y escribir en sus idiomas natales e indigentes.

En los años recientes han habido más movimientos pro indígena en donde los grupos indígenas han luchado para más representación política y preservación cultural. Paraguay, Peru y Bolivia son los únicos países latinoamericanos en donde sus gobiernos han reconocido por lo menos uno de los dialectos indígenas como uno de los idiomas oficiales del país. Bolivia ha sido un país con much cambio a favor de la poblacion indigena después de la elección del primer presidente indígena de origen Aymara, Evo Morales en el 2006 hasta hoy, quien ha introducido mucha política intercultural. Estos cambios en muchas regiones latinoamericanas han inspirado que muchos países luchen para proteger la cultura y dialecto indígena y como Rosales dice, “Son muy importantes, no van a estar aquí por mucho tiempo así que es bueno saber que hay muchos más idiomas que se habla en Sudamérica.”

La Señora Carrillo, una de las El poder de la voz de las mujeres nuevas administradoras en Blair En unión y con metas en común en D.C. Por Angie Mejia A comienzos del año escolar 2016-2017, Montgomery Blair le dio la bienvenida a la Sra. Lavina Carrillo, una nueva administradora de ESOL para los grados 9-12.

También como supervisora de los departamentos de ESOL y de Idiomas Mundiales.

La Sra. Carrillo nació y creció en Pana-

JEDEDIAH GRADY

BLAIR Sra. Carrillo posa con una sonrisa. má. Habla con fluidez el inglés, el español y un poco del idioma hindi. Ella fue a la Universidad Estatal de Florida en la Ciudad de Panamá y luego se trasladó a la Universidad de Miami donde obtuvo su licenciatura en psicología. Comenzó su carrera profesional como directora de ventas y luego se enfocó en el sector educativo donde fue profesora. Luego regresó a los Estados Unidos donde trabajó para DCPS como maestra de la escuela bilingüe OysterAdams y también logró recibir su maestría en Liderazgo Educativo y Administración en la Universidad George Washington.

Su decisión de seguir como administradora escolar fue después de tener a sus hijos y darse cuenta de la experiencia negativa que tuvo en su infancia. “A mi madre no se le permitiron hablar en hindi porque la gente le dijo que yo nunca aprendería inglés.” Por

eso, quiso centrarse en programas bilingües donde se promuevan de igual forma todo tipo de idiomas. Como administradora, su trabajo es escuchar las inquietudes de los estudiantes, seguir su progreso académico, aumentar su tasa de graduación y prepararles para su meta profesional. El análisis es un factor clave de su trabajo que incluye descubrir los obstáculos que les impide alcanzar su éxito total, ayudarles a lograr sus metas y pasar los exámenes requeridos.

Ella identifica el problema del estudiante y lo dirige al lugar correcto si no lo puede resolver por su cuenta cómo a los consejeros o profesoras. Aporta en la planificación de la relación maestro-estudiante, aparte de mantener un contacto cercano con padres, informándoles de las formas en que pueden ayudar a su hijo a tener éxito. “Con otros miembros del personal, algunos estudiantes le dice que ellos no entienden lo que están pasando. Conmigo, no pueden usar esa excusa, porque yo sí los entiendo.”

A la Sra. Carrillo le gusta que los estudiantes visiten su oficina. “Me emocionó mucho cuando mi meta de ver a los estudiantes tener éxito se cumple. Cuando no veo eso, hago lo que sea necesario para que esto suceda.” Ella tiene una política de puertas abiertas, en la cual ella está disponible para sus estudiantes en la sala 120 a cualquier momento que esté disponible.

JEDEDIAH GRADY

AYUDA Siempre se encuentra disponible.

Por Sofiía Muñoz

El sábado 21 de enero, un día después de la inauguración del Presidente Trump, tuvo lugar una marcha de mujeres en Washington, D.C. La marcha comenzó con las ideas y el trabajo de cuatro mujeres activistas, una de las cuales es la-

unas 500,000 personas iban a atender pero después fue calculado que hubo un millón de personas solo en la marcha de D.C. Antes que comenzara la marcha, hubo un gran número de activistas que hablaron al frente de la audiencia. Los oradores hablaron sobre un gran número de temas, incluyendo los derechos del pueblo la-

CALEB BAUMAN

EL PUEBLO UNIDO Había un gran número de carteles creativos en la protesta. tina, una mujer de color y otra quien es una mujer musulmana. En el sitio oficial dice que la misión del movimiento de mujeres es asegurarse que los derechos, la seguridad, la salud y las familias estén protegidas y reconocer la comunidad diversa y vibrante de los Estados Unidos.

El anuncio de la marcha fue un éxito y atrajo la atención de millones de personas en todo el mundo, lo cual inspiró que muchas personas viajen al Distrito de Columbia o crear su propia marcha en su ciudad. Ha sido estimado que hubo unas 673 marchas en todos los 7 continentes (si, también hubo unas en Antártica) y unas 5 millones de personas atendieron las marchas. En la mañana de la marcha en D.C., fue estimado que

tino con una atención a la política que ha sido introducida de parte de la campaña de Trump. Hablaron sobre la discriminación, la inmigración y la violencia en contra de diferentes comunidades vulnerables. Además de los activistas que estuvieron presentes, muchas personas famosas atendieron para mostrar su apoyo, incluyendo Madonna, Alicia Keys, Emma Watson, Scarlett Johansson y Katy Perry.

Muchos estudiantes de Blair se hicieron presentes y las redes sociales estubieron inundadas de fotos de la marcha. El poder de la marcha ha capturado el interés de muchas personas a través del mundo, quienes han decidido seguir la lucha por los valores que son más importantes para ellos. Teniendo la igualdad como meta.

February 2, 2017

TYS17.Silver Chips Ad-Grayscale-FINAL.pdf 1 1/31/2017 10:33:06 AM

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College Courses. College Credits. College Park. ysp.umd.edu

University of Maryland’s Terp Young Scholars is a great summer option for rising high school seniors, juniors, and sophomores who are looking for a challenging academic experience.

Mark your calendar for July 9-28, and talk to your parents about experiencing Terp Young Scholars in summer 2017.

During Terp Young Scholars, you’ll: • Learn from UMD’s distinguished faculty • Earn three university credits • Explore new academic fields • Live and work with equally talented peers

Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship: Innovation+X: Sustainability

Government and Politics: American Government International Political Relations

Anthropology: Introduction to Forensic Sciences Architecture: Discovering Architecture Biological Sciences: Environmental Biology Communication: Speak Up! – People, Publics, and You Computer Science: Introduction to Web Programming Using HTML/JavaScript Jiménez-Porter Writer’s House: Creative Writing – Cross Cultural Perspectives in Poetry and Fiction Economics: Thinking Like an Economist Engineering: Introduction to Engineering Design Fire Protection: Engineering and Testing Creative Fire Safe Building Designs

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MLAW Programs: Mock Trial MTECH Institute: Biopharmaceutical Production Philosophy: The Art of Thinking Psychology: Social Psychology

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F1 Sports

silverchips

February 2, 2017

Funding for sports is now an exclusive club MCPS should stop burdening students who participate in club athletics

By Alexander Dacy An opinion

Many students are on a variety of athletic teams representing their high schools, working hard and enjoying the games they love to play. But for students who play club sports, only these latter two descriptors officially apply.

Athletes involved in club sports receive no endorsement, funding or coaching through MCPS and must be separated from the school’s activities program all together.

Club sports should receive financial support from MCPS. The funding would reduce undue burdens on athletes, parents, and teams, significantly lessen the costs that come with the sports, and result in more students playing the sports and attending club athletic events.

Club sports are teams that have no affiliation with the school system. Instead, they are typically operated by non-profit leagues outside of MCPS. The most prominent club sports at Blair are ice hockey, crew, and ultimate frisbee.

This past summer, MCPS updated its regulations regarding what club sports must do and what they cannot do.

According to these regulations, club sports may not use a name connected with the school, may not broadcast their games, practices, or tryouts through school announcements, may not receive equipment, uniforms or funding from the school, and may not use school facilities for practice, among other restrictions.

These recent policy changes have affected how the club crew team at Blair practices after school. Senior Conor Clark, a crew captain, says the new regulations forced the team to move some of their practices from Blair to a church near the school.

“Rather than being a Blair sport that practices in the building, we practice at the church across the street because it was easier to get a room there than it was to get a room here,” Clark says.

Perhaps the most significant deterrent to playing club sports is the cost. Since the school is not allowed to pay for team expenses such as game, tournament, and practice facility fees, the cost of playing many of these sports, especially hockey and crew, is often too much for families to reasonably afford.

Senior hockey captain Noah Dalbey estimates that it costs “a couple thousand dollars” to play one season with the hockey team, which includes equipment, facility use fees, and league dues.

Clark estimates that the total cost of participating in crew is over one thousand dollars per year, with about $700 going toward boat maintenance and the rest going to regatta dues.

Clark believes that if the cost was funded by the school, more students would want to try out and participate in an athletic club team. “[The cost] does bar a lot of people from participating in [crew],” he says. “Each year, about 30 people try out, maybe a little bit less. And then it tends to kind of dwindle out,” Clark says, either due to a lack of interest or due to the extensive time and monetary commitment.

Ultimate frisbee captain Nathaniel Blower explains that cost is not as much of an inhibiting factor for people seeking to play ultimate frisbee, but he believes that students would show up more for games and practices if the school was allowed to broadcast team information.

“Most people find out about frisbee through friends, but definitely getting on the announcements, some [more] people would find out about it and probably join,” Blower says. One reason that MCPS does not sponsor club sports is that they are generally not as popular or draw fewer attendees than football, basketball, and other varsity sports.

Also, not every high school has a hockey, crew, or ultimate frisbee team.

However, MCPS should not restrict these sports to the extent that students cannot officially represent their schools while assuming

GRIFFIN REILLY

SKATING AROUND Miles White looks to receive a pass as his teamate escapes a pursuing D.C. Stars defender on Jan. 27. Blair won the game 8-5. large time and financial burdens.

Many students enjoy hockey, crew, and ultimate frisbee, and by barring school sponsorship of these sports, it becomes a struggle for students to engage in the sport that they love, often to the point where they might give up on playing the sport because of the inordinate time and cost commitment.

Sports are an integral part of the high school experience, and it is unfair for club athletes to be burdened and restricted

for playing a sport no less than other sports sponsored by MCPS. In order to comply with the strict regulations, these athletes often have to take extra time and spend more money than they otherwise would to enjoy what they love.

MCPS should revoke this policy and at least let the individual schools decide which sports to sponsor, if not mandate club sports get the outright sponsorship they need. It is only sporting to do so.

Scoring an interview with Blair alumna Ava Wallace

Behind the scenes of reporting as a Washington Post sports beat journalist

By Olivia Gonzalez Ava Wallace has been a sports journalist for the Washington Post for a year and a half and mainly covers Virginia sports teams.

She graduated from Blair in 2011 and attended Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Science in journalism.

Q: How did you decide to become a journalist?

A: I always liked writing and that kind of stuff, but I actually didn’t know that journalism really was an option until CAP, which is super nerdy and very annoying, but when

we had to take our journalism class sophomore year, that’s kind of when it clicked with me.

I don’t know what it was, but it had all of the components of English style writing that I liked.

Q: Were you always interested in sports journalism or was that something that came about later in life?

Q: What is a day in your life like?

A: Yeah, that came about when I was in college, actually, I didn’t know what kind of journalism I wanted to go into so I decided to go to Northwestern University for college, just pretty much because I wanted to explore another part of the country that wasn’t the East Coast, and because they had a really, really, great journalism program.

So, I didn’t know what I was going to do in college until I was a sophomore, when they needed someone to fill in for a couple of women’s lacrosse games, and a lot of the kids on the paper are from the Midwest and nobody knew how to do women’s lacrosse, or the rules, or anything.

So I just ended up filling in one time and I was just like ‘Oh, this is so much more fun than any other type of journalism.’

So, that was kind of what got that started.

A: Usually, if it’s game day, I’m driving out to the game, and then I get there, make sure I’m prepared for everything, watch the game, and then have to file one story as soon as the game ends, which is called the runner.

It’s basically just a story about what happened in the game, who won, who lost, what were the big plays, things like that, kind of a play by play with a little bit more story to it.

And then after that, I’ll go talk to the players and the coaches after the game to file another story, sometimes it’s similar, sometimes it’s a complete rewrite, and I’ll file that and I’ll send it to the desk or to my editor, usually two hours after the game ends.

Q: How often do you have to come out with stories?

A: So, during football season, I usually do just one game a week, usually Virginia Tech because they’re ranked and have a better football history in their program, and things like that.

So, that’s what my editors usually have me cover during football season.

And then during basketball season, I’ll do anywhere from two to five stories a week. I usually cover two games a week, and also I’ll write those gamers, which I’ll write in advance, those stories that kind of preview the game.

The gamers are usually either a feature on one of the players or a coach or just kind of an overall letting people know what they need to know before the game happens.

English class was always my favorite, but it just felt like it had a little more purpose, a little bit more of a punch, and I was seriously hooked after that. It’s such a lame way to put it, but that was it, it was one class and that was it.

Q: Is the Washington Post the first place you’ve worked as a journalist?

A: Yeah, so this is my first full time job. I did internships at the Miami Herald, at the Arizona Republic, and at USA Today, which was the last internship I did working on their Olympics desk after college, before I went to the Post.

COURTESY OF AVA WALLACE

BEHIND THE SCENES Washington Post journalist Ava Wallace interviews tennis player Lauren Davis on the sidelines of the court after Davis’ match at the 2016 Citi Open.

Davis finished as the runner up in the final match, losing to her opponent Yanina Wickmayer.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Sports F2

silverchips

February 2, 2017

The most wonderful Sunday of every season Blazers’ Super Bowl traditions and a preview of football’s biggest game

By Henry Wiebe More food is consumed on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year, except Thanksgiving, according to time.com.

According to SI.com, a total of 216 regulation footballs are needed for the big game, 108 for each team. Before the game, the balls are each carefully inflated to exact specifications (unless, of course, the Patriots are playing). Two full weeks of sports analysis and media coverage are required to fully prepare America. According to an NFL commercial, nine months after the game, the city of the winning team experiences an increase in birth rates. Every year, almost a third of the country tunes in to watch the game, making it the most watched annual TV event. In fact, in 2015, Super Bowl XLIX set the record for the most viewed broadcast in TV history, with over 115 million viewers, according to CNN.com. It is the one time of the year where you do not want to skip through the commercials.

Simply put, the Super Bowl is easily one of the biggest events of the year.

An American tradition The Super Bowl is surrounded by a somewhat magical aura, almost like the high holy day of the NFL season. Fans are willing to do anything in their power to get their team to win, even if that means resorting to superstition and tradition that would otherwise be deemed “silly” or “ridiculous” When she watches the Super Bowl, sophomore Emory Brooks believes she must remain in the same spot where she was when her team first scored. She says, “When your team scores for the first time, you have to stay in that seat. You have to stay in that seat for the whole game.”

Junior Matt Siff and his family use the big game as a competition. Each member of the family writes down their guesses for various aspects of the Super Bowl. “We predict each phase of the game, like who will win the first quarter, who will get the opening kickoff, and who will score the first touchdown,” he says. “At the end we tally up all of the points, and the winner gets to choose where we go to dinner the next day.

I always win,” he adds with a grin. “[My little sisters] don’t even stand a chance.”

Every year, junior Josh Dominguez and his family eat a special dessert while watching the game. “My mom always bakes a cake in the shape of a football, and then we watch together and eat the cake,” he says.

“It’s usually a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting.”

Yes, it is true that the Super Bowl is about watching two of the best football teams go head to head on a national stage, but it is also about something a lot bigger than that.

For millions of people across the country, the Super Bowl is a valuable opportunity to spend time with family.

Super Bowl LI The Super Bowl kicks off this Sunday, Feb. 5, at 6:30 p.m. ET, in Houston, Texas. This year, the AFC champions, the New England Patriots, are pitted against the NFC champions, the Atlanta Falcons. Led by quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick, the Pats are looking to add to their impressive trophy case in Foxborough.

The Falcons, on the other hand, are still searching for their first Lombardi trophy.

Both teams bring very different assets to the table, and Super Bowl LI is sure to be a thriller.

Dynamic duo Since teaming up almost 16 years ago, Brady and Belichick have accomplished things that no other quarterback/head coach duo ever has. This will be their seventh trip to the Super Bowl together, and they will be seeking their fifth ring. Brady himself has quite an illustrious resume. His career numbers rank in the top five of every major quarterback statistic. This, combined with his impressive postseason success, makes him arguably the best quarterback of

all time.

Brady was the one hundred and ninetyninth pick of the 2000 draft, and hardly anyone expected anything out of him. Everyone likes to root for the underdog, and at the beginning of his career, that is exactly what Brady was. But this is no longer the case. No matter how bad their odds seem to be, Tom Brady and the Patriots always manage to come out on top. This success has elicited the envy of opposing teams and their fans for the past sixteen years.

Over the years, Brady and Belichick have achieved great things, but of course, the duo would never have been able to accomplish everything that they have without a stellar supporting cast. Although Brady often takes up most of the spotlight, it has been the New England defense that has been the real workhorse for the team. While Brady has been praised for his incredible season, his defense has quietly allowed the fewest points per game in all of football.

The Patriots also possess a versatile weapon in Julian Edelman, the speedy punt returner and wide ALEXANDRA MENDIVIL receiver. At one point, Edelman even served as the second string quarterback when both Brady and his backup, Jimmy Garoppolo, were sidelined (although he didn’t play any snaps as the QB1). As Tom Brady’s favorite target, Edelman will definitely be a large factor in this weekend’s game.

Brady’s four-game Deflategate suspension likely cost him the regular season MVP, but despite this, the Patriots are an extremely strong team that should be overwhelmingly intimidating to almost any opponent.

A historic offense The Falcon’s Matt Ryan (aka Matty Ice) was the best player during the regular season. According to ESPN.com, Ryan led the league with a raw quarterback rating of 83.1.

He also led the Falcons to an NFC South division championship, an 11-5 record, a

MATT RYAN

By Christian Mussenden It is February, which means we are not only in the middle of the school year, but we are also in a lull in the world of professional sports. College football is over, the NFL season is coming to an end this week, it is still the middle of the MLB offseason, and the NHL and NBA are currently in the middle of their long and arduous regular seasons.

But in some ways, this is good news! This means that now we can focus all our attention on the greatest source of entertainment ever: college basketball.

What separates college basketball from every other sport, college or professional, is the unpredictable and chaotic nature of the game that seemingly no other sport possesses. The NBA may have its intriguing storylines throughout each season, but almost every NBA fan knows that the championship this year will inevitably be between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Although the other sports may not be as extreme, the same principles follow. A college football fan knows Alabama will always be dominant. A NFL fan knows that with a few exceptions every year, the top teams in the league tend to stay the same, while those who follow the MLB know that the Cubs are set to rule baseball for the next 4-5 years.

The dominance that is uniform across these leagues is impressive, but it can get pretty boring, pretty fast. However, in col-

TOM BRADY

PASSING YARDS:

PASSING YARDS:

12

4,944

3,554

PASSING TDs:

PASSING TDs:

INTERCEPTIONS:

INTERCEPTIONS:

COMPLETION PERCENTAGE:

COMPLETION PERCENTAGE:

7

ESPN

I anticipate an extremely close game, but at the end of the day, no matter how good the Patriots’ defense is, it is hard to imagine that they will be able to stop the Atlanta offensive juggernaut. Julio Jones has consistently made defensive backs look silly, and he will continue this trend into the Super Bowl.

Even if star cornerback Malcolm Butler shadows him or if he is double-teamed, Jones will be able to find ways to be a playmaker. Highly touted Atlanta cornerback Desmond Trufant will give New England receivers trouble all night, and Vic Beasley Jr. and co. will find ways to get past the stout New England offensive line.

Tom Brady had a phenomenal season, and hats off to him, but in Super Bowl LI, Matty Ice will be able to lead the underdog Falcons to victory.

REGULAR SEASON GAMES PLAYED:

38

“Christian’s Corner” is a monthly column in which staff writer Christian Mussenden expresses his opinion on current events in the world of sports.

Prediction: A Falcon victory

REGULAR SEASON GAMES PLAYED:

16

lege basketball there is not that problem.

Every night, college basketball gives the fan something that every other sport cannot offer: unpredictability. Experts each year try to formulate an accurate prediction on college basketball and their efforts often end up fruitless. In college basketball, there is rarely an unbeatable team because there is so much roster turnover. Players are only allowed to compete for four years, and often the best student-athletes only play one year for their college team and leave immediately for the NBA. This constant turnover means that it is hard for a team to become too good, because the roster is always changing. This fact, along with the chaotic and unforeseeable nature of basketball in general, makes college basketball great. Every year, the fan can have a good idea of what team will be best and who will be the best player, but in college basketball anything can and does happen, something every other sport wishes it could replicate.

league leading 33.8 point per game, and a number two seed in the playoffs. Of course, Ryan would not have been able to do this without one of the best wide receivers in the NFL, Julio Jones, and a two-headed monster of a backfield that consists of Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman. Even the team’s kicker, Matt Bryant, was statistically one of the best in his position this season.

The Atlanta offense is certainly the most formidable part of the team, but it is clear that without solid defensive play, the Falcons would not be nearly as powerful of a team. The young defense is just starting to rise to its potential. This was evident in the NFC title game, where a future hall of fame quarterback in Aaron Rodgers and the strong Packers offense was held at bay.

The Falcons were able to accomplish this by implementing an interesting and unique defensive style. The Atlanta defense boasts regular season sacks leader and Defensive Player of the Year candidate Vic Beasley Jr., but according to ESPN.com, the Falcons only blitzed 24.9 percent of the time. This shows that the Falcons are still able to put pressure on the opposing team’s quarterback while maintaining maximum personnel in the secondary to protect against the pass.

28 2

69.9%

67.4%

PASSER RATING:

PASSER RATING:

117.1

112.2

HENRY WIEBE

F3 Sports

silverchips

February 2, 2017

Snow doubt about it, winter sports are cool

By Laura Espinoza

Varsity co-ed indoor track At the Montgomery Invitational meet, several students finished in the top eight for their events. Despite winning the 800-meter race, senior Thierry Siewe Yanga disqualified the boys’ 4x400-meter team for bad sportsmanship.

“I dabbed while racing and waved at the crowd,” he says. “I learned my lesson.”

At the County Championships, both Yanga and junior Morgan Casey won the boys’ and girls’ 800-meter races, respectively. Both the boys’ and girls’ teams placed ninth at the County Championships.

Head coach Bruce Williams is looking forward to more success during the spring. To him, indoor track is similar to outdoor track.

“It’s maybe a week or two between indoor and outdoor, so it’s really just an extension ... They’re pretty much the same events,” he says.

Key players: Seniors Thierry Siewe Yanga, Chris Butler, and Eleanor Cook, junior Morgan Casey

Varsity girls’ basketball

Varsity boys’ basketball

Co-ed bocce

With a current record of 10-4, the girls’ basketball team is on the rise. New coach Hayley Hollis says she sees great potential in this year’s team. “From the start of the year, I’ve seen a lot of growth ... in our players both on and off the court. They’ve really responded well to a new system,” she says.

Junior Nora Olagbaju likes the changes Hollis has introduced. “She really emphasizes communication, which is something that we didn’t really have last year,” she says.

Hollis is confident in the team’s abilities.

“We’re getting into the swing of things. We’re getting more comfortable with each other, we’re getting more comfortable with the system, and we’re gaining confidence as we’re going on,” she says.

With a record of 7-7 in the middle of the regular season, coach Damon Pigrom says the boys’ basketball season is “going up and down.”

He sees similarities between last year’s and this year’s team dynamic. Both teams got off to a rocky start and were able to improve throughout the season. Pigrom hopes they “can become more efficient come playoff time.”

Senior captain Demetri Cooper says the team’s atmosphere has improved since the beginning of the year.

He attributes the team’s recent success to the positive environment. “We started off a little shaky with our team chemistry and effort, but we’ve been coming along pretty good,” he says.

After a rough start to the year, the bocce team was able to come back and end their regular season with a record of 2-2.

According to coach Melvin Terry, there were many new players who had to learn the sport.

Additionally, the team did not get much time in the gym to practice when the season started. “By the simple fact that we have to practice in the hallway between the math [classrooms], it’s kind of hard for them to really get a feel for the court until we really get to the games,” Terry says.

Since bocce teams in the county only play five or six games during the regular season, every team will make the playoffs.

Terry uses the regular season as practice and a learning opportunity. “I take the regular season...almost as a feeling out season, especially since you only play five games,” he says.

Key players: Seniors Lauren Frost and Allison Mackenzie, juniors Nora Olagbaju and Aissatou Bokoum, sophomore Megan Burke Remaining games: 2/3 at Kennedy, 2/7 vs. Northwood, 2/10 vs. Clarksburg, 2/14 vs. B-CC, 2/17 at Churchill

Key players: Senior Demetri Cooper and junior Anthony Smith-Davis Remaining games: 2/3 at Kennedy, 2/7 vs. Northwood, 2/10 vs. Clarksburg, 2/14 vs. B-CC, 2/17 at Churchill

Key players: Seniors Raul Gonzalez, Marcos Enriquez, and Diondre Roane, junior Tori Brezell

COURTESY OF MOCO RUNNING

JEDEDIAH GRADY

JEDEDIAH GRADY

COURTESY OF LIFETOUCH

CHASING DOWN VICTORY Senior Thierry Siewe Yanga leads in the 800 meter race.

BREAKING ANKLES Junior Saraswati Temple dodges a Springbrook defender.

GOING FOR THE SHOT Senior Julius Cobb jumps up to avoid a Paint Branch player.

BANKING ON THE ROLL Freshman Nicole Grant steps up to take a shot.

SAMI MALLON

SAMI MALLON

COURTESY OF ABESELOM GEBREYESUS

TAKE ‘EM DOWN Junior Fernando Martinez has the upper hand during a match.

JUST KEEP SWIMMING Junior Hannah Kannan swims backstroke down the pool. She is far ahead in her race, with no other competitors in her sight.

POM POSE Senior Yessie Portillo-Lopez and sophomore Sophia Lindsay perform.

Varsity wrestling

Varsity co-ed swim and dive

The wrestling team has a 14-5 record for the regular season. Coach Tim Grover credits this change to the increased interest. “One thing that has been long time in the making is just more kids out for the team,” he says.

Junior captain Ryan Holland is enthusiastic about the change. “We have more returning wrestlers, guys that are stepping up as leaders,” he says. “If we can keep recruiting like we did this year, we’ll soon have one of the best programs in the county.”

The team currently has three state-ranked wrestlers. Holland and senior captain Nauman Funyas are honorable mentions at 138 and 126 pounds, respectively. Junior Rudy Ngougni is ranked 15th at 220 pounds.

Because of weather conditions during the beginning of the winter season, two of the swim and dive team’s meets were postponed.

Coach Vanessa Zarou thinks this makes it difficult for them to track progress and come together as a team.

“I think it’s really been difficult for me and the team to get into this season because we haven’t been competing. We don’t have that regular kind of camaraderie and excitement at the meets,” she says.

The boys’ team is currently 4-1, and the girls’ team is 3-2.

The team is preparing for Metros, a competition that takes the best athletes from Maryland, D.C., and Virginia. Zarou considers it more important than States for her swimmers and divers.

Parent volunteer David Greenleaf, who helps the dive team, has seen a significant

Key players: Seniors Nauman Funyas and Zhaxi Zerong, juniors Rudy Ngougni and Ryan Holland Remaining games: 2/4 vs. Kennedy, Rockville

inside SPORTS

amount of growth in the divers.

“We’ve had some kids that have gone from learning only two or three dives, and now they’re up to 10 or 11, so it’s going pretty well,” he says.

Zarou is confident that many team members, both swimmers and divers, will qualify for and do well at competitions because of their growth.

Greenleaf cites their dedication as a strong factor in their improvement. “Anyone who’s crazy enough to get up at 4:30 in the morning, twice a week, to come out and go in the cold water is definitely dedicated to the sport,” he says.

Key players: Senior Madison Waechter, juniors Olivia Amitay, Eli Cohen, and Hannah Kannan, sophomore Niles Egan Remaining games: Division II Championships 2/4 at Germantown Indoor Pool, Metros 2/8-11 at Germantown Indoor Pool

The case for funding club sports

Super Bowl traditions and preview

see page F1

see page F2

Varsity poms

Active since the fall season, the poms team has worked hard for their competitions in late January.

At the Northwest Pom Invitational, the team finished second overall, and senior Nikita Patel received the third place captain’s award.

At the Blake Pom Invitational, the team finished fifth overall, and Patel received the second place captain’s award.

Coach Makeyda Hilliard has noticed a large change in her team’s dedication and focus from last year. “I think the biggest difference is that you just see more of a drive.

I think placing the year prior to last and just getting top five last year really pushed them,” she says.

Hilliard thinks that the team’s increased effort causes the rest of the school to perceive the sport differently.

“A lot of times as a dancer, you don’t always feel like you’re an ‘athlete’. It’s been really nice that they’ve been pushing to give the stance that they’re athletes, and that they’re pushing, and that they’re working harder than any other team,” she says.

Key players: Seniors Yessie Portillo-Lopez and Nikita Patel, and Sabrina Jiang, junior Ellie Williams CARLY TAGEN-DYE

CARLY TAGEN-DYE

Remaining games: County Championship 2/4 at Richard Montgomery