BELFIELD BANTER THE
June 8th, 2022
Issue #8
The St. Anne’s-Belfield School Student Newspaper
In This Issue:
CAPSTONE PROJECT: WHY EVERYONE SHOULD BE A HUMANIST
HOW DO YOU MEASURE A PROGRAM’S SUCCESS? SMILES! AN INTERVIEW WITH ATHLETIC DIRECTOR, MR. SETH KUSHKIN
(FINAL EDITION) CONVERSATIONS WITH COLLEGE COUNSELING WHY DO HUMANS LIKE TORTILLA CHIPS? FACULTY FEATURE: MR. JUSTIN ESPOSITO EDITOR’S NOTE
born into artisans, they would attend a formal school to receive a rudimentary education focused on grammar and ancient texts. Further, they would abandon specialized schooling to begin shadowing and learning the trade of their fathers. Finally, if a child was born into a noble or royal family, they would either attend a formal school or participate in one-on-one tutoring and would continue their studies past the point of literacy into adolescence. However, as humanists began to alter the traditional curricula by including a basic Latin education in every region, establishing communal schools in most Italian communes, or towns, and translating and amending Latin textbooks, working and middle class citizens were able to gain exposure to and obtain “professional” occupations. Previously, only Latin speaking upper middle class, noble, and royal citizens could be in legal, political, religious, or medical positions. Communal schools in rural areas, less advanced, more organized Latin and grammar textbooks in different vernaculars; and the incorporation of Latin into every curricula represented the first steps toward bridging the rural and urban economic and educational divide in Europe.
WHY EVERYONE SHOULD BE A HUMANIST
by Ally Alvarez — Although humanism began during the late Middle Ages, the philosophy’s values are far from outdated. Humanism is constantly reflected in the modern world, and it is responsible for some of the current school system’s most effective programs. Since 1300, humanism’s influence has touched every individual who has received a formal education and established the foundation for increasing access and quality of education regardless of class and location. To begin, humanists inspired financial aid scholarships, rural outreach programs, and the public school system. Prior to the fall of the Medieval Era, the education a student received was entirely based upon the social status of their family. For instance, if a child was born into a peasant family, they would receive minimal inhome schooling from a family member or friend who was likely only partially literate and would begin manual labor at a young age. If a child was
We can also credit humanism for the idea that schools should encourage students to grow academically and morally. As secularism gained popularity, humanists employed biblical texts and Christian doctrines to teach ethics rather than religion. They used such writings as examples of important leadership qualities and how to act in trying circumstances. Later in the Renaissance, a nearly perfect balance between a religious and secular education was achieved as Jesuits established their first, free school. This school combined a high quality humanist curriculum with religious study and secular, moral education and became a model for later Christian humanist schools. This balance can be seen in modern religious schools and page one
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universities who teach, for example, secular science courses and conduct religious ceremonies. In addition to the curricula, humanists changed the purpose of education. In the Middle Ages, students attended school to gain varying levels of literacy and to prepare themselves for their predetermined career path. During the Renaissance, however, receiving a “well-rounded” education before embarking upon advanced, specialized studies was admired even if students learned about subjects that did not directly apply to their future occupation. It was believed that, through the study of multiple disciplines including rhetoric, philosophy, mathematics, and literature, students improved themselves by developing intellectual curiosity and could use their broad understanding of the world to give back to their communities through public service in higher education or political, religious, legal, and medical fields. Humanism is the reason that colleges have general education requirements and core curriculums, states enforce certain credits in each subject in order to graduate, and elementary schools focus so heavily on teaching young children how to be people before scholars. Humanists believed a good education included academic, moral, and physical rigor as is reflected in our own St. Anne’s-Belfield School’s motto, “Body. Mind. Heart. Soul.”. In addition to its connections to modern education, the height of the humanist movement occurred under an interesting political structure: feudalism. While feudalism was a horrendous system that created a miserable quality of life for the majority of the European population, it, in some ways, helped progress women’s rights during the Renaissance. Feudalism fostered a society that was nearly entirely dependent upon socioeconomic status. Unlike the women’s suffrage movement in the United States where every woman, despite her fame, wealth, or connections, was deprived of the same rights, feudalism permitted certain women of higher classes to excel in “acceptable” fields of writing and art. For example, though all females were prohibited from obtaining argumentative, speaking professions or entering court, wealthy women were allowed and encouraged to write. Royal daughters received the same expensive and high quality one-on-one tutoring as their male counterparts, and tutors often deferred to their female pupils for advice on what they should teach or how she would like to be instructed. Kings who knew prestigious artists would schedule shadowing opportunities for their daughters to gain familiarity with renowned authors. Females wrote poetry and essays that were published and studied in sch-
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-ools Artemisia Gentileschi even used her home to teach herself how to paint. She became a famous Italian portraitist and was the first woman to attend one of the most prestigious art academies, Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, Italy. Some women escaped the regulations imposed upon their speech by instead writing letters to their politician husbands or religious officials to express their opinions regarding new laws or the role of the military. The combination of feudalism and humanism allowed wealthy women to begin dismantling the belief that women were solely of domestic use to society and were undeserving of education past literacy. By prioritizing class over gender, women were able to harness the few professions in which they were allowed to participate to prove their excellence. In short, humanism is a philosophy that allows citizens to recognize their ability to enact change within society. Prior to the Renaissance, when individuals noticed a flaw in their community, they would invest their hopes for change in the Church. While humanists in no way fully deviated from religion, they understood that a combination of faith and human action could be employed to solve problems. Rather than relying on prayers alone to heal a sick family member, humanists both prayed and supported scientific research. When unsatisfied with a new policy, humanists not only turned to God for guidance, but they also used rhetorical skills and persuasive writing techniques as a method of protest. Humanism initiated the idea that humans could have faith in themselves and that the Church was not the only institution in which society could manifest progress. However, humanism is more than just a philosophy; it is an attitude. During the Renaissance, humanists viewed education as an investment in a life of satisfaction. They believed that intelligence, discipline, curiosity, and ethicality were the only guarantees in one’s life and that possessing such characteristics fostered contentment and quenched the desire for luxury. Even Kings expressed that, while luxuries can disappear in an instant, intellect and a strong moral compass are life’s only constants. If every member of St. Anne’s-Belfield fully embraced humanism, dreaded assignments would be viewed as opportunities for self-growth and personal improve-
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ment. Each passing year would be viewed as an accumulation of tools that arms students to progress society in whatever form we enjoy and are able. Disliked courses would be seen as necessary to developing a foundational understanding of humanity. And, finally, the quality of one’s character would carry as much weight as their academic success. This shift in mindset and societal values inspired an excitement for learning, and a boom of discovery in Italy that spanned multiple generations. It can do the same for our school.
HOW DO YOU MEASURE A PROGRAM’S SUCCESS? SMILES! by Rose Ryan Byrne
— RRB: I’m here with Mr. Kuskin, the St. Anne’s-Belfield School Athletic Director. First, clarifying questions, then we’ll go in chronological order. For the less sports-oriented readers, what do you do here at St. Anne’s-Belfield? SK: That’s a loaded question! People probably wonder what keeps me busy all day long. I work with our full athletic staff, which is Ms. Blake, Roman, Jess, a new athletic trainer, John Vaughn, as well as Coach P. for strength and conditioning. Day-to-day, every single day is completely different. Whether it’s dealing with scheduling pieces that our staff is working on, helping to oversee our athletic training side, the health and safety of our kids, working with [Coach P.] to plan things around strength and conditioning, working with Ms. Blake around scheduling, and organizing everything that happens around athletics. And [working with] Roman who oversees our transportation, our uniforms, and our officials and everything else. We, as an athletic department, run between 500 and 600 athletic events a year, combined home and away. There’s a lot of different pieces that keep all of us busy. What initially drove you into sports, administrating, and coaching? How did you get started? SK: I had great athletic experiences in middle school and high school and had great mentors and coaches. The sports that I played were golf, basketball, and baseball, and I’ve always just loved athletics. When I was in school, that time when the academic day ended and I could go out and play was the best part of my day. I went on to college, and my degree was in English. I started as an English teacher, History t-
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-eacher, and a high school girls basketball coach when I got out of college. I coached in college for 15 or 16 years and was an athletic director in the midst of that. I just loved the piece that I could help people really take advantage of what athletics gives them both on the field and by way of experiences that can impact an athlete as a person for the rest of their life. Do you think being a coach challenged you? Do you think it pushed harder? SK: Coaching is challenging. There are so many different aspects of it, from the planning and the “X’s and O’s”, to what you’re trying to teach people, to winning, to being successful, but there’s also the aspect of trying to work with student-athletes to enjoy what they’re doing every single day. Very few teams out there win their last game of the year. There’s only one champion: only one team who wins that final game in all of the sports. We’re all trying to have that success at the high school level, but, when you’re in middle school, playing JV, or any of the other levels, you just want your experience to be a great one. Those are the pieces you want student-athletes to walk away from having enjoyed what they played. What drew you to STAB? Is there anything that stood out about it? SK: When I visited, I was not really job searching. I was happy with where we were as a family in Wilmington. Things were good there, but it was the opportunity to be a part of this community. I appreciated the vision that Dr. Graves had and where she wanted to lead our athletic department. I think it was that piece that drew me here along with our success and all the things we love about Saints athletics but also knowing that there is always an opportunity to improve what we’re doing. Did you have a final objective you wanted as an athletic director? Did you have one goal you wanted to accomplish? SK: I’m ending year one, and I’m still learning every single day. Every experience, and every time the day ends, it’s a different experience than the day before. I think my largest objective to it all was wanting the experiences of our student-athletes here to be both positive and things that they will remember moving forward.
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That seems like a great goal. So your first year is coming to an end. How do you think it went? How do you think things have been going? SK: It went fast! I can’t believe we’re actually at this point already. I think it was successful. I think there are quite a few things that I have loved and enjoyed and am excited about for our kids to have fun in our programs. There’s a lot of things that I [think] about: “could we change this?” or “could we do that?” to improve upon the experiences and success [at the School.] I think it’s been an exciting year and is even more exciting to go as we move forward. How do you measure how good of a year it’s been? Win-loss records? Number of students committing to play sports at the collegiate level? SK: I don’t know that either one of those would dictate success. Many times, people want to go to college because that’s their next step. Others have that desire to continue to play for as long as they can. Different students have different thoughts on moving forward, but, I think in terms of measuring it, it’s the more smiles I see on fields. I think it’s the more experiences that student-athletes have and knowing that they have grown and learned along the way. When those things happen, more success and more wins happen. Looking towards next year with this year under your belt, do you think that your goals have changed? Do you think that you’ll have a new approach? SK: Certainly there will be more things that I will look to improve upon little by little. My goals are always to have more of our students participate in athletics or have the desire to be on the field and put on a Saints uniform. There will always be kids who participate outside of the School, but I hope that more will match that with being here [at St. Anne’s] as well. To me, the high school experience is so much different than playing outside of school. [It’s] playing and doing it with your friends who you are in school with and having those experiences. Those times are ones that we will remember for years to come.
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(PART 2) CONVERSATIONS WITH COLLEGE COUNSELING by Kay Tu and Anthony Cai
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article is part of a series of articles from our Digital Editors, Anthony Cai and Kay Tu, on the inner workings of the college admissions process and our college counseling office.
What’s the most unexpected story you’ve received in an application?
SJ: People tend to think that, to be an unexpected applicant, you need to have done something extraordinary, but, having read applications for more than 15 years, the kid that has stuck with me the most was an entirely ordinary kid. This applicant took his ordinary circumstances and looked at (and showed his readers) the world in extraordinary ways. This young man was an athlete; he wore half-knee high socks with incredible colors and patterns to every game as his lucky charm. Every time he put his knee socks on, he felt ready to take over the world. It became a part of how he approached soccer. With his socks on, he would go into his games feeling confident. He was not the captain of the team, but he found a way to show everybody else that it was okay to have fun to express your personality and that stuck with me. The piece that all of you may not realize is that, when you turn in an application, your essay is not the only part of the application that gets read. So, when I continued through this boy’s application to read his teachers’ recommendations, I learned that he was one of the most popular kids in the community, but, according to the recommenders, would also be the first to hold the door when somebody’s coming through; he was a culture setter, and was is also the first to reach out to people who are alone, sitting by themself, or didn’t feel like they belonged. The rest of his application also revealed he was openly transgender, and one of the few LGBTQ+ students in his school community. I couldn’t stop thinking about this student, being a caretaker for his peers, for the younger students, and having rich relationships and the impact on his community. I have never met the student– I just read about him– but I can still close my eyes and imagine him on the soccer field, running up with his crazy socks, and I see an absolutely phenomenal human being.
Which student have you met that was the most memorable? Rubenoff: For five years before coming to STAB, I worked for a national scholarship organization called
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the Ron Brown program. The program is based in Charlottesville and works with high achieving African American students who are significantly under-represented in terms of income and access, and helped them through the college process. One student, Michael Brown, came to the program as a junior in high school. He became a Ron Brown scholar– one of twenty students (out of thousands of applications) selected to receive $40,000 scholarships to put towards their education. Michael was from Houston, Texas; he lived in the third world of the housing project and came from a single parent family. I just know Michael is someone who we are going to hear about. He is going to be the next president, the next Supreme Court Justice– he’s going to be somebody because that’s just the kind of person that he is. He ended up receiving almost over $300,000 worth of aid in college scholarships. He was excited and passionate about what he was doing in his life. He did all this while being an incredible student, being on several student councils, and doing an internship in the Supreme Court. He’s someone who found ways to impact others, and he had drive. He was just an incredible human being; I think it’s now his senior year at Stanford. Being in his economic circumstances and life circumstances, his faith and confidence with who he was in his community and what he could do to make it better made an impact. I don’t know if he wants to be the president, but, if he ever runs for office, I will vote for him.
What’s your favorite UChicago extended question?
Belak: One of my favorites talked about an untranslatable word: “choose a word, tell us what it means, and then explain why it can not or should not be translated from its original language.” When I was in admissions at UChicago my territories were China, South East Asia, Oceania, and then, ultimately, I read for Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Having those international territories, I had a lot of students who spoke different languages than English. It was really fun, because I felt I was learning as I read the essays. There were many German words, many French words, and certainly many characters in
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Mandarin and Cantonese. The prompt that I felt brought me the most joy was “Mash up a historical figure with a new time period, environment, location, or occupation, and tell us their story” (ex. Joan of Arkansas. Queen Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Babe Ruth Bader Ginsburg). When that prompt came out, my colleagues and I had an entire marker board where we came up with probably hundreds of name combinations that we were hoping to see come up.
WHY DO HUMANS LIKE TORTILLA CHIPS? by Emma Finley-Gillis
— I was recently out at a restaurant with some friends where, instead of the typical bowl of bread, a basket of tortilla chips was placed at the center of our table as soon as we sat down. While we scanned the menu, the chips seemed to vanish from the basket, guided mindlessly by our hands toward our mouths and followed by a series of crunches, repeating as we each kept reaching towards the basket. The crunch of the chips found its way into conversation– bites fitting between stories and among sentences– and was not hindered even by the complete emptying of the basket since, to our great avail, the waiter swooped in, without even a second’s delay, to replenish the pile of tortillas. It was not then, but much later (once we’d all finished our entreés and were awaiting the bill, stuffed yet still crunching on chips), that I realized how bizarre this totally involuntary snacking was. I took to wondering whether there was a science behind it: does something about the crisp and crunch of salty tortilla chips light up some part of our brain that other snack foods fail to? It turns out that yes, of course, there is science behind this phenomenon. However, chips are in their own category. Generally, foods that generate more noise, or are “crunchy,” are fresher– a crisp apple, a cool cucumber, even fresh romaine– but chips, coming from their variety of unnaturally-colored bags and tubes are certainly not “fresh,” nor would our brains perceive them to be. Even with the red flags of classic junk food advertisements, there’s no reason our brains should turn us, and our mouths and noses, away from these treats… after all, our brains don’t always want what’s best for us. In fact, for all these page five
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from Charlottesville to form the hybrid rock band, “Trees on Fire”. We toured extensively before settling down with our families.
high-sodium, high-fat snack foods, the crunch actually helps our rational brain get past all those unfortunate labels: “because noisy foods tend to be fatty they’ll retain their flavor longer, and because the noise reinforces our idea of what we’re eating, it affords us a sense of security that allows us to keep consuming” (Charles Spence, Ph.D. and researcher of countless topics related to human’s eating habits). With an assortment of crunches fitting into the atmosphere of a meal, as happened to our group with the tortilla chip basket, continued consumption of chips or similar crunchy foods can occur without a conscious thought. When we chew, the auditory cortical and limbic system areas of our brain light up, and we get that information about freshness our primal brains seek out, and that snacking sound ends up, through electric signal, right in the amygdala, to be processed as pleasure or fear (Natan Bauman, M.D. and audiologist)… though, based on what I’ve observed, far more frequently the former. The trade off between the force used to break the resilience of a crunchy food and the near-instant shattering and dissolution of the snack happens too quickly for your body to truly process what you’ve consumed. It seems tortilla chips have been perfected in a way that encourages us to enjoy them. Had that basket been filled with a softer, tearable loaf of bread, I imagine it wouldn’t have been emptied and refilled quite as many times. The mindlessness of consumption when you don’t have to actively remind yourself that you’re eating coupled with the legitimate enjoyment we get from eating crunchy foods (whether they’re “fresh” or not) makes salty snacks like chips particularly hard to resist. Keep this all in mind next time you find yourself out to eat, or looking through your pantry for a snack. Enjoy and indulge nonetheless, but think back to the science when you start to feel like maybe you’ve had enough to satisfy your hunger.
What made you interested in working in the education sector? JE: Education found me. While tutoring for a scholarship program set up by Boyd Tinsley of the Dave Matthews Band, I found that I really enjoyed working on music with kids. It was rewarding to see the confidence grow in the lives of the students, and for some to notice with a little bit of help, “I can do this”! What is your favorite pastime outside of school? JE: It is hard to pick a favorite, because I feel I need an eclectic array of activities to feed me. Of course playing music, whether it be on the violin, guitar, keyboard, or experimenting electronically, is something that is necessary in my life. Aside from that, I also really love to cook exquisite food utilizing the bounties of harvest from my other pastime, gardening. Finally, if there is free time, I love to go out and play disc golf. It has been good for physical activity, getting outside, and providing solace from the busyness of the day. From a teaching perspective, how does music benefit the lives of students? JE: Being involved in playing music is a cathartic experience that provides therapy and inspiration. Post Covid, it is clear that it is beneficial for us to make time for our mental health and feed our physical and mental states with something that can provide healing, confidence, creativity, and joy. From a scientific perspective, we have learned that participating in music and playing an instrument is one of the few activities that engages both the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Working on musical passages is not only beneficial for your cognitive memory, but your muscle memory as well. A win win!
FACULTY FEATURE: MR. JUSTIN ESPOSITO Are you new to the Charlottesville area? JE: I moved to Charlottesville in 2005 to start a rock band with some college friends from music school. Two opera singer majors, an upright bass player, and I teamed up with a drummer
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EDITOR’S NOTE
by The Belfield Banter Editorial Board — Hello, Saints! As quickly as it began, the 2021-2022 Academic year has come to an end. Without getting into the cliched language of challenges and unprecedented territory, just think for a minute about how March was the first time in two years that we began to see each other’s smiles. Through gradual, careful steps, we were able to come back together as a community and celebrated the many year-end traditions that make our school special last week. This year at The Belfield Banter, we published eight issues of this newspaper and two volumes of PLUM, the Literary Arts Magazine, all due to the support of each of you– our readers and contributors. Thank you to each student, loved one, faculty member, contributor, and editor who have supported us along the way. A very special thank you to our Faculty Advisors– Mr. Taylor and Mr. Phillips– and to the Communications Office, whose guidance, patience and generosity have made our staff better writers, communicators, and designers.
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2021-22 BANTER STAFF Jack Dozier* - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Editor in Chief Emma Finley-Gillis*- - - - - - - - - - - - Managing Editor Hannah Laufer - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Columns Editor Ally Alvarez - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Features Editor Qiming Fu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Creative Director Kay Tu - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Digital Editor Anthony Cai - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Digital Editor Izzy Sanok- - - - - - - - - - - -Assistant Managing Editor Sonia Kamath- - - - - - - Director of Student Outreach Rose Ryan-Byrne - - - - - - - - - - - - Community Editor
*Asterisk denotes members of the Editorial Board
We would like to wish everyone a restful summer filled with time with friends and family, rest, and safe travels. Finally, to our recently graduated Seniors: congratulations to each of you. In your years at St. Anne’s-Belfield School, you’ve served us each day as leaders in classes, clubs, and on the fields and courts. We are incredibly grateful for everything that you have brought to our community. The Class of 2022 will leave a lasting legacy, and we hope you will always come back and visit all your fellow Saints. Thank you for everything that you have done this year, Saints. Have a wonderful summer! All our best, The Belfield Banter Staff and Editorial Board page seven