Volume 106, Issue 6

The Spectator

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume 106 No. 6

December 2, 2015

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eniors Matthew LernerBrecher, Max Fishelson, Yicheng Wang, and Dennis Yatunin represented Stuyvesant at the Philadelphia Classic Computer Programming Competition on Saturday, November 14.

The team won first place.

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enior Yubin Kim won first place in the girls’ bowling Manhattan-Bronx Individual Championship.

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he Stuyvesant Model United Nations Team won the President of the General Assembly’s Award for the Best Large High School Delegation in the WFUNA competition that took place from Tuesday, November 10 to Saturday, November 14. Sophomore Tiffany Moi and seniors Taiga Tase and Lucas Weiner won “Diplomat” Awards.

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uniors Zovinar Khrimian and Catie Breen competed in the New York State Cross Country meet on Friday, November 20.

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he Stuyvesant Speech and Debate Team won the sweepstakes award at the New York City InterLeague Metro Tournament on Saturday, November 14. Junior Liam Elkind and senior Danielle Hahami won first place in the Dramatic Performance and Oral Interpretation categories, respectively.

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enior and tennis player Danielle Wong was named New York Scholar Athlete of the week

by News 10NBC for the week of Monday, November 23.

The Shadow of the Student Union

By Sharon Chao and Shameek Rakshit

The administration granted sophomores the right to leave the building during free periods at the School Leadership Team (SLT) meeting held on October 27. The decision came one day after seniors Kryztsztof Hochlewicz and Ryan Boodram and sophomore Kevin Boodram posted a petition on Facebook to mobilize student support for the approval of the policy. Student Union (SU) President Ares Aung and Sophomore Caucus President Tahseen Chowdhury had originally requested, to no dissent, that the privilege apply to sophomores at the SLT meeting in June 2015, when Aung was SU Vice President and Chowdhury was Freshman Caucus President. However, because the policy change was not followed up on at the start of the new school year, the three students decided to step in.

The incident highlighted the evolving relationship between the SU and an unofficial student organization working toward similar goals: to advocate on behalf of the student body and work with the administration to bring about change.

In the past, the SU has been the sole organization pursuing these goals.

Hochlewicz, Ryan Boodram, and Kevin Boodram decided to create a group paralleling the SU after becoming disillusioned by its inefficiency.

“We’re here just to help people in general. We don’t have a specific name,” Ryan Boodram said.

The group’s main intention is to effect change if the trio feels that the SU has taken too long to do so.

“We want to give the SU a chance, but they’re not making progress at the rate that they should be,” Hochlewicz said. “It’s appropriate for us to step in past a certain time frame that the SU is allotted.”

For instance, the group posted the petition regarding the right for sophomores to leave the school during their

free periods on October 26. “We felt that if the SU was going to get anything done about it, it would have been done

by November,” Kevin Boodram said.

SU President Ares Aung greatly appreciates the action that the group has taken, but he would have liked the group to communicate its plans to the SU before informing students. “If they want to progressively help the student body, then by all means they have my support,” Aung said. “I just would like to be informed of such issues […] so we can collaborate and progress faster.”

Junior and SU Executive Branch Delegate Winston Venderbush agrees with Aung’s opinion. “[At Stuyvesant], the petition goes directly to the administration and bypasses the SU,” Venderbush said. “[The group] should have consulted the SU considering the way that petitioning functions, and especially since the SU was already working on this issue with significant breakthroughs.”

Another initiative the group has taken is to publicize SU and SLT meetings. “A lot of students don’t even know what SLT meetings are, but they really should know because it’s during those meetings that students bring up issues with the administration,” Kevin Boodram said. The group brought up the sophomore privilege to leave the building at the SLT meeting in October.

The trio has also voluntarily attended the majority of the SLT and SU meetings this year to provide another set of voices. “We go to these meetings so we can give the opinion that we think that students have,” Ryan Boodram said.

Like the trio, the SU has since publicized SLT meetings. SLT Representative Asher Lasday introduced the SLT to students in a Facebook post on November 16 and attached a form for concerns to bring up at future SLT meetings. “I wanted to wait until I had a good idea of the dynamics of SLT meetings before getting involved in branching out. It would be irresponsible of me to blindly ask for concerns without knowing how I can bring them

AP Exams Free but Mandatory

By Sonia Epstein

Beginning this year, Advanced Placement (AP) exams will be offered to all students at no cost.

Stuyvesant is receiving this benefit from the Department of Education (DOE) because it has chosen to use AP exam scores, rather than Regents scores, as a component of the Measure of Student Learning (MOSL), a DOE assessment that is factored into a teacher’s overall rating.

The MOSL comprises 40 percent of a teacher’s rating. The State Measures, which compose half of the MOSL, incorporate marks from state assessments like Regents exams. The other half is based on Local Measures, which a school can select from a list of approved options. For the past two years, Stuyvesant has used Regents scores as the Local Measures, but this year it will use AP scores.

“Regents marks have not really reflected our school’s performance because [students] came in so highfunctioning so […] the Regents [cannot measure] progress,” Principal Jie Zhang said. Most students at Stuyvesant consistently receive top scores on Regents exams, but these are translated into a lower MOSL

WHAT’S INSIDE? Features Opinions

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score because they do not illustrate “improvement” from eighth grade exam scores, which also tend to be high. Thus almost every teacher receives a score of about 15 out of 20 for this portion of the MOSL. “We’re capped at a certain level,” Zhang said. The system also makes it difficult to identify which teachers are most effective because all teachers wind up with similar scores.

This is the third year that the DOE has listed AP scores as an option for a Local Measure. “[We] wanted to play it safe on the progress model […] but we found after two years [that teachers had about the same scores],” Zhang said. “We knew that it [was] not playing such a critical role in evaluating schools […] We knew we’re not going to be hurt more, so why not get free testing?”

The DOE confirmed for Stuyvesant this year that if the school uses AP scores as the Local Measure for the MOSL, the exams would be administered to students for free.

At about $92 per exam, and with most students taking more than one exam, taking AP tests can pose a serious financial burden. “We decided we’re here for the students.

If all of our kids, regardless of their family situation, can take AP ex-

ams at no cost, why don’t we [use AP scores for the MOSL]?” Zhang said. “We don’t feel it’s going to hurt the teachers one way or the other.”

The Regents will continue to be used to grade teachers who do not teach AP classes. In order to ensure that teachers who do teach AP classes can be evaluated, all students will have to sit for the AP exam of the class in which they are enrolled. Traditionally, nearly all sophomores and juniors have done this. For seniors, attendance has been spottier. “Sometimes colleges won’t even accept the credits so there’s no point in taking [the exam],” senior Michaela Papallo said. “A lot of kids want to take AP classes to learn the material and not to take the test […] it’s a bit of a waste of time to just sit for the test.”

Other seniors who had not planned to take the AP exam of a class they are enrolled in were dissatisfied with the sudden change in policy. “It might have been better to begin this next year, when students would know that they would have to take the exam before they signed up for the class,” senior Branch Freeman said. continued on page 3

345 15th Street: A Tour of the Old Stuyvesant Tour Stuyvesant’s old building, and get a glimpse into what life was like for students 50 years ago.

Jennifer Dikler / The Spectator

NEWSBEAT

stuyspec.com

up at meetings,” Lasday said. He isn’t affected by the group’s effort to broadcast SLT meetings. “I’m not focused on what [Hochlewicz, Ryan Boodram, and Kevin Boodram] are doing. My main concern is doing what I can do as effectively as possible,” he said.

Each member of the group has a history working with the SU. Kevin Boodram originally wanted to create Stuyvesant Community Board, a club independent of the SU and similar to the current group, in November 2014.

However, former SU president Keiran Carpen (’15) did not pass the club’s charter because he thought that it might be against Department of Education (DOE) rules. Carpen messaged Kevin Boodram on Facebook, writing, “If you remain independent of the SU and consequently of the administration, then bearing the Stuyvesant name might be against DOE rules.”

Kevin Boodram later decided to create the Stuyvesant Action Committee in June 2015, which was approved

by Aung. Although its meetings were successful in bringing up ideas, such as a locker trading system and an escalator monitoring system, Kevin Boodram decided to not renew the charter this year because of criticism

from students who think that the SU should be the only organization that can implement school changes.

Sophomore David Power agrees with this perspective. “I don’t think [that the trio] should’ve investigated the sophomore privilege because they aren’t involved in the running of the school,” Power said.

“They don’t have the power or responsibilities of being in the SU.” Hochlewicz experienced difficulties with the SU starting when he was Sophomore Caucus President, motivating him to help form this parallel group. “I was frustrated for two years at the lack of the efficiency seen under two different administrations.” He brought up the idea of school e-mails for students at the first SU meeting of the year in October 2013, but nobody supported it. “People said that the administration wouldn’t allow us, or that it would be too much work. Some were actively opposed, and some were indifferent,” Hochlewicz said.

Read an Opinions article about this same topic on page 13.

continued on page 2

New AP of Mathematics Imminent

By Hasan Tukhtamishev and Jan Wojcik

Last year, Assistant Principal (AP) of Mathematics Maryann Ferrara announced her retirement and left her position after 30 years of service. To this date, Stuyvesant has yet to find a new AP, leaving the responsibility to be shared among Principal Jie Zhang, AP of Data and Technology Services Randi Damasek, and Ferrara, who comes to Stuyvesant twice a week to help with the job. However, the administration is nearing the most decisive stages of the process for choosing a new AP of Mathematics.

There are two ways that a school can try to find a new AP of a department. The first way is for the principal to ask members of the current faculty whether they are interested in being an AP of a department. If the faculty member has the proper certification, they would serve as an interim acting AP for approximately a month, and then take on the official position. However, no teacher could be found to fill the role. “Since no one could be found, I had to refer to the Department of Education’s (DOE) hiring system, which works very similarly to a job search,” Zhang said.

The hiring process is regulated by the School Chancellor’s Title C-30,

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which outlines the proper actions that must be taken by the school to find a new AP and review applications for such a position. First, the principal of a given school needs to announce the vacancy of the AP position to the DOE via their Teachers Support Network (TSN). “I posted the vacancy the first moment I could, which was September 1,” Zhang said. Vacancies are generally posted at the beginning and middle of each month, and last 15 days before they close. “I posted the vacancy twice, the second one ending on October 31,” Zhang said.

According to C-30, an applicant must fill out the online application using the TSN system. Alongside that, the applicant must possess either a valid School Building Leader, School Administrator and Supervisor, or School District Administrator certificate to be considered.

Obtaining the proper certification requires completion of leadership certification programs that are offered by colleges around the city and are regulated by New York State’s Education Department. If the AP position is for a specific subject, the applicant must possess a valid New York State teaching certificate in the underlying subject area.

continued on page 2

Student Action, Not Student Factions Business Manager, Lucas Weiner, argues why self appointed student advocates could damage student relations with the administration.

Page 2

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

News The Shadow of the Student Union continued from page 1

Hochlewicz raised the idea again during the first SU meeting in October 2014. By then, he had distributed surveys to his grade that showed that over 400 students wanted school e-mails, had Principal Jie Zhang’s support, and had talked to former Assistant Principal of Technology Edward Wong about creating the e-mails with Google accounts.

“I asked the SU for support, but all they said was that I was doing a good job and that they could try to help, but they never actually did,” Hochlewicz said.

Senior Caucus President William Yang, who was Sophomore and Junior Caucus Vice President alongside Hochlewicz, agrees with Hochlewicz. “We didn’t receive the desired support from the SU [...] Getting [Computer Science Teacher Topher Brown-Mykolyk and Principal Jie Zhang] to follow through with the creation of school e-mails, ultimately came down to just the two of us,” Yang said. However, Yang thinks that the specific people who brought about a change shouldn’t matter as much as the actual change.

Yang said, “This recent desire to stamp a name on every reform is antagonistic to how the SU should function. We should as a whole seek to better the school.”

The third member of the group, Ryan Boodram, was displeased with the outdated Constitution he saw on the SU’s old website. “The Constitution is supposed to be the SU’s entire basis for existing, so I was shocked that it wasn’t even followed,” Ryan Boodram said. His May 28 article in The Spectator, “A Lesson in Constitutional Law for the SU,” catalyzed the relationship between him and Hochlewicz. “We found out that we shared similar reforms that we wanted to make in the SU,” Ryan Boodram said.

After Hochlewicz and Kevin Boodram lost their elections for

SU President and Sophomore Caucus President respectively, they decided to continue being involved in student affairs.

“We realized that we didn’t have to abandon our goals of helping the school, and we planned to meet in the new school year,” Kevin Boodram said.

As of now, most of their discussion takes place over Facebook chats. They currently are working on bringing various other changes to Stuyvesant, such as a unified website for teachers to post homework. “A program called Google Classroom can be used with our school e-mail accounts to let teachers post and collect homework. It can also be like a Facebook that teachers can supervise,” Ryan Boodram said. Social studies teacher Kerry Trainor is currently piloting this program.

The group plans to survey students to gauge interest in various other ideas in the near future.

Some students are worried about how the group will affect the SU’s reputation. “The group can set a dangerous precedent of people respecting actual SU leaders even less, thus causing the organization to lose legitimacy,” Ioana Solomon (’15) said. “If students begin to believe that they can ignore the results of elections or rise as leaders without any kind of structure or legitimized public support, it could create a wave of people trying to speak to the administration about student concerns, on behalf of a student body they don’t officially represent.”

SU Club/Pub Director Paulina Ruta disagrees. “Everyone, whether they are in the SU or not, can have a voice and try to make a change. The SU is one type of outlet to do so, but there are other ways as well,” she said.

Hochlewicz, Ryan Boodram, and Kevin Boodram emphasize that their group is not in opposition to the SU. “The SU and our group both have the same goal of helping students,” Hochlewicz said.

New AP of Mathematics Imminent continued from page 1 If all of the requirements are met, and the applicant possesses all necessary certification, they are then placed into a Principal Candidate Pool. “I opened the application for the AP position twice and received a combined pool of 39 applicants,” Zhang said. “I left it open after the first time because I felt that I needed a larger pool of applicants to make my choice.”

Afterwards, the two-part selection process begins. The first part of the selection is an interview with the applicant, conducted by a committee whose members are elected by the School Leadership Team (SLT). The committee generally consists of two United Federation of Teachers (UFT) members, one school support staff member, four to seven parents, one supervisor of the school, and one designee from the Superintendent.

The Hiring Manager, a Stuyvesant administrator, chooses a minimum of three applicants out of the pool of candidates to be interviewed by the committee on a specific date. The committee conducts a 30-minute interview with each of the chosen applicants, and discusses the merits of each candidate. A specific scoring rubric is filled out for each member, and the committee ranks the candidates based on their scores and the impression they left on the committee. In Stuyvesant High School’s case, the interviews for the chosen applicants took place

on November 24. The administration said that the C-30 process is confidential and did not provide the names of the candidates.

Level II of the selection is left to the principal, who is then tasked with choosing an AP from the ranking of candidates that the selection committee presented them with. Although the committee’s role in choosing the AP is integral, the final decision is left to Ms. Zhang. “Usually the principal decides on either the first or second top recommendation from the committee,” Zhang said. “It is very important that the committee’s recommendations match the principal’s choice. If the committee recommends the top people, and the principal chooses the fifth or sixth recommended, you can tell that that school is not functioning well.” Once Ms. Zhang makes her choice, the Superintendent of Stuyvesant’s district will review Ms. Zhang’s choice and determine whether to approve the decision.

The time that it will take to hire the new AP depends on his or her current circumstances. The chosen AP might be already employed, so resigning from their present job and getting situated in Stuyvesant would take time.

The latest at which an AP can officially be employed is the start of the second semester, February 1.

“When the new AP starts working, Ferrara will leave and Damasek might help a bit with the organization, but otherwise, return to her position,” Zhang said.

Arizona to D.C.: David Pirtle Recalls Life on the Streets

By Sophia Heo, Raniyan Zaman and Selina Zou

“When I first became homeless, I was in denial,” David Pirtle said. “We’re [all] so programmed by the stereotypes, the stigma, that it was hard [to accept] the state I was in.”

The Stuyvesant Homeless Coalition, a new club that seeks to combat the issue of homelessness, invited Pirtle to speak at Stuyvesant after school on Friday, November 13. Pirtle discussed his experiences with being homeless in Arizona, New York, and Washington D.C. Pirtle was a restaurant manager in Phoenix, Arizona who lost his job and his home when he developed a type of schizophrenia. After living on the streets of Arizona for a short time, Pirtle headed to New York by hitchhiking on trains. “I was homeless in Arizona, but I really learned how to be homeless in New York,” Pirtle said. During his six months in New York, he lived in an abandoned building and survived off meals from garbage cans and trash from bagel stores.

Pirtle recounted the dangers he faced on the streets of New York, such as frequent attacks from young men or teenagers, and condemns the cultural mindset behind these attacks.

“A quarter of nationwide attacks on the homeless result in murder,” Pirtle said during his presentation. “We’re teach-

ing young people that homeless people aren’t people.”

After six months in New York, Pirtle decided to head to Washington D.C. “I didn’t go to a shelter because I’d heard bad things about shelters. It was getting cold, and I didn’t want to stay to find out what a winter on the streets of New York City was like,” Pirtle said. In Washington D.C., he lived on the streets for over a year, shoplifting to survive. Following his consequent arrest and placement in a mental health institution, Pirtle finally spent eight months at a homeless shelter to avoid serving a prison sentence.

There, Pirtle received the right medication for his illness and was finally able to return to the road to a more stable lifestyle.

Pirtle and his fellow residents at the homeless shelter discovered that their shelter was slated to be converted into a boutique hotel. The shelter’s residents petitioned to local politicians and held a series of rallies.

Eventually, it was announced that the shelter would remain open, and that it would also be renovated. The experience transformed him, allowing him to realize his calling for helping people and working in activism.

Today, Pirtle works with the National Coalition for the Homeless, speaking at schools about the reality of the lives of the homeless and raising awareness for the necessity of providing housing for everyone.

He is currently an outspoken activist for the mentally ill and homeless of Washington D.C. Many people left the lecture with altered perceptions of the lives of the city’s homeless. “Everything I heard was really shocking. To be honest, there were moments where I just wanted to cry at the thought of people living lives in such poverty,” sophomore Carmen Benitez said. “[I] never realized that homelessness is such a huge issue today. [...] It really opened my eyes.”

Sophomore and Co-President of the Stuyvesant Homeless Coalition Anna Pacheco hopes to invite more speakers to Stuyvesant in order to cover such topics. She originally contacted Pirtle through the National Coalition for the Homeless. “The coalition offered educational speakers [...] who have dealt with homelessness, [have faced] the judgment that comes along with it, and [are] prepared to educate us about the reality of it all,” she said. Her goals are to raise awareness, shatter preconceived notions about the homeless, and inspire the student body to become more generous.

Throughout his presentation, Pirtle emphasized that there is still much to be achieved in the battle against homelessness. “We can make sure that nobody who finds themselves homeless is left on the street,” he said. “But there are a lot of social issues we need to tackle first if we’re to solve [the issue of] homelessness.”

No Stuyvesant Siemens Finalists as Research Department Stumbles

By Jarett Lee and Vanna Mavromatis Over the past few years, Stuyvesant has seen a decline in its representation among the finalists of large science competitions. In 2012 and 2013, Stuyvesant had two regional finalists at the Siemens Competition in Math, Science, and Technology, and in 2014 it had one. This year, there was one semi-regional finalist and no regional finalists.

This decline has occurred in the midst of multiple changes in research coordinators. Traditionally, the research coordinator has played a critical role in helping students secure positions at labs. Dr. Jonathan Gastel worked as research coordinator until his departure in the spring term of 2013. Physics teacher Rebecca Gorla replaced Dr. Gastel, but vacated the position early in the spring term of 2014. Biology teacher Jason Econome filled the position in the fall term of 2014.

As these turnovers took place, valuable connections with mentors and labs were lost. “We tried to get information from Dr. Gastel as far as prospective labs for kids for the subsequent summers. He didn’t have records of that, so there was a loss in translation,” Econome said. “There wasn’t [any] continuity, unfortunately. So that certainly was a major setback.”

Laboratories that properly accommodate students can also be very difficult to find. “Not many labs understand the needs of our high school students. We’ve had some problems in the past,” Econome said. “Some labs are very generous and love having

kids [...] but not everyone does.”

This problem is expected to diminish with time, as the department gains more experience with labs. “When you’ve established relationships with the labs, they know the kind of quality people you bring in [so] they’re more apt to accept kids,” Econome said. “That’s what we’re working on: establishing relationships so kids in the future won’t have that issue. They can just concentrate on the research.”

Part of the change may also have to do with the number of students participating in research. “There’s definitely been a decrease in interest in the [research] class. I think that might be due to people thinking that [Stuyvesant’s] Intel program has decreased in quality. It’s unfortunate,” senior Mary McGreal said. “[Fewer] people are doing research and as a result [fewer] people are competing.”

One reason students may feel that the program has worsened is due to the results of the 2015 Intel STS. Two Stuyvesant seniors were named semi-finalists, a sharp drop from the 11 named in 2014 and 10 named in 2013. The drop was partially a result of a mishap in which some students submitted papers hours or even minutes late because the deadline for submissions was moved earlier.

In hopes of creating a better experience for students conducting research, the research department decided to give students more time to work on their projects. In the past, students would enter the Intel research class in the spring of their junior year, work in a lab during

the summer, and then produce a paper in the fall of their senior year. Starting this year, juniors are allowed to enter the class during the first term, giving them more time to conduct research and produce the final paper. “If I had had an extra semester to work on my project I probably would have been much further along with it,” McGreal said.

While the research department has stumbled in the past few years, students continue to produce advanced work with the help of Stuyvesant faculty. Senior Vanathi Ganesan recently presented her paper about Phenotypic and Biomarker-Based Drug Discovery to PhD students, post-doctorates, and people working with pharmaceutical companies. She conducted her experiment with a mentor at a laboratory she found through Stuyvesant. “I got a lot of feedback from Mr. Econome and Dr. Pathak on how to conduct the experiment, how to approach paper writing, [and] technical styles. I think it was really helpful in general. Even if the competitions aren’t as successful, I think that it’s just the knowledge [of proper scientific procedures that counts],” Ganesan said.

Although Stuyvesant has recently seen fewer finalists at large competitions, many students still believe the experience was worth it. “Being in the Intel class motivates you to email labs, to keep on it. Whereas other schools don’t offer this resource, we make sure kids who are interested in research are pushed to pursue it,” McGreal said. “Intel has been a really great experience for me [...] If you’re interested, sign up for it.”

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 3

News AP Exams Free but Mandatory continued from page 1

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and NASA

WORLDBEAT

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n the wake of the Paris attacks, France and Belgium have taken dramatic security measures. Numerous raids have been conducted to capture suspects, specifically in Belgium, where the man who coordinated the attacks allegedly lives. Brussels has been on lockdown for several days, and Prime Minister Charles Michel has called for an extension on the length of time that suspects can be held by the police without having charges filed against them, the incarceration of jihadists entering the country, and a requirement for suspects to wear ankle bracelets. Such plans have raised concerns among Human Rights activists that the antiterrorism measures will restrict personal rights and cause discrimination against Muslims.

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jihadist group affiliated with Al Qaeda killed 19 civilians—many of them foreigners—on November 20 at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, one of the few places in the country with an international presence. The attack signified a break in the country’s slow revival from a military coup and terrorist attacks in 2012.

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ith 289 votes, the House of Representatives passed a GOP-written bill on Thursday, November 19 that would add stricter background checks to the process of admitting Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the country, a process that can already take up to two years. Despite President Barack Obama’s opposition to the bill, almost 50 Democrats voted for it, signifying a divide within the party. The bill will soon be voted on in the Senate.

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resident Obama announced the 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom award winners. Among the 17 recipients are director Steven Spielberg, civil rights leader Minoru Yasui, baseball stars Willie Mays and Yogi Bera, entertainers Barbara Streisand and James Taylor, and the first African-American woman in Congress, Shirley Chisholm.

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ollowing a judge’s order, officials released a video to the public that shows a white police officer shooting a black teenager, Laquan McDonald, in October 2014. Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with firstdegree murder for allegedly shooting McDonald.

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n an effort to address segregation in schools, the Department of Education of New York City plans to allow seven elementary schools—six of them unzoned—to set aside 20 to 60 percent of seats for disadvantaged children, many of whom are Black or Hispanic. These spots will be reserved for students who receive free or reduced priced lunch, are in the child welfare system, do not speak English fluently, or have parents facing time in jail.

Stuyvesant Purchases New Notification System

By Shanjeed Ali and Jessica Wu Stuyvesant has purchased a new notification service called School Messenger that allows the school to make mass phone calls and send mass e-mails. It will be used almost exclusively to let parents know about absences over the phone. The first phone calls were made using School Messenger on November 5.

Prior to School Messenger, Stuyvesant used Blackboard Connect to make phone calls to students and parents. Stuyvesant’s contract with Blackboard Connect expired in October and the administration decided not to renew it. Instead, the school purchased School Messenger at $1.50 per student per year. The cost of the service was $4900 for the entire student body, slightly more expensive than the cost of Blackboard Connect.

The need for a new notification system was heightened by the retirement of former Assistant Principal of Technology Services Edward Wong, the only staff member with training in Blackboard Connect.

Instead of training more faculty to use the old system, the administration decided to switch to School Messenger due to its ease of use.

The administration, the attendance office, and the guidance office will use school Messenger.

The software for the service is set up on several computers and requires some training to use, which Zhang has already completed. In addition, staff members from the guidance and attendance offices

are being trained to use Messenger.

Recently, Stuyvesant replaced Daedalus School System and Communicator with eSchoolData. Daedalus was used by parents and students to check students’ academic information and was used by the administration, teachers, and the guidance office to send e-mails to both parents and students. eSchoolData has many of the same functions as Daedalus. “School Messenger is totally separate from that,” Zhang said. “It is capable of sending e-mails but we don’t have a database with all parent e-mails at this point,” she explained. The e-mail function of School Messenger will most likely remain unused, especially once eSchoolData is fully operational. However, School Messenger is necessary because it provides the school with another, more direct way to communicate with parents.

Teachers will not be using School Messenger to communicate with their students. “It is being used primarily to inform parents of school absences,” Zhang said.

The phone call system was used to inform parents of absences for the first time on November 5. There were a few minor issues with students whose parents were informed they were absent even though they were at school. However, Zhang said the issues were caused by human error, not by the system.

School Messenger is a new service for Stuyvesant but it has all the capabilities of the previous absence notification service, allowing for a smooth transition between the two services.

As Freeman suggested, this change will alter students’ mentality when signing up for classes.

“If we [are] given that ultimatum of ‘it’s free but you have to take it’ then people [will] be very cautious about the classes they’re taking,” senior Corinne Felton said. “But I think it will be beneficial overall.”

The effects of the new policy will carry over to areas outside of Stuyvesant and the DOE ratings. According to Zhang, the US News and World Report assigns top ratings to schools in which all students in the graduating class have sat for an AP test and scored above a three out of five.

Historically, about 15 percent of students at Stuyvesant never sit for an AP test, frequently due to its financial burden. Zhang attempted to boost Stuyvesant’s rating by implementing a policy stating that all students, beginning with the class of 2017, must sit for one AP exam in order to receive a Stuyvesant diploma. Now, students will be able to fulfill the requirement without paying the testing fees.

The administration has decided that the benefits of using AP scores for the MOSL outweigh the drawbacks of making AP ex-

ams mandatory. “[Students] are tested a lot and forcing an exam that’s not necessarily going to serve [them] and that takes [them] out of more class [feels] unnecessary,” Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman said.

“That said, there is some value to teachers of AP classes having a sense of how well [their students] have mastered the skills and content that an AP class is designed to impart. It certainly doesn’t do any lasting harm to take the test, especially if it’s free.”

As Grossman suggested, using AP scores as a Local Measure may serve as a more fair way to assess teachers. When Stuyvesant used the Regents as a Local Measure, the grades of teachers who did not teach a Regents class were formed by using the average of all students’ Regents scores, making a significant component of their grade irrelevant and out of their control. “If the state is going to use test scores to evaluate teachers, they should at least use a teacher’s own students’ scores, not the Biology Regents to evaluate English teachers,” Grossman said. “While I’m defending the use of [AP scores as a Local Measure] given that system, I think it’s a silly system.”

English teacher Eric Fer-

encz agreed. “The best feedback comes from my [assistant principal] and my students,” he said.

Ferencz, who does not teach an AP class, will be unaffected by the change, but he noted that he pays little attention to his grade.

Other teachers had slightly different views. “You can’t not pay attention to [the rating], even if you don’t believe in the fairness, in the accuracy, and in the appropriateness of it,” said math teacher Gary Jaye, who teaches an AP class. “If […] at least part of the rating [is] based on what [a teacher] does with their AP […] that’s probably more fair.”

At the same time, AP scores don’t always reflect the work done throughout the year in the classroom. “Sometimes the kids’ scores on the AP test are out of our control,” said history teacher Josina Dunkel, citing fluctuations in the material on the test and a mishap in which exams were scored against the wrong key.

Despite uncertainty regarding how using AP exam scores will affect MOSL results, the administration remains optimistic.

“AP scores may be, at least, the most accurate, the most fair way of getting a sense of how effective teachers are,” Grossman said.

“We’ll see how it goes this year.”

The Museum of Interesting Things Visits Stuyvesant

By Giselle Garcia and Selina Zou

“I’m here to show you that your iPod didn’t pop out of nowhere,” Denny Daniel said as his listeners settled down. “It’s what I call the missing link factor, and I’m here to show you all the links.”

Daniel, the founder of the traveling exhibition The Museum of Interesting Things, visited Stuyvesant on Thursday, November 19. His presentation, held during periods nine and 10, aimed to inspire innovation in students by giving them the opportunity to examine numerous technological artifacts from the 19th and 20th centuries.

“We’ve turned technology into some sort of mysterious voodoo,” Daniel said. “What inventors really do is solve problems. Don’t think that it’s rocket science.”

Social Studies teacher Brenda Garcia invited Daniel to Stuyvesant. She spoke to him when she visited his travelling booth at the September 2015 Maker Faire, an annual event in New York in which inventors display their creations.

“I visit [Daniel] every year at the [Maker] Faire because he always brings artifacts,” Garcia said.

“I’ve always […] wondered how it would be if students saw the items I was teaching them about.”

The Museum of Interesting Things is a traveling exhibition that presents at fairs and schools throughout the country. It has reached audiences ranging from pre-kindergarten students to senior citizens. Daniel founded it in the hope of inspiring more students to be interested in invention by showing them the simplicity of complex inventions.

“I grew up in a world where anything was possible. I remember going around the neighborhood, taking apart old bikes and building Frankenstein bicycles from those parts; that’s what my generation did.” Daniel said. “The word ‘no’ was ostracized, and I think that some of that feeling has faded. That’s why I started the

Museum of Interesting Things.”

During his presentation at Stuyvesant, Daniel introduced students to the variety of artifacts he brought with him that involved the Industrial Revolution, the time period that Garcia’s Advanced Placement (AP) World History classes had been studying at the time. These included an Edison cylinder phonograph, a calliope music machine, a steam engine model, and a 1920 voting machine. He explained how each worked as well the history behind them, and allowed students to examine the artifacts themselves. “My goal is to demonstrate the evolution of the idea,” Daniel said. In doing so, he hope to simplify the concepts in-

ing of how they are transforming the lives of people,” Garcia said.

Student responses to the presentation indicate that many of Garcia’s hopes had been fulfilled.

“I went in wanting to gain more knowledge about the technological advances [of the Industrial Revolution], and I think the speaker presented that really well,” sophomore Victoria Huang said.

Daniel is open to presenting at Stuyvesant again, if Garcia were to invite him again. He responded positively to his experience. “Presenting at Stuyvesant was an honor,” said Daniel in a later interview. “It certainly lived up to its reputation. The kids were smart, creative, and came up with brilliant ideas.” Garcia com-

“I wish to inspire young thinkers to feel positive about accomplishing things, and to demystify the way the world works around them by tinkering around.” —Denny Daniel, founder of the Museum of Interesting Things volved in creating each machine.

Garcia hoped that this handson interaction would be the most effective part of the presentation. “Last year, when I was teaching this unit, I asked students about their opinions on the radio, phonograph, and old camera, while [the students] pretended that they were from the 19th and 20th centuries. I figured a presentation like this would be a better way to actually have a chance to look at what we were discussing,” Garcia said.

She hopes that students will not only learn the background behind the individual artifacts, but also their larger significance in history. “I want the students to see devices from the past so they can have a better understand-

mented that she would consider having him back—not to present only on industrialization, but also on other topics within the AP World History curriculum—in the hopes of contextualizing technological advances for students.

Beyond a discussion of historical inventions, Daniel’s presentation shed light on the need for students to be interested in examining how modern technology works, instead of assuming that it is too complex to understand.

“The real secret behind a museum is to bring back the old American feeling of ‘the show must go on.’ I wish to inspire young thinkers to feel positive about accomplishing things, and to demystify the way the world works around them by tinkering around,” he said.

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 4

Courtesy of the Stuyvesant Pre-Medical Society

The Founding of CityMD: CEO Richard Park on Spreading Kindness

By Anne George and Elijah Karshner “You’re at Stuyvesant,” Dr. Richard Park (’90), Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at CityMD and Emergency Medicine physician, said. “You guys are capable and healthy. I can’t tell you how important that is.” Over 150 students gathered on Tuesday, November 10 to listen to Dr. Park as he chronicled the

founding of CityMD and why he established a motto of “kindness” as the basis of his business. Dr. Park’s visit was organized by the Stuyvesant Pre-Medical Society and hosted by junior and president Evelyn Gotlieb and sophomore and vice president Sofiya Tsenter.

Dr. Park began his lecture by emphasizing that financial circumstances should not determine the opportunities a student is provided. After Dr. Park grad-

uated from Stuyvesant, he chose to take a gap year before attending the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania due to financial difficulties. He described how he felt isolated from his peers because while they were financially-able to attend college, he had to open his own business, a one-hour photo store.

Throughout college, Dr. Park commuted from his Pennsylvania dorm to the store every weekend to pay for his education.

After graduating from Wharton and later completing medical school, Park began his Emergency Medicine residency at Long Island Jewish Hospital. Following his residency, however, Dr. Park was met with the challenges of raising an autistic and nonverbal child. His experiences have led him to establish the premise of kindness for himself and all that he pursues. Though he knows his children will always rely on him in a way non-autistic children would not, he is able to recognize the effects kindness can have on anyone.

Dr. Park felt obliged to spread kindness in its simplest forms and carry along this initiative in the creation of CityMD in 2010. “When you appreciate people and you love people, you can do amazing things. You can do more than you ever knew you could,” Dr. Park said.

Currently, there are 48 CityMD locations, with a projected 52 by the end of 2015. CityMD locations specialize in urgent care, providing immediate and affordable medical care for people

of all ages. Though Dr. Park does not intend to remain CEO since he does not have his Masters in Business Administration, he wants to use his current position to properly communicate and establish a mission statement of serving people with kindness. “The company you create, anything you create, is your artwork. It is a reflection of who you are and your values,” he said.

Dr. Park recounted his experience with a patient who came into the CityMD in Astoria in excruciating pain, delaying his treatment since he did not have health insurance. CityMD treated the patient free of charge, and he left smiling. “For a few minutes, by saying the procedure was on the house, the world wasn’t broken, and that’s what we all have to do, just spread kindness. Life is tough enough; [we should] make it a little bit easier for someone else,” Dr. Park said. “We didn’t solve any long-term problems here. But for a minute, everything was okay.”

He went on to explain his philosophy of serving others as crucial to a prosperous career. Dr. Park referenced numerous instances in which the charity of others helped him when he was struggling. Upon renting the first office of CityMD, Dr. Park applied for bankruptcy, until the landowner of the building and now close friend Al Glick, gave him a $300,000 loan, in order to help keep the business afloat.

However, he acknowledged that

revenue must exist in order for CityMD to succeed in the long-term. As an example, he mentioned the creation of the Jackson Heights’ CityMD location, which originally had lost $3,000,000. A result of dedication and hard work, the location is now able to sustain itself and contribute to the revenue of the company.

Dr. Park explained the growth of CityMD as a combination of timing, luck, and good partners. His passion for his work was a large factor as well. Dedication to his company led to expansion and success, even through hardship. “The only way you can do that, to go the extra mile, is because you love something,” he said.

Park hopes that his lecture provided an eye-opening experience for students. “It was an opportunity to share the struggles I had growing up and to encourage [students] to have the correct mission and goals in life.

People aren’t motivated correctly. This lecture was a reminder to the students as well as myself,” Dr. Park said.

The Pre-Medical Society feels that Dr. Park accomplished this goal. “Dr. Park’s message conveyed that CityMD is successful because it appreciates and cares for people, serves them instead of taking from them,” Gotlieb said. “Dr. Park wants all prospective doctors to go into the medical field having a love for people and the intention to perpetuate kindness, even in the simple acts of our daily routines.”

Election Day Used For Inter-school Professional Development

By Greg Huang and Vanna Mavromatis While students had the day off on Tuesday, November 3 for Election Day, teachers from Stuyvesant and three other specialized high schools met for inter-school professional development meetings. Each department within Stuyvesant took part in a distinct professional development session either within the Stuyvesant building or at another school.

Professional development aims to regularly improve the teaching and administrative strategy of both new and experienced teachers. According to the Department of Education’s website, “[Professional development is] designed to improve the quality of classroom instruction, enable individuals to grow professionally, introduce practitioners to the practical applications of research-validated strategies, and help teachers meet their license and salary differentials.”

Professional development can take multiple forms. Intra-school professional development, which is only for Stuyvesant teachers, occurs weekly, while inter-school professional development sessions are held only four times per year. Intra-school professional development often focuses on Stuyvesant-specific issues, including writing college recommendations and operating eSchoolData and Naviance.

Branching outside of Stuyvesant allowed for an opportunity for teacher networking and exchange of department-specific ideas. “[We were] able to see colleagues [outside of the school and] to make contacts for the future,” computer science teacher Peter Brooks said. “It was a [collection] of computer science teachers, [which] is unusual.”

The formats of these two professional development forms also differ.

Intra-school professional development involves staff members who know each

other personally and is more focused on teachers sharing their individual teaching experiences. Inter-school professional development, on the other hand, involves presentations by specialists, many of whom have PhDs. Inter-school professional development days are also less interactive than intra-school professional development days, according to French teacher Manuel Ramirez.

This year marked the creation of the Specialized High School Professional Development Alliance. Brooklyn Technical High School, Stuyvesant High School, the Bronx High School of Science, and Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts hosted professional development sessions for teachers and staff of all nine specialized high schools. “Teachers who work in similar schools [and] teach similar students have a lot to share [and] to offer,” Principal Jie Zhang said.

Stuyvesant hosted the health and physical education and English department sessions for the Specialized High School Professional Development Alliance, and a citywide meeting for Math Team coaches. Meanwhile, the rest of the mathematics department and a part of the computer science department met at Brooklyn Technical High School. The rest of the computer science department as well as the biology, chemistry, and physics departments met at Bronx Science. The foreign language department met at New York University, while the art and music department met at Fiorello H. LaGuardia.

Each session included speeches, activities, and teaching sessions geared toward the specific department. “This was one of the more beneficial professional developments,” athletic director and physical education teacher Christopher Galano said. “[Sessions are] not often geared toward phys ed because it’s such a special part of education [but] this one was specific to phys ed.” The physical education department held

one and a half-hour sessions on rollerblading, spinning and implementing spinning in other schools, and orienteering, and the Fitnessgram. Teachers attended three of the four cycles.

For the foreign language department, professional development lasted six hours, and consisted of presentations in the morning, followed by group discussions and reflection in the afternoon, in which teachers discussed how they planned to implement what they learned in the presentations in their own teaching. There were two presenters from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, an association that studies the Spanish Civil War and collects artifacts and oral histories in its studies. They spoke about archiving, interviewing people who remember past events, and the importance of historical events.

The teaching sessions are usually led by Stuyvesant teachers. “One thing that was particularly gratifying to me was walking from room to room […] and watching the Stuyvesant teachers lead so well,” Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman said. “Managing colleagues […] requires skill and sensitivity.”

There is also often an outside speaker at the sessions. For the English department, this was Nicole Wallack, director of the Undergraduate Writing Program at Columbia University. Wallack gave a lecture about the essay as a genre of writing. “Her specialty was the essay, which I think can sound like a dull topic,” Grossman said. “But in fact she was provocative [and] funny, and challenged us in the best possible ways.”

Math Team coaches also met and spoke at Stuyvesant. One speaker was Ashvin Jaishankar, the head coach of Stuyvesant’s Math Team, who spoke about geometry problems on math contests. Another speaker was David Hankin, a former mathematics assistant principal at Hunter who has written many Math Team problems

and often contributes to math journals. His talk was about expressions containing the roots of polynomials, and how they relate to Vieta’s theorem. “[The meeting] was a lot of fun,” mathematics teacher Debbie Goldberg said. “[We learned] other interesting ways to solve [problems].”

Some professional development sessions examined course curricula.

The technology department focused on the curriculum of the technical drawing course. They discussed techniques to teach computer drawing more effectively and to make the course more stimulating. They also reviewed the timeline of the curriculum. The goal of the department is to minimize starting time with the CAD software, which will lead to a higher learner curve.

Other sessions addressed departmental needs more generally. “[The computer science departments spoke about] the different kinds of programs, classes, [difficulty] levels, and problems,” Brooks said.

Some professional developments included hands-on activities as well.

Some biology teachers worked in the “Bio Bus,” a 1970s MTA Bus that was transformed into travelling laboratory. Biology teachers learned how to identify aquatic invertebrate organisms using genotyping and microscopy.

Sessions also aimed to align schools with updates to standardized tests. Various Advanced Placement (AP) teachers in the social studies department attended workshops at A. Philip Randolph High School to learn about changes to AP curriculums and exams.

Professional development helped the programming departments of different schools to become acquainted with school software. They took a closer look at eSchoolData, the data management and communication software that replaced Stuyvesant’s old program, Daedalus (or “Student Tools”). They also learned about

the programming software STARS, whose functionality was previously incorporated very well in Daedalus but which the programming department has had to start interacting with more since the switch to eSchoolData.

Though productive, inter-school professional development required a lot of planning. “[It required] months and months of planning,” Zhang said.

This is due to the scale of the sessions and the fact that multiple schools were involved. Workshops and speakers for department needed to be organized.

Several teachers and administrators put in effort to make the professional development sessions productive. “It was a big success in part because of the work that my teachers and I [as well as] teachers and supervisors from the other schools did preparing for it,” Grossman said. “I spent a lot of my time here during the last few weeks making sure that it went well.”

For many teachers, however, the effort is worth it, as it gave teachers new materials to bring back to their classrooms. Biology teacher Jessica Quenzer intends to use the methods she learned in the “Bio Bus” in the Stuyvesant laboratory. “I would like to use those methods to identify some organisms in my bio[logy] classes, such as [Biological] Lab Techniques or Research Bio[logy],” she said. “Recently, my [Biological] Lab Techniques class did find aquatics in their setups that weren’t supposed to be there, so we’re trying to identify what they are.”

Several Spanish teachers began teaching about the Spanish Civil War in their classes after attending the professional development session. Ramirez plans to bring some French propaganda posters from World War II to his lessons. “It was very educational, fun, and very interesting,” Ramirez said. “[I came] away feeling as if I learned something [that] I [could] take to my classroom to be an even better teacher.”

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Page 5

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The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 6

Features

Kimberlyn Cho / The Spectator

Cooking and Teaching: The Perfect Recipe

By Yvonne Chan and Raibena Raita You open your fridge and think, “What can I cook for dinner today?” You seem to have so many choices to choose from that you can’t decide what to make.

Then you think, “What if I try to combine what I have and create an entirely new blend of the different things I love?” No one can predict what the outcome might be or how well the flavors will mix together.

English teacher Mikaela Dunitz embodies this blend of two completely different things. Dunitz never planned on becoming a teacher, and though she was an English major in college, her love has always been for food and cooking.

Dunitz has been an avid food lover since she was a child. Growing up in San Francisco, her father would make eating foods feel like an adventure. He encouraged her to try the most exotic foods on the menu of every restaurant they went to. “We went out for one of our sushi dates and we had sea urchin,” Dunitz said, “It’s not that crazy exotic, [but] at the time I had never had anything like it before.” Even as she grew older,

Dunitz continued to eat strange foods. “When I studied abroad in Thailand, I ate bugs often,” she remarked. “If you cook them with butter and garlic, anything can be tasty!”

Though food has been a major part of Dunitz’s childhood, it wasn’t until early high school when she learned how to cook.

“I took this cooking lesson with a family friend one time. She just came over and we were cooking soup together,” Dunitz said. “She was just throwing stuff in, and I was like, ‘How do you know!’She [replied], ‘You just have to feel it,’ [but] I don’t know how to feel it.”

As her love for cooking grew, she entered a “pasta phase” when she loved to eat fresh pasta and make her own pasta sauces, such as romesco sauce, which is a Spanish chilli- and pepper-based sauce. When asked the difficult question of what food she would eat daily for the rest of her life, she replied with an unexpected answer—ice cream. She owns an ice cream maker and enjoys eating homemade ice cream.

However, it wasn’t until she moved to a different part of the Bay Area that Dunitz really fell in love with cooking. She met a woman who helped Dunitz sort

through all the cooking-related jobs in California. The woman helped her further improve in cooking, and that taught her to be freer and more creative with her cooking. “I needed a foundation and understanding of how things worked together in order to feel like I could be creative in the kitchen,” Dunitz said.

During this time, Dunitz also worked in the culinary field. She interned at a restaurant called Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. While Dunitz had been hired unexpectedly and with little cooking experience, she learned many important skills, such as the mundane butchering of meat to the more unusual skill of gutting squid, while working there.

“I had spent so much time cooking food with these people, we felt like a family,” she said.

Dunitz also interned at Pizzaiola, which she describes as “a spin-off of Chez Panisse.” As an intern working with no pay, Dunitz worked as the Head Chef’s assistant and learned a lot from it.

However, when she was hired as a paid employee, she was demoted. She explained, “I was washing lettuce, making pizza dough, and making pasta dough.” After a couple of months of making dough and washing lettuce, Dunitz resigned from her job at Pizzaiola. “When I wasn’t learning anymore, I thought, ‘Hmm, okay.

I got this down. What’s next?’ So I left,” Dunitz said. “And I always knew in the back of my mind I didn’t want to be a cook and climb that ladder to be a chef.”

After working at these restaurants, Dunitz taught cooking and nutrition at a non-profit organization. She went to many different locations and taught people of ages ranging from four to 74 years old. Though Dunitz loved cooking, her favorite part of the job was teaching. She didn’t like the fact that she only had six weeks to spend with her students, and realized that she wanted something more rooted. Dunitz said, “Just when I was starting to get to know their personalities and develop attachments to them, I would have to sort of say, ‘Okay, see you never!’”

This love for teaching eventually encouraged her to become an English teacher. Though cooking was a passion of hers, she had also always loved English. But it wasn’t until her college experience at Georgetown University that her perspective on the subject completely changed. Before taking English in college, she believed the subject was only

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centered around five paragraph essays and utilizing certain structures. However, creative writing opened up a whole new world for her, and sparked her interest.

Her professors also greatly influenced her love for creative writing. One of them told Dunitz, “Whatever you do, you should do something where you use both your intellect and [your] creativity.” This professor was later thrilled to hear that Dunitz had become a teacher. Even nowadays, she spends her time creative writing on the side, “You won’t find me writing a [five paragraph] essay on a Sunday. But poetry on Sunday’s a pretty good bet,” she said.

“You won’t find me writing a [five paragraph] essay on a Sunday. But poetry on Sunday’s a pretty good bet.”

—Mikaela Dunitz, English teacher It wasn’t until she moved to New York City that she started teaching. Originally, she came to the city because her boyfriend was moving, but she also came for the adventure and a fresh start. It took her a while to adjust to New York since she was used to living in a Bay Area and being surrounded by nature. Aside from that, she fell in love with the opportunities to take creative writing and poetry classes in the city.

She also believes that the people of New York are refreshingly ambitious and really respect their work.

Since Dunitz knew she wanted to try something new, she turned to teaching. But she was initially wary of becoming a teacher. “I was thinking back to my high school English teachers, and I just thought they were so smart and had read every book ever and had so many smart things to say about the books,” she said. “I think for me [that] was a daunting thing for me to

hold my adult-self up to. [I was] just doubting myself that I would be able to be a good teacher.”

It was only when she sat in on one of Stuyvesant’s English class that she realized teaching was something she definitely wanted to pursue. When she watched English teachers Emily Moore’s, Katherine Fletcher’s, and Alicia Pohan’s classes, she was amazed by all the interesting courses Stuyvesant’s English Department had to offer. “I came in and I was like, ‘whoa,’” Dunitz said about her first reactions. “I would love to take any of these classes.” She realized that Stuyvesant wasn’t like any typical high school, and a year later she became a student teacher here at Stuyvesant.

Even though comparing cooking and teaching may seem like comparing apples and bananas, Dunitz believes that there are many similarities between the two activities. “In the kitchen, things don’t always go the way you expect them to go […] in teaching, there are between 25 and 34 people who all have their individual personalities so it’s not always just gonna go like the way you planned,” she explained. In this way, cooking and teaching both require the skills of being able to adjust on the spot and change course in a moment’s notice.

Another way in which Dunitz views cooking and teaching to be related is that both activities involve thinking ahead and seeing the bigger picture. “[A] big part of teaching is anticipating what the students are gonna need… and with cooking, it’s really similar,” she said. Cooking requires the preparation of ingredients much like teaching involves anticipating what the students will require in order for them to proceed in a discussion. Being able to interweave the skills Dunitz has acquired from cooking in teaching largely helped make the transition to being a full-time teacher much smoother.

While Dunitz is in it for the long haul when it comes to teaching at Stuyvesant, she still spends much of her time being a student herself and continuously broadens her horizons outside of school by taking poetry and writing workshops. Though Dunitz’s passion for cooking has unfortunately taken a backseat to her dedication to teaching for now, she has faith that in the future she will again be able to juggle and balance the seemingly unrelated activities of cooking and teaching.

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 7

Features

By Julia Ingram and Elizabeth Lawrence

A colossal white building loomed above us as we walked down East 15th Street in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood. The building’s limestone facade was worn, and the thickly painted mint-green doors in the entranceway were typical of a public school, but its Victorian edifices and carefully carved grooves gave it a majestic aura.

We ascended a marble staircase decorated with black and brass railings to a wide foyer with entrances to the gymnasium and auditorium balcony. To our left, there was a similar staircase that rose only to the second floor of the five-story building. From the top of that stairwell, we got a bird’s-eye view of the entryway

are the desks that are now found in the Museum Room (Room 229), a classroom in the current Stuyvesant building that is modeled after typical classrooms in old Stuyvesant.

“You could just imagine that people had been sitting at that desk for decades. Going back to when Stuyvesant was an all-male school and you had to write with ink and old-style pens, it really made you appreciate the fact it was an old school with a history to it,” Beth Knobel (‘80) said.

Knobel also recalled the cornerstone of the building to the west of the entrance—inscribed with the year “1904”—as a constant reminder of the school’s age. “You were a little thought in a larger history every time you walked in,” she said.

This history was evident to

“A building just frames an experience; it’s the people who make the experience.”

—Matthew Wang, alumnus (’93)

and a torrent of students filing in as they rushed to be on time to their first period classes.

This entryway was as prominent for the first 86 generations of Stuyvesant students, who graduated from the old Stuyvesant building, as the TriBeCa Bridge and two-to-four escalator are for us. Much like every Stuyvesant student prior to 1992 did each morning, we continued down the second floor hallway, passing rows of bright blue lockers until we entered an English classroom.

However, instead of being greeted by the familiar rows of smooth, tan desktops and navyblue metal chairs, the room was filled with what English teacher Walter Gern called “bomb-shelter type desks.” The wooden desks were drilled into the floor in perfect rows, the back of each chair attached to the desk behind it. A small inkwell lied at the top of the right hand corner of each chipped and graffitied desktop, a reminder of the time of the building’s construction—1904, a time long before Muji pens were the norm for taking notes. These

alumni from the first time they crossed the threshold of the building. “When I walked up to the marble steps of Stuyvesant and I looked up at the beautiful edifice, and I walked in and saw the big staircase and the picture of Peter Stuyvesant, I was sort of overcome with this feeling of being part of history,” recounted Anastasia Broikos (‘86) of her first time in the Stuyvesant building, at an open house for accepted students.

Broikos’s story came to life once we walked into one of the inner staircases down to the basement. “The stairs were so incredibly grooved; every time I went up I thought of how many thousands of people have walked through [them],” she said. The light gray steps and cherry redpainted railing of the narrow stairwells sharply contrasted those of the entryway, but nonetheless spoke to the building’s antiquity. “Everything about the building was a constant reminder of how many had gone before you,” Broikos said.

After climbing up the worn steps of these inner staircases,

outs included stoops of buildings across the street, a local deli called Tony’s, as well as chains such as Subway and Blimpie.

The East Village was a seedy neighborhood during the ‘80s when many alumni, including Tara Allman (‘82) went to the school. Allman described the neighborhood as being “filled with drug addicts, homelessness, and filth.” Knobel also acknowledged the grittiness surrounding the school, and recalled there being riots in Tompkins Square Park. Overall, however, the neighborhood had a special place in her heart. “We didn’t really care. The whole area around the school was our playground,” she said.

It wasn’t only their playground—it was also their food court. A myriad of places around the building satisfied different food cravings. “There were a lot of different cuisines. There was a real hodge podge of Polish food and Jewish food, Chinese food.

And it was all much cheaper than Whole Foods,” Gern said.

different floors, and therefore had more space. But as a result, teachers from different departments didn’t have as much of an opportunity to bond as they had had in the old building. “People knew each other across departments more. It happens here too in different ways, but it was much more of a community of people,” Gern said.

The administrative transition to the new building took place in the Fall 1992 semester, during which the pool and TriBeCa Bridge had not yet been completed. Now that Stuyvesant was actually going to have a pool, the prank that upperclassmen played on freshman at the old building, selling them “pool passes” was changed to the current “11th floor pool” joke. Students weren’t allowed to go outside for lunch until the spring, either. Meanwhile, three other schools took the place of Stuyvesant at the old building: the High School of Health Professions and Human Services uses the basement and the first to fourth

After being immersed in a neighborhood full of delis and liveliness, the new neighborhood on Chambers Street took some getting used to. It had more open spaces and fewer places to eat, and was mainly just grass.

“It was a completely different world,” said Matthew Wang (‘93), who spent his senior year in the new building.

The atmosphere of the new building was also completely different. Stuyvesant had moved there in order to reside in a new, technologically up-to-date building, and that’s exactly what it got. The new building’s modern facade, fully working escalators, Hudson River views, and sheer size was “a breath of fresh air,” Wang said.

Light streamed through the windows, and the staircases were much airier than those of the old building, which Gern called “cage-like.” Different departments were divided up into

floors, while the Institute of Collaborative Education and P.S. M226 occupy the fifth.

The days of the ancient, large building on 345 15th Street belonging to Stuyvesant may be gone, but it continues to be the beloved, unique building it has been since 1904. The current students use the building the way Stuyvesant students did for over 50 years—learning, hanging out, and laughing. The old Stuyvesant students laid in the grass in Stuyvesant Square, furiously tried to light their Bunsen burners in the labs, and chattered in the auditorium as they made the building their own, just as current Stuyvesant students adapted the half-floor, escalators, and Ferry’s as aspects of their daily school lives. Drawing from his experience in both buildings, Wang said, “A building just frames an experience; it’s the people who make the experience.”

Julia Ingram / The Spectator

Stuyvesant abandoned its Old Building in Gramercy Park in 1992. Its 111-year-old facade was adapted to the High School of Health Professions & Human Services, which occupies four of the building’s five floors.

designated either “up” or “down” to control student traffic, we reached classrooms and laboratories. It was here that we saw that the lived-in quality of the building was not always a good thing. The labs, which had been equipped with partially functional Bunsen burners and rudimentary microscopes, were one of the clearest indicators that an upgrade was needed. “We didn’t even have electricity for the microscopes. We just used ambient light to light our specimens,” biology teacher Marianna Reep said.

On top of that, the building had accumulated filth over the years. “I wished it had been clean, which it was not,” Kate Dominus (‘89) said. She recalled an incident during her sophomore year in which she discovered a large cockroach on a staircase. This stairwell, located on the 16th Street side of the building, was a secluded area, and as Dominus described, “an absolutely fabulous place to avoid someone looking for you—or to make out with a boyfriend.”

This stairwell led to the auditorium’s stage in the basement, where we could see an array of wooden chairs, tall columns, and black railways that matched the architectural style of the entrance. While most of the seating was found on the same level as the stage, most of the activity happened on the first-floor balcony. With ample open space behind the last row of chairs and sets of lockers, the balcony of the old building was analogous to the half-floor of the new building. “If you had a free [period], you would come to the balcony,” Dominus said. “You hung with your various cliques in [there], and there was a lot of clique intermingling.”

Exiting the balcony and entering the adjacent door led us into a similar balcony-like structure overlooking the gym. However, this “balcony” was intended for use as a running track for physical education warm-ups, despite its occasional columns, which were before the track’s construction. “If you weren’t careful, you would go careening into a column. They had some padding on them, but it wasn’t a good atmosphere for running laps,” Knobel said.

“That track—it was just bizarre,” Gern agreed.

When we left the gym and walked through the basement hallway, passing the former Student Union, ARISTA, and Spectator offices, we walked up the steps to the lobby we had entered from, ascending yet another marble staircase with brass railings. However, the end of the railing seemed to have been cut off, leaving an opened brass tube. When we looked at the railing on the other side of the basement staircase, we noticed a familiar coiled banister ending.

The other one is present within a Mnemonics cube: cubes in the school that showcase articles of Stuyvesant’s past. This cube is located on the second floor of the current Stuyvesant building.

Once we were outside the building and walking through the surrounding neighborhood, we passed the park, called “Stuyvesant Square,” nearby. Stuyvesant students passed many hours there. “The park was our second home. We’re out in the park and the sun is shining, and we would lay around making fools of ourselves, hopping over fences and watching people play hacky sack,” Broikos said. Other hang-

Julia Ingram / The Spectator

Julia Ingram / The Spectator

345 15th Street: A Tour of the Old Stuyvesant

The Old Stuyvesant Building’s auditorium balcony was a popular spot for students to hang out during their lunch or free periods.

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 8

Features What is the One Day You Are Most Grateful For?

By The Features Department

Sunny Chen / The Spectator

Megan Weller, English “The day that I met my husband.”

Jessica Quenzer, Biology

“Well, my wedding day springs to mind: October 18, 2015.

Also, the day I was born... I’m pretty thankful for that!”

“December 23: the anniversary of when I adopted my dog, Pogacs. I call it ‘The Puliversary,’ because she is a Puli, which is a Hungarian sheepdog. She’s a rescue from North Shore Animal League, and she was treated very badly by her previous owner. She was so weak that she couldn’t walk. She was starved, didn’t have much hair, and was scared of people (except for me, because dogs love me).

She went from a dog that couldn’t walk to a little, bouncy, happy dog. I am so grateful to have her. She brings so much joy to my life; it’s ridiculous.”

David Mandler, English

Maura Dwyer, English

Zachary Berman, History “The day I’m most grateful for? I think the day I got married.”

Joseph Stern, Mathematics

“I’m most grateful for the days on which my daughter, Rachel, and my son, Benny, were born, for giving me the most amazing gifts life has to offer. I am most thankful for Shabbat, the day of rest most of you know as Saturday, for giving me the inexhaustible treasure of spiritual reloading and meaningful breaks from ‘the world’ that is ‘too much with us’ as William Wordsworth put it. These are the days that make me realize how wonderful life really is.”

Victor Greez, History “On March 23, 2009, my boy-girl twins were born. It was an at-risk pregnancy, so we went for a sonogram every week.

I felt like I knew my kids even before they were born. We decided to schedule the birth because the chances of having both kids in the right position was unlikely. I was never more nervous in my entire life. My daughter was born first and was declared healthy by the doctors. I could hear her cry. It took two minutes and thirty seconds till my son was born. He was playing in the womb and wrapped the umbilical cord around his neck. The doctor told my wife, ‘This is going to feel like a herd of elephants,’ as she untangled my son. Seconds later he was out; he was screaming. I started to breathe again. I was so, so grateful. I have had a world of experiences, but nothing comes close to that moment.”

Kristyn Pluchino, Chemistry “I am most grateful for the day my younger sister was born. She is now one of my closest friends, and I can’t picture my life without her.”

Reuben Stern, History “I am most grateful for my family and their good health, but I am also thankful for every single day.”

Samuel Konstantinovich, Computer Science “I am thankful for the supportive family and friends that I have. I wouldn’t be anywhere without them.”

Alicia Pohan, English “When I was around 23, I was staying at my mom’s house recovering from an illness. One day, my mom—in an attempt to lift my spirits—came home with the sweetest little kitten. To say that it lifted my spirits would be an understatement. I named her Paloma, and she has been with me ever since, making me smile and reminding me of the joy my mother always brought to others.”

“This summer I went on a hiking trip in Portugal with my dad and younger sister on a popular trail called the Camino de Santiago. It was equal parts beautiful and challenging, and gave me lots of time to catch up with my family. I am especially grateful for what awaited us at the end of our longest hiking day (26 miles up and down mountains): a Portuguese couple (fluent in about five different languages!) [opened] up their farmstead home in a gorgeous pastoral valley to travelers on the trail and [provided] them with a delicious homemade meal and a comfortable place to sleep—plus guaranteed great company.

It felt like an oasis after our long trek, and their generosity and the other travelers that I met at their home will stay with me for a long time; it was a great reminder of how much goodness is out there.”

Svetlana Firdman, History “The day in my life that I was most grateful for was when I was in Prague. I was standing on top of the military fortress tower, absorbing the history and culture of the city. It was my first year working, and I felt an immense gratitude for my job, education, chance to travel, and family.”

Brian Sterr, Mathematics “It was the day I agreed to my assignment to be sent to Tanzania with the Peace Corps. The three years I spent in Tanzania ended up having more impact on my life than I ever would have imagined. The experience also greatly influenced my perspective on the world. It was also in Tanzania that I found I enjoyed teaching and working with students. I continue to stay abreast of education news in Tanzania and to provide support through a nonprofit I helped to found.”

Josina Dunkel, History “It is hard to say one thing that has me grateful. As a history teacher, we realize that many things have added to who we are today. But, I will say the day I learned how to read.

What would the world be like without the written word?”

Anthony Valentin, History “It’s hard to isolate just one day I’m grateful for. But I can tell you one of them. One of the most grateful days of my life was when I received the paper from my graduate school that said I had finished all my classes. I was so grateful because it had been such a hassle. I was taking night classes because I was teaching in the morning. Seeing the paper listing all my credits and completed courses gave me such relief, and I was really grateful that day.”

Eric Grossman, Assistant Principal of English “I’m not going to do most grateful because there isn’t one day that I’m most grateful for. There’s lots of days that I’m grateful for. In fact, I’m grateful every day that I get to come into Stuyvesant and do this job. That, in some way, makes it hard to isolate one because there isn’t, you know, ‘Oh, this was the best day.’

“I guess, given that, one day I’m grateful for is a day before I came here when I visited my family in Philadelphia and was coming back on the train. I took New Jersey transit back, which is a longer ride. I think I got on at Philly, and went to Newark or Trenton, and had to switch, and the thing of it is, I had some time, and I was in Teacher’s College at the time, assigned to write a paper for my American Lit class on Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener,” and at the time, I was student-teaching in East Harlem, at a school called Central Park East. It was the fall of 1995, and my teacher in American Lit was a guy named Dr. Shapiro, and so anyway, I was on the train, I had my computer with me, and over the course of the ride, I bashed out this paper on Bartleby. Maybe something about the motion, even as I was writing it, I was like, ‘That’s actually a pretty good paper.’ Dr. Shapiro liked the paper, and as a result of it, asked me to student-teach at Stuyvesant. In some way, I’m grateful for that day because having those few uninterrupted hours to compose a decent paper, which, like at the time, you never know what your work’s going to do.

You do your stuff, and you never know what’s going to be important, and what isn’t. As it turned out, that paper determined the course of my adult life.

“So I guess if I’m going to choose one day, I’ll choose that one because that implies all the other days.”

Martina Madden, History “The day last summer I did a demo-lesson for Stuyvesant High School. Was nervous (and excited), but once we got going, it just became me and the students and the ideas I wanted to discuss... and the rest is history. I am so grateful to have been given that chance, and I’m truly thankful every day that I come to work here.”

Rosa Mazzurco, English Pasqua Rocchio, World Languages “I am grateful for the day when I won a gold award reciting poetry in eighth grade. The judges did not want to give me first place because the previous year’s award went to a girl in my school and they wanted to give other schools a chance. However, one judge fought for me and I was proud of that judge for standing up for me.”

“I am thankful to be able to look at some of the nicest students in New York City.”

Ray Wheeler, Music “It isn’t today.”

Gregor Winkel, Music “It wasn’t yesterday.”

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 9

Features Making Music the Classical Way As you wait in the left wing of the music hall, your palms begin to sweat and your nerves tingle.

You enter the stage when you hear your name, and you bow at the large audience as you make your way to the grand piano.

Before you know it, your fingers are dancing over the black and white keys, and your hands seem to have a mind of their own. The deep, rich tone of the piano fills the hall, leaving everyone breathless. The butterflies you had suddenly disappear, and the stage is yours.

Lincoln Center’s Piano Man For some, being able to perform at Lincoln Center seems like a mere dream. For sophomore Bhavesh Shah, however, this became a reality when he was just nine years old. Shah started playing in 2006, when his parents introduced him to the instrument and encouraged him to try it out.

instead, it is his musical interpretation that has paved the way towards his success. “Accuracy is a basic foundation in piano, but it’s musical expression and interpretation that distinguishes pianists from each other,” Shah explained.

Ultimately, Shah recognizes that although playing the piano can be frustrating at times, it has given him skills that can be applied anywhere. Playing the piano for nine years has taught him how to be patient and confident in front of others. “The songs that I have been playing are extremely long and difficult, so it takes me two to three months to perfect and memorize the piece. By taking the time to perfect a piece, I learn how to be patient and composed,” Shah explained.

Even though Shah enjoys spending time playing the piano, he does not think he will be a professional pianist. Instead, he hopes to continue participating in recitals, concerts, and competitions during his free time.

“At first, it’s time consuming since you have to learn how to position your fingers and sight read, but it’s all worth it in the end.”

—Daniel Monteagudo, junior

“Although my parents made me try playing the piano, it didn’t take long for me to realize how much I enjoyed it,” Shah said.

He began attending Musipire, a musical school in Flushing, to spend time learning and practicing various pieces. When Shah was nine, Musipire reserved a day when some of its best pianists could perform at Lincoln Center. “At that time, I was practicing Sonatina in C Major [opus 36, no.

1] by Clementi. I really wanted to perform at Lincoln Center, so my parents talked to the teachers at Musipire to arrange something,” Shah said.

Performing at Lincoln Center was surreal for Shah. “Seeing the crowd applaud for me was unbelievable. I could see just how proud my parents were when they were clapping along with the audience,” he said. To him, this performance was more memorable than his other performances, which include playing the piano for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and the New York State School Music Association (NYSSMA) solo tests. “It still amazes me how I was given the opportunity to play at Lincoln Center at such a young age,” Shah said.

A variety of factors enabled him to perform at Lincoln Center, including scoring high on both the ABRSM and NYSSMA solo tests. To Shah, it is much more than musical accuracy that has led to his accomplishments;

A Pop Sensation Piano and classical music often go hand in hand. In fact, it’s standard for most pianists, both beginners and experienced players, to play this genre of music.

However, for junior Daniel Monteagudo, it’s pop songs such as Bastille’s “Pompeii” that appeal to him.

When Monteagudo began playing the piano at the age of five, he played basic classical pieces that involved simple melodies and chords. After playing for several years, he became bored and frustrated with the difficulty of the classical pieces. “Classical music is usually ridiculously complicated, and has predictable melodies. There’s definitely some really nice classical music out there, but learning it is such a pain,” Monteagudo said.

For instance, when he was assigned a three movement Sonata piece by his former piano teacher, Monteagudo didn’t practice that frequently, as he wasn’t particularly passionate about the music.

He decided to switch it up and begin playing modern pop songs.

Some of Monteagudo’s favorite pop songs are “Pompeii” by the British band Bastille, “Marching On” by One Republic, and “Daylight” by Maroon 5. He learned how to play these songs primarily by ear, as well as looking up some chords online. Unlike classical works, the pop pieces that Monteagudo learned how to play were generally simpler, in terms of technicality and accuracy.

In addition to playing pop songs, Monteagudo has composed his own pieces by adding some flare to well known classical works. He performed his first rearranged piece, Canon in D by Pachelbel, at a student recital in the Jewish Community Center of Staten Island (JCC) just last year.

Originally, Canon in D was a work meant for orchestras and ensembles, not solely for the piano. By listening to the piece and deciding how to play it on the instrument, Monteagudo was able to prepare Canon in D in time for the student recital. It was the first time his teacher let him perform a work of his own. “Right after I performed, a man in the audience came up to me and offered me a job of playing the piano at a church,” Monteagudo said. “I was really elated and honored that he liked my version of Canon in D.” Whether playing Canon in D or a Maroon 5 medley, Monteagudo recognizes that playing the piano has allowed him to enhance his musicality. “Playing the piano is great for expanding your general knowledge of music.

At first, it’s time consuming since you have to learn how to position your fingers and sight read, but it’s all worth it in the end,” Monteagudo said. In the future, he is certain that he will continue to play the piano, but has decided not to take a professional route.

Drawing Inspirations from Community As the co-president of the Stuyvesant Piano Club, sophomore Oscar Wang has dedicated much of his time to playing the piano. Wang began studying music when he was eight years old, after being encouraged to do so by his mom. “My mom was a pianist and she wanted to teach me it, because

she felt it was better to be well rounded rather than to just be focused on school work,” Wang said.

Initially, he struggled with playing the piano, since he enjoyed doing other things in his spare time. “I always thought I had better things to do like hang out with friends, or play games.

When I finished a piece, I would always rush upstairs to do homework, because even that was better than playing the piano,” Wang said.

[Even] if you bang on the keys of a piano, you can still make beautiful music out of it,” Wang said.

Though Wang has had to make some sacrifices, playing the piano has granted him with unforgettable experiences. During the summer of seventh grade, he was given the opportunity from LX music school to perform at DiMenna Center in Manhattan.

“I played Clair de Lune, a gentle, romantic piece by Debussy in a large, open hall. It was one of my first performances in a legitimate

“Accuracy is a basic foundation in piano, but it’s musical expression and interpretation that distinguishes pianists from each other.”

—Bhavesh Shah, sophomore

However, upon entering Stuyvesant, he felt motivated to practice the instrument, and he began to enjoy it. “I was inspired by Stuy’s own community of talented pianists to continue playing the piano,” Wang said.

Though he had finally found the motivation to play the piano, balancing schoolwork with practice became a conflict. He found himself not being able to play daily, in order to finish his school assignments in a timely manner.

During the days Wang was able to make time for it, however, he was able to take his mind off of the stress from school. “By making time to play the piano, you can release all of the stress and tension [that has] been stored up.

music hall, and it felt unreal,” Wang said. “At that moment, I knew that my work had finally paid off, and there were many more experiences to come.”

In addition to performing at DiMenna Center, Wang has made memories as the co-president of the Stuyvesant Piano Club.

“Just last week, I was watching a newcomer play, and after she performed the piece, another member came up to her and commented on her outstanding performance,” Wang said. “It felt so encouraging to see the piano community working together and helping each other out.”

In addition, as co-president, he has been able to motivate the members to continue.

Melanie Chow/ The Spectator

By GEENA JUNG

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 10

Features Stuyvesant Investment Club: The World of Little Fish

By Kamila Radjabova Walking into the first meeting of the Stuyvesant Investment Club, you see a big fish and a little fish drawn on the blackboard. In front of these fish, a big crumble of food is placed. The big fish represents the banks, institutions, and big moneymakers, and the small fish represents you. You are practically nothing in the stock market. Your job is to follow the wave, to pick up what is left behind, and to hope that you don’t get crushed.

“I thought that, after a while, [the fish anecdote] was just so true. It’s not really your place to start off with a thousand dollars and make a million dollars in a month. You have to be patient and work hard to make money in the stock market,” junior and president Alex Serbanescu said. “[The stock market is] not gambling; it takes a lot of time, a lot of skill, and a lot of intuition. A basic understand[ing] of human psychology, economy, and geopolitics [is needed in order] to realize what is going on.”

Serbanescu’s interest in the stock market was sparked by the movie “Wall Street Money Never Sleeps 2.” Since then, Serbanescu has been researching stocks and following their trends. He started trading once he entered Stuyvesant. “There are lots of ups and downs in trading stocks. Even the most successful investor has his bad days. Generally speaking [trading stocks] has been good.

You gather more intuition [and you] gather more knowledge as the time passes, so it’s really useful,” Serbanescu said. “There are these times where you feel like the whole thing is rigged against you, and you know that’s not true.

So the more something is pushed down on you, the more you keep growing. I had quite a few losses and that instilled doubt in me.

But I just kept pushing forward.”

In order to help other students navigate the confusing world of stocks, the Stuyvesant Investment Club was created to teach students about the stock market and trading. “We teach everything from the basics of investing and trading,” Serbanescu said.

The basics of the stock market is learning about shares and being a “shareholder.” When a company’s profits go up, your “share” in these profits increases, but when they lose money, you also have a chance of losing money.

The members of the club also learn about ways to control their trades and make strategic choices

when buying a stock. “The general meetings now [consist of] trading on the stock market using a simulator. Because the market closes at 4:00 p.m. we do have 20 minutes of absolute trading time.

After that, we like to go around and analyze our trades and give them advice. Other days we are just teaching lessons,” junior and vice president Warren Su said.

However, the first few lecturebased meetings turned into an environment where club members discussed approaches regarding a new stock. “I feel like the community is finally starting to grow as the weeks [progress]; there are more and more jokes and a lot more laughter and less of us teaching. It’s more [of] ev-

was so devastated with my losses.

I lost about half my account four months after I started trading. At that point I felt like giving up,” Su said. However, Su believes that the stock market has given him more than just an experience of making money. “The most important thing [is] the experience and lessons I’ve attained from my failures that would make me stronger in the future,” Su said.

Though the Investment Club has had the resource of a number of experienced leaders in previous years, the number of club members changes significantly from year to year. “Last year, the club was a quasi-club. It didn’t necessarily exist,” Serbanescu said.

the members a resource of our knowledge to help them learn faster and get over that learning curve that took [the board members] one year to get over.”

There are currently 18 teams, and the top three teams will be awarded money. “People really get interested if there’s money involved. That’s one thing that you really see. If they start making money for themselves, we encourage that, but [the money awarded is an] incentive,” Serbanescu said.

However, regardless of the progress that they made at Stuyvesant, Serbanescu and Su’s goals are to expand the club’s influence onto other schools. “This is the first of its kind in New York

“Discipline is key, and that’s what we try to teach in our club. Discipline is what makes a trader good at what they do. You can only get so far by being smart. You can only start to make money consistently if you learn from experiences and skills.

But of course, losing money is part of the way the market works.” —Warren Su, junior and vice president of the Stuyvesant Investment Club

eryone interacting together rather than us just lecturing them,” junior Frederick Sidorkin said.

To help facilitate this learning environment, members of the board offer various resources to members of the club. “The biggest resource that’s intangible is our experience and our knowledge as leaders of the club. Each leader has experience [with] simulations or trading with real money in the stock market,” Su explained.

Both Su and Serbanescu have previously traded in the actual stock market. “I started trading a year and three months ago.

I trade with real money, in the thousands category and I trade on a day-to-day basis,” Su said.

He trades with penny stocks, which are the riskiest stocks in the market. “There was a period of time, during my first year of trading, I stopped trading completely for four months because I

This year, the club has grown significantly. “The club has grown in many aspects. [The] first aspect is our increase in member size.

We had about 200 people register for our club and every meeting has at least 20 to 30 people. The second aspect is engaging our members more into the market,” Su said.

To further engage the members of the club, the club’s board came up with the idea of a competition using thinkorswim, a simulation that trades fake money; it will help encourage the members to begin trading and using the skills that they have learned during club lessons. “When I first started [trading], I didn’t have the luxury to learn based off [of] lectures and to have people teach me. I had to learn by experience and what the market gave me,” Su said. “My inspiration for the competition was to replicate [that experience], but also give

City public schools, so definitely the goal would be to reach out [to other schools],” Serbanescu said.

“We want to create a network of schools across the city that trade.”

The club is also looking to expand within Stuyvesant. “I want us to have a print publication and I want us to be able to show something to anybody who wants in on [the club],” Serbanescu said. The print publication will cover articles about stocks and the recent trends. Hopefully, they will accomplish their goals with the help of the Bloomberg Business, who they have contacted over e-mail. “We have interest from Bloomberg Business and we look forward to [hopefully] working with them,” Su said.

Throughout his few years of trading in the stock market, Serbanescu feels that his experience has also helped him develop as a person. “In terms of personality,

I am a lot more on my feet. [The stock market] has taught me to never take anything for granted.

You [gain] intuition through information coming at you [with] lightning speed, and it’s your job to sort it out in the stock market.

You’re playing something and you have to be constantly thinking about your next move,” Serbanescu said. “You have to put a lot of trust into the system and jump in.”

Similar to Serbanescu, other members enjoy trading stocks and have gained intuition through their experiences. “I joined the investment club because I wanted to help other young traders in Stuy and I also wanted to learn,” Sidorkin said. Over time, the stock market has taught Sidorkin qualities that could be applicable to real life. “[The stock market] taught me to analyze the whole picture and not only focus in on certain events. To be able to be successful you have to look at everything and you have to have an open mind and be able to accept anything that is about to happen.”

Sophomore Kevin Boodram joined the club in hopes of helping people. “I always loved money, just being around money, counting it, [and] holding it made me happy. People always said that money can’t buy happiness but for me money was happiness,” Boodram said in an e-mail interview. “I couldn’t really understand [the reason] for a long time, but I think it is because of what money represents, not the tangible green bills […] Money is the potential to make the world a better place with [greater] efficiency than any government.”

Ultimately, to be a good trader in the stock market, one needs discipline. “Discipline is key, and that’s what we try to teach in our club. Discipline is what makes a trader good at what they do.

You can only get so far by being smart,” Su said. “You can only start to make money consistently if you learn from experiences and skills. But of course, losing money is part of the way the market works.”

Though the stock market is at times unstable, the Stuyvesant Investment Club creates an environment where its members can feel comfortable and understand the market’s concepts. As a team, they work to combat against the unpredicted movements of the market and rely on their intuition to make smart decisions about their next trade.

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The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 11

Features Roving Reporter: Stuyvesant Reacts to the Paris Attacks

By DANIELLE EISENMAN with additional reporting by Johnathan Rafailov The terrorist attacks that took place on November 13 mean different things to different people. For some, what happened hit close to home. For others, the situation feels far away. Needless to say, at Stuyvesant, there is a variety of perspectives on the attacks, as well as what we, both as a country and a community, should do as we move forward.

“We should say ‘Daesh’ instead of ‘ISIS.’ ‘Daesh’ is the Arabic way of saying it, and it’s kind of offensive to them, because it’s a word that takes away what they think they stand for: their ‘Islamic sense.’ But they aren’t Muslims. They’re extremists. By calling them ‘Daesh,’ you emasculate them. They don’t have an identity anymore, and that’s the first step to beating them. ” –Ahmad Alnasser, junior “I think that the attacks in themselves were terrible. The loss of life was pretty awful. But the way [these attacks] will be used as an excuse for way too many government overreaches [...] is obviously bad. More Syrian refugees are going to get turned away, and where are they going to go, except to ISIS? [The situation] is going to make people more Islamophobic.”

–Walker Walden, sophomore “I don’t feel any particular way as a Muslim woman [about the attacks]. I feel a particular way as a person, because my religion has nothing to do with this, and I don’t associate it at all with terrorism. There shouldn’t be a link. Obviously, I think what happened was horrible and very upsetting. But, we should also look to the other attacks that have happened. No one’s really discussed what’s happening in Syria, or what happened in Beirut.

But when something like this happens in Paris, that’s bad. I think all the situations are bad, and we can’t weigh one above the other, because only focusing on one place creates more problems in the others. We need to equally distribute our solutions instead of further instigating problems.”

–Yassmin Elbana, junior “I was watching the [France-Germany soccer] game on the [November 13], and, 20 minutes into the game, there was this large crash, and I didn’t know it was a bombing, so I kept watching the game. It sounded really clear, but I didn’t know what it was, so I was just like, ‘Damn, the Germans are really supportive of their team,’ because I thought it was a noisemaker or something. But, then, there was a second explosion, and that sounded fishy, so I [Googled] it and saw that it was a bombing. And then I watched the news and they talked about the attacks and I was like, ‘Okay.’”

–Hyun Choi, freshman “The Syrian refugees are like any other group of refugees, but, unfortunately, they’re coming from an area of the world that is filled with terrorism. So, I think they should be checked more closely before we let them in. We shouldn’t let them in right away, but that becomes a little problematic, because, like, where do you put them, right? I don’t have a solution for that, but I don’t think we should bring them in as if they were any other refugee group.”

–Daniel Yassky, junior

“I was in Paris last April, and I wonder if, in the long run, [Parisians] are going to become more exclusionary and suspicious. And that makes me really sad, because France was always this model [of acceptance regardless of race]. I hope it’s going to last—I’m not trying to be Mr. Negative—but I don’t know. It’s interesting, because France is not a particularly religious place, [...] but there is a religion, and it’s secularism. I don’t know if Islam has a place in France, and there’s definitely tension. The French jealously guard their denomination, so the idea of having conservative Islam feels more incongruous there to a certain extent than in it does here in the U.S., because we already have a conservative Christian tradition.”

–David Hanna, history teacher “I believe you can say whatever you want, as long as you don’t come near me and try to punch me in the face. [...] But, it’s not fair for an individual person to be grouped with other people who have done imperfect things. That’s not exactly freedom. But, racism is something happens, and you have to deal with it. You have to realize that there’s nothing you can do to change other people, and you have to just let what they say wash over you.”

–Jeremy Panicker, freshman “As a French person, seeing these acts of terrorism on Paris deeply saddens me. For me, Paris is a place of happy memories, and to imagine that anyone would ever intentionally injure and kill so many innocent people is unfathomable. The aftermath has been bittersweet. Reading post after post of family members and friends asking if anyone had seen their loved ones was truly heartbreaking. The morning after, Parisians gathered together laying flowers and candles where many of the attacks had occurred, showing how resilient the city and its people are. I think it is too easy to turn and point the blame on the refugee crisis. Yes, there are problems with that, but to turn our backs on the people who are running away from the things that we fear and that we are against is unprincipled. We need to find a better medium, and in the meantime we cannot give into fear.”

–Chloé Delfau, junior “As it turns out, my father had an academic colleague who has an apartment in Paris and we did a little apartment swap. He got our apartment in New York and we got his apartment in Paris for a month. It turns out that apartment we stayed at was about a block and a half from the nightclub [place of the shootings]. The friends that we met in Paris were in the stadium—a mother and her two children—and they heard the suicide bombing blasts from inside. Now, they’re all safe and okay, but they know a lot of people that the same cannot be said for. [...] This is kinda the sad part, but I think there’s a racist aspect to [the greater reaction to the Paris attacks over the Beirut, Lebanon bombings]: a religious discrimination aspect to it. The people in Lebanon are not Western, not European, and if the Paris attacks had not happened, we would not have had the same solidarity for Lebanon. It’s probably because a fair number of people in America are bigoted towards Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent. I think bombing ISIS is only so effective.

In Vietnam, we bombed Vietcong to the ground, literally, and we did it for a long time— and we lost. There, we even had ground troops. Any action has to be led by the Arab states: Saudi Arabia and the rich, oil-producing countries such as Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain. Historically speaking, getting involved in another ground war not only [turns] out poorly for us, but we create more terrorists.”

–Rodda John, junior Read more student opinions about the Paris attacks on page 15.

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The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 12

Editorials Staff Editorial

The Spectator

Becoming Aware of Terror Paris, November 13, 9:20 p.m.: a suicide bomber set off an explosive belt outside Gate D of the Stade de France—inside, President François Hollande sat among an excited crowd watching a football match between France and Germany.

He was soon ushered out of the stadium and given the chilling news: over the course of 33 minutes, similar acts of terror had transpired all across the city. The story spread like wildfire, and people all over the world reacted with horror as they glimpsed the headlines.

The spectators inside, however, remained blissfully unaware — the stadium lacked cell service.

The attacks in Paris have not only affected the lives of French and Lebanese citizens, but also those of Syrian refugees coming to Europe to escape Daesh (a term for ISIS, free of explicit association with Islam). Because one of the Paris attackers posed as a Syrian refugee, and because all of the Paris attackers were Muslim, current and prospective migrants will undoubtedly bear the brunt of a renewal of the xenophobia that already exists in force in France.

The fallacious association between Muslims and extremism is now stronger than it was in the wake of 9/11 and the Charlie Hebdo shootings.

We belong to a generation that, over the past decade, has been strongly influenced by the effects of terrorism.

Many students witnessed the impact of this event only through the media, but, in reality, the attacks are much more relevant to our community than many realize. As New Yorkers, and as Stuyvesant students, the Paris attacks serve as a painful reminder that we belong to a generation that, over the past decade, has been strongly influenced by the effects of terrorism.

While the events in Paris were not as cataclysmic as those in New York City on September 11, both were calculated attempts to kill innocents.

Both attacks were carried out by terrorist organizations in an effort to incite anger and fear in the people that they affected.

In addition, in the wake of both attacks, the Western world responded with a swell of sympathy for the victims and a torrent of rage toward the organizations that claimed responsibility.

While this sympathy is meaningful and important, as the attacks in Paris echo our own past, it is imperative that we remember to act and speak with reservation and thought. After the attacks on the Twin Towers, many Americans’ responses towards Muslims on both an individual and a political level were hostile.

Years later, we have to remember to be more measured in our approach to tackling terrorism. We cannot allow ourselves to remain relatively ignorant of any aspects of these events under the pretense that the ocean between us and them imposes any figurative distance. Fourteen years ago, our city was the one holding candlelight vigils for the dead.

At the same time, we cannot senselessly lash out at or ignore marginalized groups because it is easier to stay naive.

Recently, in places like England and the United States, Muslims have been facing increased violence and hostility.

Given Stuyvesant’s large Muslim population—and the fact that most of our Muslim students come from recently immigrated families—

from one of self-interest—we need to start talking about terrorism. As young adults, as members of the global community, we need to be more aware of and become more informed about the tumultuous political climate in the Middle East and the rest of the world.

Furthermore, as students at a school predominantly composed of first- and secondgeneration immigrants, in a country built entirely on immigration, we have a duty to be informed and aware of the Syrian refugee crisis and the implications of Daesh attacks on these migrants’ well-being.

We are students, not politicians or diplomats, to be sure, but part of adulthood—which is, after all, what education is supposed to prepare us for—is being conscious of global affairs and current events. We’re made of the same stuff, we breathe the same air, drink the same water; we have an obligation to care about what is happening to each other.

When something like Paris happens, a large majority of our school remains uninterested; a smaller, but substantial, population speaks with authority on matters of identity and foreign policy and national security without being well-informed.

But consciousness, worldliness, an appreciation for matters of public interest—these are as (if not more) important for functioning in society as calculus or strong prose writing.

And yet, the classes at school that should be keeping us informed (history and, to a lesser degree, English) do far too little.

Stuyvesant seems to exist as a planet unto itself, a safe bubble constructed around exams

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We are students, not politicians or diplomats, to be sure, but part of adulthood—which is, after all, what education is supposed to prepare us for—is being conscious of global affairs and current events.

this issue hits close to home.

While the threat of Daesh has created fear among citizens of the Western world, it is also important to note that the Muslim immigrants and refugees of our community are just as afraid of terrorists as everyone else, and do not deserve to be scapegoated for a situation in which they have no involvement.

In the wake of terrorist attacks perpetrated by religious fundamentalist groups like Daesh it has become clear that their pervasive threat can no longer be ignored. If not from a purely humanitarian point of view, then at least

and homework and tests, while outside, the real world keeps turning. As we grow older, and the world seems to grow more depraved, this approach seems less and less sustainable.

Next time something disastrous happens—some major political development around the world or within the country—it might be wise to take a break from the curriculum, to set down our notes and take a look outside: something big is happening.

We should be there to watch.

S ta f f

e d

b r ie f ing

At least 130 civilians were killed in a series of terrorist attacks on Paris, France on Friday, November 13. Three coordinated teams from the Islamic State were said to be responsible for the attacks.

French President François Hollande reacted by declaring France in a state of national emergency. “It is an act of war that was prepared, organized and planned from Would like to share narrative abroad, withyou complicity froma personal the inside, which with the inthe school? it’s an essay you’vesaid written vestigation will Whether help establish,” Hollande in for a Sator a piece14 you’ve been working on by yourself, urday,class, November address from the Élysée Palace.

Hollande referringand to Daesh, the self-proclaimed if it’s in was first-person it is nonfiction it could getNew Caliphate rulinginover in issue-ly northernVoices and eastern published Theterritory Spectator’s column!Syria and northern Iraq.stories Daesh into began in 2003 as an affiliate or of alSend your voices@stuyspec.com, Qaeda,email fighting against in Iraq.

Daesh later us with anyAmerica questions or concerns you developed have. its own agenda of imposing harsh Islamic Law on Middle Eastern territories, and al-Qauda cut ties with the group in 2014.

Daeseh’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, then proclaimed himself “a leader for Muslims everywhere,” though most of the Islamic world disagreed with the idea. The group had begun its rule in Raqqa, a city in north-central Syria, in 2013. By 2014, the Jihadist group’s extremist movement was under way; Shariah courts and schools had been instituted within the city, F o had r begun t he Rec o rbydpublically and authorities to eradicate opposers executing them.

Ever since, the group has captured, tortured, • CORRECTION 1 or• executed at least 23 Western hostages from 12 countries.

CORRECTION 2 terrorism is known for its global reach. A Daesh • Daeseh’s ETC. group in Cairo, Egypt took responsibility for the explosion that caused the early November crash of a Russian passenger jet, killing 224. On Thursday, November 12, bombing by a Daesh group in Beirut, Lebanon killed at least 43. The following day, Daesh launched the attacks on Paris—eliciting renewed attention to their cause and widespread sympathy for victims.

VOICES

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 13

Opinions

Jensen Foerster / The Spectator

Student Action, Not Student Factions

By Lucas Weiner

Recently, seniors Krzysztof Hochlewicz and Ryan Boodram and sophomore Kevin Boodram have taken student politics into their own hands. The three students, disillusioned with what they viewed as the Student Union’s inability to effect meaningful policy

change, posted a petition on Facebook in an effort to rally support for allowing sophomores outside during their free periods. This policy was implemented shortly after the petition was presented to the administration. Hochlewicz justified releasing the petition, which was created without the approval of Student Union (SU) President Ares Aung and his cabinet, saying that “the SU and [his] group both have the same goal of helping students.”

Though the policy change that this petition contributed is generally good for Stuyvesant Students, the circumstances under which this policy came about reveal a new and negative undertone developing in Stuyvesant’s student politics.

We have a budding party system: on one side stands our SU, the government of our student body, which has formal elections under the Board of Elections, a Constitution, and a host of infrastructure to help it aid the student body. On the other side, we have a small but growing group of student activists who argue for more decisive issues, led by Hochlewicz, Ryan Boodram and Kevin Boodram.

This division among those who claim to work in the best interest of the student body is ultimately detrimental to the school as a whole.

There are two main issues with this form of politics. The first is the legitimacy of our own SU. We have a very powerful SU — it is capable of distributing large sums of money and has lobbying power with the administration.

This Student Union is elected in alignment with the principles of representative democracy, and has the power to represent the student body to the administration. It is important that we remember the job of our government, and that it can be used effectively.

By encouraging a direct line of communication between administrators and outspoken students, we do away with advantages of having a representative student government that does its best to lobby on our behalf. We should not clutter the administration with the complaints of individuals; rather, we should focus on unifying our petitions.

The second, more concerning, problem is that these un-

elected representatives often express their interpretation of the will of the entire student body.

This, beyond being undemocratic, can have very negative effects on our ability to effect change.

The primary force behind political movements at Stuyvesant is respect between the administration and student organizations.

Yet when one person, or even a small group of people, approaches the administration, we risk undermining that respect and legitimacy. The members of the SU have been chosen to speak for us, and the student body is confident in their ability to do so. However, we cannot simply trust unelected representatives to represent us correctly or diplomatically.

Our student body is very lucky: we have elected officials who have the ability to speak on our behalfs in order to effect serious change.

Granted, the SU operates slowly and seemingly ineffectively; often, so does the U.S. government––that is the price we pay for legitimacy.

A slow and deliberate SU is more likely to create lasting change rather than more progressive

Jensen Foerster / The Spectator

The Benefits of a Hospital Poor Door

By STEPhEn NYARKO Hospitals aren’t the most hospitable places. The emergency room chairs are almost as uncomfortable as bus seats, and the mounds of paperwork blend in with the white walls, white panel ceilings and harsh white

lights keeping everyone awake.

So, when a wealthy patient is rushed past the waiting room, through the double doors into the hospital proper, the only solace to the anger you may feel is to think that they will soon be stuck in a dimly lit room with the same hospital menu and mattress as yours.

But, recently, this connection between hospital patients of varying socioeconomic classes is being taken away by clear divisions.

Many hospitals in New York, including Beth Israel and New York Presbyterian, have added luxury accommodations—exclusively for the wealthy—to their treatment plans. The newly renovated Eleven West wing at Mount Sinai even offers “Wild Salmon Wrapped in a Yukon Gold Potato Crust served with Oven Roasted Asparagus and Mango Aioli,” in their brochure, among other dishes cultivated by their professional chef Juliet DaSilvaInniss and her team. But, however unfair it may seem, this emerging system of catering to the wealthy in hospitals is actually a much better way for the rest of the population

to receive top-notch medical care.

The moral predicament concerning a two-tiered hospital treatment plan, as outlined in a New York Times article, is the fear that by “[allowing] one of [the] patients to be labeled ‘important,’ [we] implicitly label the others as less important.”

However, celebrities and trustees would already be treated differently, even if they didn’t have separate facilities. According to a New York Times piece earlier this month, some hospitals use “red blankets” as a way to distinguish wealthy patients, instead of private rooms or gourmet food. This serves as a signal to nurses and other hospital employees that deal with patient’s nonmedical concerns in the same way that a separate wing would.

For example, security guards at Lenox Hill taped over cameras in order to please Jay-Z and Beyoncé during their stay there after the birth of their daughter. A survey

by MSNBC also found that 84 out of 100 polled doctors who work in emergency rooms across the nation would give “extra attention” to someone with VIP status at their

hospital, such as a large donor or trustee. Clearly, these issues are already arising in systems where wealth is not yet recognized in as official a capacity as a separate wing.

But VIP wings, which seem like simply an extension of these less obvious systems, are actually an improvement. Now, instead of wealthy patients receiving improved amenities simply because they are important, they are receiving them because they are paying for them. And hospitals desperately need this money. In President Barack Obama’s 2015 budget plan, Medicare reimbursements to hospitals for those that cannot pay their copays or deductibles will be slashed from 65 cents on the dollar to just 25 cents. Becker’s Hospital Review estimates that “this provision would cost hospitals and other [health care] providers $340 million” in 2015. These private rooms and special accommodations are just a new way to close the funding gap, without charging more for the average New Yorker.

It is also unlikely that hospitals will divert their funding to

group of independent students.

We should continue to call upon our elected officials to press the administration, rather than promoting a group of students who, at the end of the day, do not have the same mandate as the SU. While it is essential that dissenting opinions exist among our student body, students should take those opinions and apply them to our government, not our administration. It’s the onus of every student to make sure that we don’t clog the administration, but rather provide suggestions to our government so it can better support the people.

And the SU should, in turn, understand that the students rely on it for every form of change.

The recent rise of these groups is a call for the government to be more receptive to the will of the students. All students should aim to fight apathy with participation, but without letting that participation inhibit our SU’s ability to function or allow precedent for unelected students to represent our will to the administration.

accommodating the wealthy all the time, as they are seen as charitable institutions, with the goal of promoting public good for the benefit of the people. If this reputation is tarnished by accusations that the hospital is only catering to the wealthy, donors like Morgan Stanley and David Koch will be reluctant to have their names associated with what would be considered an elitist institution, and thus the tens or hundreds of millions they give to the hospital would disappear with them.

The ethical issues with treating the wealthy differently are valid, but they are based upon the flawed principle that everyone will be treated equally without these special wings. On the contrary, the medical world is imperfect, and there will always be medically irrelevant distinctions between patients. By welcoming two-tiered treatment instead of disputing it, patients will open the door for the wealthy to help provide all patients with the care that they need.

Chloé Delfau / The Spectator

When Does the Joke Go Too Far?

By AShER LASDAY “Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke.” These were the words of Seth Meyers at the White House Correspondents’ dinner in 2011. While Trump’s campaign in 2012 proved to be a joke (he dropped out when forced to choose between the presidency and hosting another season of Celebrity Apprentice), his 2016 run is clearly not. As funny as it can be at times to laugh at Trump, at some point his rampant racism and general insanity have to be called into question.

Though Trump is a joke who allows most Democrats and Republicans to laugh at the same political humor for once, by giving him this consistent media presence—even if only to point out the absurdity of the situation—we in fact legitimize and strengthen his bid for president. As such, I think the media (left- and rightleaning alike) should stop paying so much attention to Trump—no matter how hilarious he is—if they do not wish to aid his campaign.

To fully understand why Trump benefits so much from this media presence, we first need to really understand his campaign. Although one might assume the point of a policy maker’s campaign is self-explanatory (to elucidate the policies they support) for Trump and “politicians” like him, that’s not completely true. For many, the appeal of Trump is not in the specifics of the policies he advocates, but rather the tone in which he advocates for things. There’s a reason that when Trump is giving a speech, the remarks that get the most positive responses are not details of new strategies, they’re the broad statements he typically delivers, such as, “We’re going to make our country great again—believe me.

We will make our country great again.” This simply serves to get a crowd riled up and does little else.

That’s what’s so different about the Trump campaign. While other Presidential candidates oscillate

between such broad rhetorical statements and some specific examples of realistic policies, Trump offers no such balance. By serving as a destroyer rather than as a builder, Trump doesn’t need to spend time detailing his policies; he only needs to be able to express his passion in front of the American populous.

By giving him a platform—even one intended for mockery—the American media is allowing him more and more to do just this.

The most obvious example of Trump’s increased media presence is his recent hosting of Saturday Night Live (SNL). Despite many protests, particularly from Latin American organizations, NBC kept Trump on as a host, with The Donald noting that, in fact, protests would be great for ratings. There’s a reason why Trump was so keen on hosting SNL, and who’s to blame him? Any politician looks great when they show they can take a joke, but for Trump the opportunity was particularly important because it gave him more screen time to showcase his machismo. SNL, whether they intended to or n o t ,

not only gave one candidate the benefit of vastly more screentime than other candidates, they also gave it to one of the few candidates who could come out of the show at a huge advantage.

Not only did his presence lead to more online notoriety for Trump than ever, Amobee Brand Intelligence, a digital marketing firm, found that 72 percent of this new online attention was ambivalent, and 17 percent was supportive.

For such large crowds, that is a huge uptick in popularity. When you consider the tone of Trump’s rhetoric, remember that for every increased supporter he gets, regardless of overall trends, there is another person supporting his racist ideologies. While Trump has begun to fall behind Carson, the gap remains small enough that small popularity gains like this should still be concerning.

This jump is part of a larger trend. We can see that when Trump gets press, whether positive or negative, he is still able to make gains in the

Angel Zheng / The Spectator

polls. The Hill noted that in the wake of the Paris attacks, Trump surged in popularity, despite his recommendation to close mosques, force Muslims to have special IDs, and to “bomb the s--- out of [ISIS].”

To liberal media this might be funny, but for many this is an attractive presidential candidate, so jokes about Trump’s racism might serve only to further prove his anti-political correctness appeal.

The time has come to end Donald Trump’s status as a clown for liberals to laugh at. We need to recognize that while we are laughing, he’s making huge gains on the backs of our fascination. The solution to Trump’s popularity through media attention is not an easy one, but it is crucial that it be employed.

In order to combat Trump’s feeding off media presence he needs to cease to be a political discussion. As disgusting as it is when he decries a race of people as rapists, the proper response is not to poke fun him, but to ignore him or actively point out his racism and offensive ideas.

Trump has demonstrated that he is more than aware that protests lead to more attention, and is likely using this very strategy not only on SNL, but in his campaign as well. If you really want to see Trump recognized for the hack he is, ignore him until he fades out of the collective mindset of the US and is replaced by a legitimate Republican candidate.

Page 14

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Opinions How the AP Supports Us This year, Stuyvesant has decided to use Advanced Placement (AP) test scores in place of Regents scores for the Measure of Student Learning, a Department of Education (DOE) assessment that contributes to teacher evaluations. As a result of this switch, the DOE is allowing all students to take their AP exams for free. Along with this transition, the Stuyvesant administration has also mandated that each Stuyvesant student take at least one AP test in order to graduate with a Stuyvesant diploma—a fact that has raised a considerable amount of distress throughout the student body.

Though many object to this requirement, it is actually much more reasonable than it seems.

Firstly, the policy does not mandate students to take their AP tests’ corresponding classes. Thus, students with prior knowledge on a subject, or those willing to self-study, can take only the test, though the policy would likely increase AP class enrollment. Secondly, students unwilling to study and sit for the three-hour test won’t be forbidden from graduating with a New York State high school diploma, only a Stuyvesant-endorsed one.

Asking students to choose one course that they’re interested in is actually more helpful than it is detrimental. In fact, 81 percent of graduating students last year had already taken an AP test, and for good reason. AP courses provide students with the opportunity to dig deeper into a certain subject, and set higher, more challenging standards for themselves. This, in turn, encourages academic rigor and growth. The intellectual advantages of AP courses can also help focus or drive students who have not yet necessarily found their “passion” by revealing the depth of a certain field, which they may not have had access to in a regular c o u r s e.

The other major justification for the new AP requirement is to improve Stuyvesant’s rankings, whose recent decline has been a topic of criticism among parents of prospective students. In fact, The U.S. News and World Report places Stuyvesant as 96th in the nation, behind every other New York City specialized high school. This is because “College Readiness,” a major factor in determining a school’s ranking, is based entirely on the percentage of graduating students that have taken an AP test. This completely ignores Stuyvesant’s overall academic rigor, as well as the fact that students who do take an AP test take, on average, four tests.

Because of this, some may argue that the “official” rankings are unimportant, as Stuyvesant’s quality of education remains stellar. However, prospective students and their families are likely to pay close attention to numbers. When talented, intelligent children opt for other schools because of a number—even one that isn’t really representative of the school’s academics—Stuyvesant suffers.

These dubious rankings that hurt Stuyvesant’s reputation also impact its learning environment and difficulty of curriculum. Any school’s academic standards are maintained and improved in two ways: first, by attracting bright students, and second, by mandating greater effort on the students’ behalf. Currently, Stuyvesant holds the reputation not only of having a strong academic program, but also of encouraging hard work.

By giving students the choice of taking any AP test, students are invited to pursue their passions, and that standard is upheld.

This policy will not push students into a class they won’t thrive in, it will only nudge them out of their comfort zones into a challenging course of their choice, or encourage them to research a test within their academic interests.

As much as “College Readiness” oversimplifies schools’ rigor, light AP requirements are a way to help students prepare for college, as well as benefit school rankings—both of which promote a more effective educational environment.

Stop Standardizing Standardized Testing

By Julie Chan We all know what perfect college application looks like: stellar grades, outstanding extracurricular activities, great recommendations from teachers, and a moving personal essay.

But, there is something missing from that list: standardized tests scores.

The Washington Post released in July a list of over 100 colleges that are test optional.

The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or FairTest, has a list of over 800 four-year colleges and universities that don’t require standardized tests. With an increasing number of colleges following in suit, it begs the question: Are standardized college tests really necessary?

The SAT, or Scholastic Aptitude Test, was created in 1926 as a method to test innate intelligence. The modern SAT, however, seems to be testing the educational system more than it is testing the actual student.

According to Todd Balf from The New York Times Magazine, “Teachers [...] felt the test wasn’t based on what they were doing in class, and yet the mean SAT scores of many high schools were published by state education departments, which meant that blame for poor performances was often directed at them.” Balf is right; realistically speaking, few students remember having grammar lessons in which they learned about misplaced modifiers or writing well-developed essays in less than half an hour.

The SAT is also supposed to predict how well a student will do during their freshman year in college. However, William Hiss, a former dean of admissions at Bates College, released a report that found no correlation between SAT scores and college grades. According to the report, “Students with good high school grades did well in college, even if they had weak SAT scores. But students with weak high school scores—even with strong SATs—did less well in college.” Nonetheless, college admissions officers still

rely on these scores.

Although the SAT and ACT are one of the only ways for colleges to rank students based on one standard, they are not necessarily fair. Students with family incomes less than $20,000 scored an average of 135 points lower than students with family incomes of over $200,000, with the scores increasing as the income bracket increases.

Standardized tests have shown to be biased against disadvantaged and minority students, and this is not a new trend. These students with lower test scores are deemed less college ready, even though the test reflects their educational resources more than their intelligence. This all contributes to the lack of diversity at competitive colleges. A study conducted by Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce over a span of 15 years stated, “Since 1995, 82 percent of new white enrollments have gone to the 468 most selective colleges, while 72 percent of new Hispanic enrollment and 68 percent of new African-American enrollment have gone to the two-year and four-year open-access schools.” Another study by Georgetown showed that only 14

percent of students in the most selective colleges came from the lower half of families based on income.

Test-optional colleges have found that their candidate pools became more diverse after they made test scores non-mandatory. According to the FairTest report, Test Scores Do Not Equal Merit, at Bates College, the test optional policy allowed the number of applications and enrollment from minority students to double in just five years. CNN Money reported that at Wake Forest University, after the test requirement was removed, the percentage of non-white students rose from 18 percent to 23 percent in just one year. Other colleges that have adopted similar policies have also seen an increase in minority students.

Although there are over 800 colleges that are test-optional, most colleges in America still require standardized exams. It seems that as more people recognize that current standardized tests are not an effective means of measuring a student’s intelligence, colleges follow suit. But until the tests are changed completely, you should probably go buy a Barron’s SAT book.

StMiranda Luong / The Spectator

By Andrew Chen

Sunny Chen / The Spectator

Nancy Cao / The Spectator

The Mess Behind the Letter

By Olivia Kusio Report card distribution days always seem to cause a bit more noise in the hallways than usual.

This year, I’ve had “What did _____ give you?” and “How many E’s did you get?” buzzing in my ears long after third period.

At this school, first marking period grades are based on a four letter grade system: “E” for excellent, “S” for satisfactory, “N” for needs improvement, and “U” for unsatis-

factory. These four letters indicate only ballpark ranges and can be wildly misleading.

While the only information given to students and their parents is a letter grade, the percentage behind that letter for the marking period is still included in the student’s final average. This policy reduces the emphasis placed on grades and allows students to ease into the semester more easily. For teachers, it is less binding than releasing a number grade, since they often aren’t ready to release a specific grade due to the brevity of the first marking period However, seeing letter grades on our report cards can be just as worrisome as getting back a percentage grade, if not more so. When I see that a teacher has given me an “S,” I really don’t know if I’m getting an 89 or a 75. Most students can agree that the wedge between these numbers is a wide one when it comes numeric averages. Although I can understand why it may seem like seeing an “N” or a “U” can be less intimidating to students than a specific grade, it only furthers students’ confusion and stress about how they might be doing on the spectrum. Vagueness is not beneficial when a student needs to figure

out exactly how much they need to improve, and whether they need to ask their teacher for help to do so.

Additionally, the four-letter system prompts teachers, particularly those in the English department, to give non-informative grades.

Most English teachers give a maximum

grade of “S” regardless of students’ grades and participation. English students do not know how they are actually doing in the class until the end of the second marking period, two

thirds into the semester. With only one marking period till the end of the semester, it is often too late for students to dramatically improve their grades.

The reasoning behind handing out these grades in the English Department is that it is too early to release an accurate numeric grade.

Most teachers do not feel that they can adequately judge their students’ writing abilities in time, based on one or two assignments.

However, it is better to release a somewhat informative assessment based on whatever grades the student already has, rather than no grade at all.

The inaccuracy and vagueness of the “E,” “S,” “N,” and “U” system renders it nearly useless in aiding students and parents. If grades are supposed to be used for motivational purposes, then teachers should be more specific so that students know exactly how much they need to improve.

Instead of handing out letter grades, first marking period grades should have a more specific grading system, like the second and third marking periods that follow. It’s time to clean up this alphabetical mess.

Joyce Gao / The Spectator

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 15

Opinions Reactions to the Terror in Paris Filtering Out Compassion

An Inconvenient Truth

By alec dai

By Stiven Peter

Scrolling through Facebook, I noticed a large number of recently changed profile pictures on my news feed. In light of recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Facebook had allowed users to add a filter of the French flag to their profile pictures. However, within hours, the red, white, and blue filtered profile pictures were coupled with angry posts about the trend. Though the filters are meant to express support for France, the issue with them, along with the general public’s reaction to the Paris attacks, is accurately described by the title of an article in The Independent: “Got a French flag on your Facebook profile?

Congratulations on your corporate white supremacy.”

Two days before the terrorist attack in Paris, 41 were killed in suicide bombings in Beirut. Eighteen were killed in another suicide bombing in Baghdad on that very Friday. Yet, few of my friends knew anything about these attacks, and the media covered them far less than the terrorist attacks in Paris. The fact that these events happened in such close proximity—but had such different responses—poses a question of selective compassion, selective grief, and selective care. Why did Facebook only offer a filter for the French?

The most likely reason is that Americans are extremely Eurocentric, or have a tendency to view things from a Western, white point of view. We tend to think that Europeans are the people to whom we are the most similar. After all, the U.S. was founded on primarily European ideals of freedom and democracy, and was once a European colony. Further, both Americans and Europeans typically consider their nations’ highly urbanized areas with interconnected cultures. We see ourselves as highly sophisticated, forward countries in the fourth stage of development— the only difference separating us is that we like hamburgers while they like escargot.

Not only do Americans tend to care more about European culture, but we also give people in other areas a single story. We can’t relate to those who we view as different, and so we stereotype. The Middle East—though even describing the region as “The Middle East” is Eurocentric—is plagued by the stigma that everyone there is a security threat. We often view the area as being struck by unrest, war, extremists, and terrorist organizations like ISIS, rather than a country full of families, kids who run around, and other innocents.

Thus, though it was not the intent of those utilizing the Facebook filter, by putting more emphasis on Paris than they put on Baghdad, they are implying that they believe Western and European lives hold more value than Middle Eastern ones.

However, as disturbing as this selective compassion may be, the answer is not to attack those who express empathy for the French. What happened in Paris was a horrific tragedy that left at least 129 innocent civilians dead.

In condemning people for their biased care, we would be devaluing the lives of those killed in the Paris attacks. Our goal must be to educate and spread awareness rather than to shift the imbalance from one side to another.

Our goal must be to become aware of the world outside of us. It is easy to neglect the lives of people who come from a culture that seems distant from our own, especially when these ideas are reflected in the media. However, it is our responsibility as human beings to understand and care about the lives of people across the globe. We can’t disregard people who are different from us simply because it is easy.

Mark Zuckerberg changed his profile picture from a filtered one back to a regular one on November 16. On that day, he acknowledged the value of all lives. One user put it best in her comment: “So glad this is the one you used. It makes me think about how happy you are when we are driving our mission to make the world more open and connected […] That is worth smiling about.”

The streets of Paris turned into a massacre on Friday, November 14, as terrorists carried out a coordinated attack on the city. They mark a major success for the Islamic state, as this is the first time the group has engaged in a calculated plan of terrorist attacks that were carried out on distant territory.

In light of these attacks, the French President has ordered a series of airstrikes in Syria, and so Americans are considering options for eliminating ISIS ranging from drone strikes to boots on the ground. The President in a press conference about the U. S’s course of action said, “We have the right strategy and we’re going to see it through.” However, missing from the current strategy is acknowledging the theological ambition of ISIS. We must acknowledge that members of ISIS are driven by a theological purpose which is not only to further the reach of the self-proclaimed Islamic Caliphate, but also gain the promise of paradise. Whether or not these horrific actions reflect the true teachings of Islam is a separate discussion, and distracts us from the plain truth of the theological underpinnings of this conflict. ISIS portrays itself as not just a group fighting in Syria, but also fighting Western Culture. These attacks act as poignant examples as they happened at Friday night at the heart of the city’s progressive youth. ISIS openly admits its theological motivations when it released a statement in the aftermath of the attacks saying, “Allah will accept them amongst the martyrs and allows them to join him. France and those who follow their path have to know that they will remain the principal targets of ISIS and will continue to smell the odour of death for having led this crusade, for having insulted our prophet, for boasting about fighting Islam in France.”

Once we begin to view ISIS in ideological terms we are able to see this conflict for what it is, a war of ideas. A war that can’t succeed on just pure military strength because it gives ISIS more credence for its hatred of Western culture and makes it easier to convince people to join its cause. Any long-term solution requires ridding the hold Islamic extremism has in the Middle East and that means the U.S and foreign powers must enable Islamic countries and their citizens to counter the physical and psychological intimidation of ISIS and other terrorist groups.

That means, along with a coordinated military campaign, the U.S needs to launch a counter-narrative that weakens ISIS’ narrative of a war between Islam and the West. This narrative must first undermine the leadership of ISIS by showing their ineptness in leading military engagements and their lack of authority. It should also demonstrate the hypocrisy of the Islamic narrative by highlighting the suffering and targeting of Muslims by ISIS. By showing this hypocrisy, members will become disillusioned with ISIS’ ideology of an Islamic state as they are targeting and killing their own brothers and sisters.

Along with these messages, the counter-narrative has to be spread at the local and regional level, reinforced by Arab countries and other actors, such as former terrorists who would resonate more than a government official.

In fact, former terrorists can highlight the hardships, disillusionment, and hypocrisy as a terrorist, destroying any foundation ISIS may have for portraying jihadi life as honorable, and God glorifying. Any long-term solution requires organic change from Arab countries and their citizens that subverts the current narrative of heroic Islamic jihadi fighting against Western materialism, and culture to the glory of Allah. Once when we embrace this reality, we are able to construct a path towards stability in the Middle East.

Fighting the Wrong Enemy

By Raniyan Zaman “Be careful on the trains today!” my mother warned as I dashed out the door Monday morning. Late, I was already running down the stairs, but once I ducked onto the train and received quite a few frowns and unfriendly glances, her words began to sink in.

The resurgence of Islamophobia that seems to accompany major terrorist attacks like Paris is typically ignored and garners little attention or sympathy from the media. Although we’re often accused of extremism by association, many don’t realize that terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda target the Muslim community on a regular basis.

In the days following the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, The New York Times published an article about the distrust and hostility towards Muslims that is once again sweeping through France. Prime Minister Manuel Valls insists that France must “expel all these radicalized imams” and preventive political measures have already been implemented, from putting mosques under surveillance to profiling over ten thousand law-abiding Muslims. America responded similarly after the attacks in 2001: according to a study conducted by Georgetown University, U.S. Muslims are five times more likely to be the victim of a hate crime than they were before 9/11. The FBI has stated that 13 percent of all hate crimes motivated by religious bias are anti-Islamic—more than almost every other religious group—and BBC announced in September that anti-Islamic crime in London has increased by 70 percent within the past year. For the 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, this can have dire consequences. Islamophobia can manifest itself from bullying in elementary schools to racial slurs and accusations of terrorism on the streets to physical assaults and murders of Muslims and the destruction of mosques and copies of the Qur’an.

Though the accepted narrative of Islamic fundamentalism is still one of a diverse culture’s collective desire to infiltrate and subvert democracy, the threat of extremist violence is as real for many Muslims as it is for Christians living in the west. We are inclined to think of prominent Western cities—Paris and New York, for instance—as targets for extremist groups like ISIS, but plenty of countries in the Muslim world are at serious threat. We just don’t talk about them. The day before Paris was attacked, two suicide bombers detonated in Lebanon, and the disparity in media coverage we have observed since between the two attacks was palpable.

Since October, Egypt and Bangladesh have been facing repeated offensives from the group. ISIS reserves a special hatred for non-extremist Muslims because we are seen as having sided with the enemy. Normal Muslims are alienated by both sides—condemned as terrorists by the west, but attacked by actual terrorists as being too westernized.

The fact of the matter is that ISIS does not accurately represent Muslim values, and to refer to it as an “Islamic State” is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the group itself. In moving to destigmatize Islam, many have suggested actively calling ISIS “Daesh” is a good first step. France’s Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, stated that “the term Islamic State [...] blurs the lines between Islam, Muslims, and Islamists,” and recommended using Daesh instead. Daesh is an acronym based off the Arabic name for ISIS and is commonly used by enemies of ISIS. It has negative connotations and sounds similar to the Arabic word “daes,” or “one who crushes something underfoot,” or “dahes,” “one who sows discord.” Renaming ISIS as Daesh will highlight that our fight is not with Islam, but with a terrorist organization.

Last week made it clear that the threat of Daesh is growing. And with that growth comes a renewal of anti-Muslim sentiments in the west.

Fourteen years have not been able to quell the fear 12 million Muslim Americans carry from 9/11: the fear of prejudice, the fear of a hate crime, a shooting like Chapel Hill—simply because of their attire or their appearance. In France, Islamophobia has its roots in its historical colonization of North Africa, as well as the collective Western censure of Muslims and Islam following the advent of political terrorism. The recent attacks in Paris can only mean more racism, more prejudice, and more hate.

So, I mourn those lives that were lost in Paris on November 13, but I mourn so much more than that. I mourn the Muslim lives that will be taken due to ignorance.

I mourn the Muslim lives that must now be wrought with fear. I mourn for everyone who has ever received an unfriendly glance on the street or a whisper behind their back because they follow a religion that promotes peace, and I mourn the fact that, no matter how many die, people find it impossible to understand that fighting fire with fire only results in more ashes.

Page 16

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

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Page 18

Arts and Entertainment The Importance of “Allegiance”

MusicAL

By Jasmine Tang It’s a moment in our history that is little spoken of—Japanese internment during World War II—perhaps because of the shame and strife it conjures up.

But “Allegiance” dares to explore this inglorious moment while still creating a spectacle brimming with passion.

Inspired by the book written by Marc Acito, Jay Kuo, and Lorenzo Thione, “Allegiance” tells the touching tale of how the lives of the East-Coast-residing Kimura family undergo a wave of changes after incarceration.

Siblings Sammy “Sam” (Telly Leung) and Kei (Lea Salonga) are torn between pledging allegiance to their country and remaining loyal to their family. While Sam volunteers to serve in the army, Kei joins draft resisters in their fight for the rights and liberties that were taken away from them.

The siblings’ opposing positions endanger the solidarity of the Kimura family.

It’s hard to believe that a musical can embody such a dense, dark storyline and still retain the artistic elements that make theater so entertaining.

From the lively, swing-style “Paradise” to the slowerpaced love song “With You,” there is great variety in the musical’s numbers.

Despite the variation among the songs, the sounds and lyrics in them seem to lack creativity. The songs can sometimes sound like any other song from a Broadway musical, and their lyrics aren’t too inventive either.

However, the orches-

tra still delivers each song powerfully.

The cast does not fail to give an electric performance. George Takei, who was actually a victim of Japanese internment when he was fi e, demonstrates his versatility as a performer, proving that he can act onstage as effortlessly as he does on the small screen.

Takei brings the audience to tears in the poignant last scene as the present day Sam Kimura. As he weeps and begs for forgiveness decades after the conflict between him and his family, the audience can’t help but sympathize with him.

Also taking on the role of OjiSan, grandfather of the Kimura family, Takei provides the much needed comedic relief for the otherwise intense and fast

Tina Lim / The Spectator

I fell in love with “The Giver” in sixth grade. While the rest of my class hated it, I found myself intrigued by the concept it portrayed—everyone was treated the same and was colorblind, and everything was chosen for them by The Elders. The lack of freedom should’ve killed the libertarian side of me, but, oddly enough, I gravitated toward the fictional, imperfect world. Shortly after reading about Jonas’s struggle, I discovered “The Hunger Games” and fell in love with its famous gray-eyed heroine.

Modern dystopias portray a totalitarian government in which the people are blatantly oppressed but remain oblivious to that fact. Usually, this follows a civil war, a natural disaster, or even something as simple as societal norm changes.

A powerful corporation or a strong dictator takes over, imposing his or her idea of a perfect world onto the society, which typically benefits the elite rather than the people. These ideas defy our beliefs of freedom and liberty and should be the bane of our existences. We should be dreading the idea of dystopian novels rather than embracing them, yet we soak them up like a sponge.

The genre itself seems quite modern, but it actually started in the 17th century as a result of the

with her brother after the war, she engages in a fight with him over family and forgiveness. She

racks. In reality, no guns were held within the camp.

To tell such a dark history

It’s hard to believe that a musical can embody such a dense, dark storyline and still retain the artistic elements that make theater so entertaining. rapidly rips off a badge on Sam’s coat, and silence emerges as her brother quickly leaves. Kei gets down on her knees and cries, and the audience is left as stunned and pained as she is.

Salonga’s emotional delivery of “Higher” was one of the highlights of the musical. Though confined in the internment camp, Kei is able to find her own identity and learns to set herself free. After years of taking up the maternal role in the Kimura household after her mother passed away, she encourages the audience to persevere like she did through her powerful solo.

While some praise “Allegiance” for bringing a dim piece of American history to light, others have been critical of its historical inaccuracies. According to historian Frank Abe, the musical has overdramatized much of what truly transpired in the 1940s. For example, draft resisters burning draft cards at Heart Mountain is purely fictional; draft cards were burned at another camp in the 1960s. Another fallacy lies in the gun-toting white soldiers that walked around the camp’s bar-

with inaccuracies is problematic because it can offend those who were affected by Japanese internment. Since the topic is also not as well-known as other moments of World War II, it is paramount to provide the audience with accurate information.

Nevertheless, the inaccuracies are minor in the sense that they don’t twist the history in such a way that a certain side is overly demonized.

To translate history into a musical is to sign a contract that guarantees the dramatization of events in one way or the other.

The playwright is creating a musical, not a documentary; he deserves the freedom to get creative with the plot in order to create a work that is reflecti e of his conception of the history. Those who do see the show should keep in mind that “Allegiance” is historical fiction and therefore should not be the sole source of information on the topic. With such a talented Asian-American cast and an emotional story, “Allegiance” succeeds in its motive to foster attention on such a dark piece of our past.

Behind the Rise of Dystopias

THINKPIECE

By Tiffany Chen

paced story. When the Kimura family is forced to relocate to the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in Wyoming, Oji-San asks, “Where are we?” When Kei tells him that they have arrived at Wyoming, Oji-San then says, “I not ask why, I ask where.” It’s hard not to chuckle at his one-liners and tendency to speak in brief sentences.

Stuyvesant alumnus and “Glee” star Telly Leung is spirited in his role as the young Sam Kimura. His success in portraying the complex character leaves the audience pondering whether or not they are fond of him. Sam belts out his solo, “What Makes a Man” upon his arrival at the internment camp to express his wish to fight in the army and to prove his loyalty to America. The audience understands that joining the army is his duty and feels obliged to support his decision.

But as the production continues, the audience’s liking for him fluctuate .

When Sam becomes a war hero and passionately delivers speeches that condemn draft resisters, it’s hard for one to decide whether he should be proud of his accomplishments. His propagation of hatred toward draft resisters gets Frank Suzuki, draft resistance leader back at Heart Mountain and his sister’s love interest, beaten up.

Lea Salonga’s passion in her performance as Kei shows that she is no stranger to Broadway.

When Kei finally reunites

politics and ideals of that time.

One of the earliest examples is “Gulliver’s Travels” (1726), where Gulliver meets the Yahoos, a species of primitive human-like creatures. He grows to admire the species’ hospitality and lifestyle while realizing that the world he lives in is deformed and filled with corruption—a common theme throughout dystopian novels.

Over time, the genre has evolved into a medium to express controversial opinions against a back-drop of rebellion.

Carrie Ou / The Spectator

The recent spike of interest in dystopian novels can be attributed to their adolescent protagonists. From Jonas in “The Giver” to Katniss in “The Hunger Games,” we find in ourselves a

unique sort of sympathy toward these characters because they are around our age. As teenagers going through the awkward, not-so-pretty stages of puberty, we believe that we are fully capable of making our own decisions while adults still see and treat us as children. We gravitate towards the dystopian genre because we empathize with the protagonists who share our experience of oppression. Once the heroes rebel against their totalitarian governments, euphoria washes through us. We want them to succeed because, intrinsically, they are us.

Still, the settings painted in dystopias are often extreme, to the point that we are often reminded of the fantasy aspect common in dystopian literature. While this should act to distance us from the concept of dystopias, it actually intrigues us more.

We are sucked into a world nothing like ours, where a futuristic, radical government takes control of the people’s destinies. Through the eyes of the rebellion, they are given the opportunity to escape from a totalitarian reign or even wage a civil war against it. Literature is often used as an escape from reality, and the dystopian genre embodies this mantra, allowing us to momentarily forget what’s rattling inside our minds. And, if

ever reminded of our world, we are appreciative of the fact that we are not living in a society as dark as a dystopia.

Even so, dystopian novels often highlight the human features of the characters. The characters

prevalent today. Topics that particularly pertain to young adults, such as suicide and forced prostitution, also pervade these novels. Unfortunately, these ideas aren’t far from the truth. Despite the fantasy aspect of a dystopia,

All dystopias end up telling the same message: no world will ever be perfect, including ours.

are teenagers, and despite being thrown into a dystopian society, they still have to deal with things teens often worry about: body image, love interests, and being different. Instead of being manufactured as perfect individuals who have done no wrong, they are human. They don’t hesitate to cry, to scream, to smile, and to hate. The way these characters are portrayed makes it easy for us to relate to them; we want to laugh, to sob, and to fight by their sides.

Even though dystopias are often depicted as visionary, never-going-to-happen societies, they often portray what is going on in the real world. Dystopian novels were, and still are, used to voice opinions on society. Many dystopian novels describe corrupt governments, which are still

reality seeps through the cracks of the far-from-perfect world. All dystopias end up telling the same message: no world will ever be perfect, including ours.

The web tying the dystopian society to the real world in contradictory yet understandable ways is the reason for my undeniable love toward the genre. When I found out that “Mockingjay, Part 2” was coming out in theaters shortly, I immediately turned to my copy of the book and reread it, still a bit sour over some of the deaths. The end of the hyped dystopian trilogy will be bittersweet for me because my escape from reality will start disappearing. But I know that I’ll immerse myself in yet another dystopian series, already fully aware that another cycle of obsession will start over again.

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 19

Arts and Entertainment

Kaia Waxenberg / The Spectator

Your Guide to the Lower East Side

By Karen Chen We all know that the Lower East Side’s (LES) nightlife is wild and that practically all of its residents are hip bohemians, or, at the very least, think they are. Nobody seems to regard the LES as a place of great culture.

How It All Started Originally a farm owned by a Dutch governor, the LES was given to Peter Stuyvesant in 1651 and was then passed down to his descendants. It was later divided up and sold. Named after its location in Manhattan, the LES included the East Village and extended to the East River.

As waves of German and Irish people immigrated to the LES in the 1850s, the neighborhood became filled with apartments called “tenements” to accommodate the immigrants. The conditions of these tenements—which were overcrowded and lacked proper sanitation—inspired Jacob Riis to publish his famous exposé, “How the Other Half Lives,” in 1890.

By the 1900s, Jews dominated the neighborhood’s population, and the large number of synagogues in the neighborhood today serves as evidence of Jewish presence.

A divide began to occur between the LES and its neighbor, the East Village, when wealthy musicians and artists started to settle in the East Village, making the Village more upscale than it was initially. The LES and the East Village once formed a joint neighborhood, but the artists’ movement separated the neighborhoods. As a result, the Lower East Side became associated with slums and the East Village with artistic life.

In the 1940s, when a massive number of Puerto Ricans arrived and settled in the LES, the conditions remained poor, but the Puerto Ricans brought their culture with them. The LES became known as “Little Puerto Rico,” with bodegas and piragueros—Puerto Rican shaved ice vendors—present throughout the neighborhood.

In recent years, the gentrification of the East Village has spilled into the Lower East Side, and the LES is now filled with new art galleries, murals, distinctive restaurants and cafés, bars, and boutiques.

Where to Eat The LES hosts some of the prettiest storefronts and most unique restaurants and cafés. If you are in need of an interesting picture to post on Instagram, a taste of history, or just a good cup of coffee, the LES has you covered.

Though pricey and almost always busy, one of the best and most aesthetically pleasing bar-restaurants is freeman’s, located at the end of Freeman’s Alley. With an inviting baby-blue storefront decorated with shrubbery and fairy lights, Freeman’s and its alley are great photo opportunities. Freeman’s serves rustic, cozy, all-American cuisine.

A bar-restaurant more representative of the great culture of the LES is mission Cantina. The interior of the restaurant is colorful and whimsical, in line with its food. It serves Mexican cuisine enhanced with Asian fla ors. The ceiling is covered in picado banners, and the windows are lined with pepper string lights. The restaurant’s piñata centerpiece has a color scheme similar to that of its food: bright reds, purples, and hints of green. At night, fluo escent lights are turned on, livening the environment and highlighting the eccentricity of the restaurant.

One of the most culturally and historically important places to eat in the LES is Katz’s Delicatessen. This iconic deli where Harry met Sally is a family business that first opened in 1888. At peak times, the deli is incredibly crowded, but the food is certainly worth the wait. Katz’s Delicatessen is best known for its pastrami sandwich and its Jewish dishes, such as matzo ball soup. Prices may be a bit high, but portion sizes are large.

If you’re looking for a place where you can sit down and write or catch up with friends, Spreadhouse is a large coffee house where everything is made of wood. The environment is like that of a spacious cottage: inviting and peaceful. With benches, swinging chairs, and great drinks and pastries, Spreadhouse is a place for busy people on the go and those who are just searching for somewhere to relax.

What to Do Because of its rich history, the LES is filled with museums and preserved landmarks.

You may have visited the Tenement Museum on a school trip. Inside a small building on Orchard Street, the museum consists of several restored tenement apartments that allow you to visualize and understand the way immigrants lived. Tours of the museum give a more in-depth explanation of the history.

In addition to the Tenement Museum, another beautiful and educational place to visit is the Museum at Eldridge Street. Admission is not free, but inside, you can gaze at its marvelous stained glass windows and learn about the history and culture of the Jewish immigrants in New York City. The design of the synagogue makes use of the fi e-point star to represent the blending of Jewish and American culture.

Since the arrival of the New Museum in the LES, art galleries have rapidly emerged around the area. The contemporary artists of New York City have found places to show their work in the LES, as there is an art gallery on almost every block. One such gallery is the Betty Cunningham Gallery. The gallery’s current exhibition is the work of painter John Lees, which is also being featured at the New Museum.

If you’re looking for the next big indie band, try to get tickets for performances at the Mercury Lounge, where bands such as the Strokes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs played their first shows. Though a small room, the lounge has a great sound system and is always filled with an enthusiastic c owd.

Poetry and film are still prominent in the LES. For the edgy poets or poetry fanatics, the Bowery Poetry Club holds a variety of events, from poetry readings to bingo nights. It serves as a haven for poets, where they have the chance to meet and listen to fellow poets. The Bowery Poetry Club is a place to see talent and to become inspired.

For the cinephiles, the Anthology Film Archives is a red brick building that stores and screens centuries of footage. Admission is not free, but the gallery-museum holds special screenings daily covered in the $8 student ticket.

And for those looking for a little-known place to explore, the Lowline Lab, the first underground park, is a new laboratory and exhibit that opened just last month.

Three thousand unique species of plants can be found in the lab, where sunlight is available. More of an experiment than anything, this lab will remain free and open to the public every weekend until March 2016.

Notable Figures from the Lower East Side • Pop singer Lady GaGa • Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal • Actor Jake Gyllenhaal • History teacher Robert Sandler • Actor B.D. Wong

The Lower East Side in Pop Culture • “When Harry Met Sally…” (1989) featured Katz’s Delicatessen • Rihanna’s music video for “What’s My Name?”

• “Gossip Girl” episode shot in Freeman’s and in Freeman’s Alley • “Sex and the City” episode shot near the Manhattan Bridge • “L.E.S.” by Childish Gambino

The LES is more than just a place for hipsters. It is a cultural hub of people and places, a place with history. Though the LES has been transformed into a neighborhood filled with bars and a tisanal donut shops, there is something to do, see, and taste there for everyone.

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 20

Arts and Entertainment America’s Next Top Model Bids Us Farewell

TV

By Zovinar Khrimian Being a fan of the reality TV show “America’s Next Top Model” is, to a certain extent, similar to engaging in the fandom of fictional media. Something about the modeling world being squeezed into the format of a reality competition is more appealing than it may sound to those unfamiliar with the show and its addictive quality.

Recent news from creator Tyra Banks about its upcoming cancellation not only disappoints the show’s followers, but also encourages both fans and critics to access this multi-faceted television phenomenon.

Reality TV has a reputation as low quality entertainment.

“America’s Next Top Model” has faced increasing criticisms from its followers regarding the excessive portrayal of drama among competitors, which reinforces the fear of it becoming more about petty arguments and grudges than about modeling. Even in its last season, “Top Model” has had difficulty appealing to those who are interested primarily in the world of fashion and less so in the drama of the House. That being said, it would be unfair to regard the show as anything less than a successful tribute to the world of modeling and Tyra Banks’s own career.

The current, and last, season is coming to a close, with just four models remaining in the competition. The contestants have shown emotional growth and an eagerness to enter the professional world, which emphasizes the positive impact that the competition has. How-

ever, perhaps with the viewers in mind, Tyra Banks seems to have an affinity for quirky personalities when selecting participants. While undeniably humorous, the feuds between two somewhat eccentric male (the addition of men into the competition took place in season 20) competitors, Bello and Devin, in the current season, seemed like a distraction from the artistic credibility of what could be accomplished at the photoshoots, which have noticeably lost some of their creativity and fla or as the show has progressed.

Even the most committed fans of “Top Model” see it as phenomenon past its prime.

This may have begun when gimmicks became a mode of promoting new cycles. The last traditional cycle of “Top Model” was cycle 16, which was followed by an alls t a r s cycle, a cycle with

British models, and a college cycle.

While variety is intriguing, “Top Model” seemed more interested in promoting viewership than model diversity with these

newer cycles. That being said, Tyra Banks has shown again her commitment to a more varied pool of models, as she recently raised the height requirements and has always made room for full-figu ed women. The “Top Model” cast is typically ethnically diverse as well, which is always a positive thing for the evolution of beauty standards.

The final cycle of “America’s Next Top Model” is creatively impaired while it succeeds in showcasing some of the most interesting models in history of the show. The final four are not only extremely t a l ented but also very wellrounded in terms of their backgrounds.

T h e most remarkable is Nyle DiMarco, the first deaf contestant on the show, who has shown incredible persistence

Klaire Geller / The Spectator

in the competition despite his disability. The other competitors are Mikey Heverly, who has

While bland photoshoots have indicated a diminished attention to artistic elements that the show used to present so well, the importance of Tyra Banks’ well established commentary on the industry is a breath of fresh air.

Courtney Chiu / The Spectator

changes within the structure of

Reflecting on the cycles of the past, it is difficult for people interested in the fashion world and intrigued by creative photoshoots to fully immerse themselves in the current season.

Adjei, the daughter of a diplomat and a successful beauty pageant competitor, and 18-year-old Lacey Rogers who has proven more than once that she is perhaps the most mature in the house.

Tyra Banks has incorporated new elements in the show to highlight the importance of hard work, entrepreneurial drive, and professional conduct in order for her models to succeed. While bland photoshoots have indicated a diminished attention to artistic elements, the importance of Tyra Banks’ well-established commentary on the industry is a breath of fresh air.

Reflecting on the cycles of the past, it is difficult for people interested in the fashion world and intrigued by creative photoshoots to fully immerse themselves in the current season. Instead of traveling to a remarkable location such as Rome or Thailand, the models hopped in an RV and drove to Las Vegas from their home in Los Angeles. This was not only disappointing but also begged the question of whether the budget played into the choice of such a close-by destination.

Visiting Las Vegas also reflects

the culture in the model house, as drinking and partying have become the norm in recent seasons. While reviewing older cycles reveals that drama was always a part of “Top Model,” it is undeniable that the presence of both men and women as competitors has changed the way this drama manifests itself.

Though the last few episodes of the final season may be fla ed, at the end of the day “America’s Next Top Model” is a reality TV show, and drama will always find a way in to appeal to audiences. Fans can complain about the death of the show’s integrity, but they are still keeping up with the competition, because it is enticing, especially when one can connect to those competing. What “Top Model” does execute extremely well is giving life to the competitors, as they are presented as very real people with dreams and ambitions, who come from diverse backgrounds and communities.

In some ways, the interactions between and internal growth of the competitors reveal the basic drives that bring many of us to seek success and build lasting careers—the same drives that have inspired dozens of aspiring models that have appeared on the show in its 12 years on the air.

PlayMenu

playlist Welcome to the A&E Diner!

We invite you to explore our carefully curated list of delectable foods for the ear. If you have no idea where to start, we recommend one of our customer favorites: the butter-poached “Aubergine” paired with a refreshing, creamy “Horchata.” Or if you are feeling adventurous, the wood-oven roasted “Vegetables” would make a savory combination with the caramelized “Peaches.” No matter what you choose, we promise a piquant experience. So, hit play!

implied a troubled past, Mamé

Breakfast “Banana Pancakes” Jack Johnson Indie Pop “Milk and Cookies” Melanie Martinez Electropop

Beverages

Dessert

“Horchata” Vampire Weekend Indie Rock

“Piragua” The Cast of “In The Heights” Musical Theater

“Orange Juice” Breakfast Time Soft Rock

“Country Pie” Bob Dylan Folk Rock

“Milk Coffee and Sugar” Cafe Zebre French Rap

“Honey Honey” Feist Indie Rock

Entrées

“Rye Whiskey” Punch Brothers Folk

“Pound Cake” Drake ft. Jay Z Hip-hop

“Grilled Cheese” Cherry Glazerr Surf Rock

“The Pina Colada Song” Rupert Holmes Pop Rock

“Peaches” Presidents of the United States Alternative Rock

“Cheeseburger in Paradise” Jimmy Buffet Pop

“Juice” Chance The Rapper Hip Hop

“Jell-O” Ariel Pink Alternative

“Aubergine” Lady Lamb Folk “Queso” Pell Rap

Appetizers

“Pea” Red Hot Chili Peppers Alternative Rock

“Vegetables” The Beach Boys Rock

“Animal Crackers in My Soup” Shirley Temple Show Tune

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 21

Arts and Entertainment calendar

Get a Life: The Cultured Edition

ONGOING

12/01/2015

“Big Apple Circus: The Grand Tour” Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center Circus

“Seaport Tree Lighting” South Street Seaport Christmas tree lighting

Tuesday

“Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars” Morgan Museum & Library Museum exhibit

NOVEMBER DECEMBER

“Greater New York” MoMA PS1 Museum exhibit “Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms” Asia Society and Museum Museum exhibit

11/27/2015 “Grand Central Holiday Fair” Grand Central Terminal Fair

“The Flick” Barrow Street Theater Play

By Liam Elkind The Cold War. A time of perpetual fear and distrust. From this tumultuous tension among two world superpowers arose a new era of espionage. Acclaimed director Steven Spielberg’s latest film, “Bridge of Spies,” tackles the true story of an American lawyer thrust into the midst of this heated political and military conflict.

“Christmas in Richmond Town” Historic Richmond Town Christmas fair “Double Dutch Holiday Classic” Apollo Theater Double Dutch showcase

“Bridge of Spies” Takes a New, Fresh Perspective on the Cold War tatively, with great care. Yet as he faces increasing resistance, James Donovan does not back down; on the contrary, his gravitas and passion grow in every scene. In one of the final shots of the film, Donovan stands up straight, feet planted fi mly in the snow, facing off the might of injustice.

Rudolph Abel even commends Donovan for his ability to continue to stand up and fight,

The film becomes a buddy movie: an atypical Butch and Sundance film.

It’s just that in this movie, the Butch and the Sundance happen to be on viciously opposing sides.

The Americans have captured Soviet spy Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance), and—in the interest of presenting themselves as upholders of an upright and just country— they appoint insurance lawyer James Donovan (Tom Hanks) to be his defense attorney. While reluctant at first, Donovan becomes increasingly devoted to his job, fighting tirelessly to ensure that Abel gets his due process. While Steven Spielberg is no stranger to high-quality, gritty filmmaking, he outdoes himself in his latest film, presenting a beautifully nuanced drama about the significance of the individual’s bravery.

Perhaps no theme is more central to this film than that of courage. James Donovan is a quiet family man who is unwillingly thrown into unfamiliar terrain. He is dressed modestly, and carries himself with little conviction, quietly assuming the role of the unimposing underdog. Yet over the course of the film, he develops into a stronger, braver man. Tom Hanks’s portrayal of this transformation is clean and clear during every beat. Each step toward bravery is taken ten-

Sunday

despite constant setbacks. Indeed, many parallels are drawn between the two men—most notably that of their shared determination and unrelenting bravery in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. In a strange way, the film almost becomes a buddy movie: an atypical Butch and Sundance film. It’s just that in this movie, the Butch and the Sundance happen to be on viciously opposing sides.

because of the carefully developed image of the United States as an imperfect country.

The first scene of the film focuses entirely on Abel, and is told in complete and perfect silence. The movie opens on Abel sitting in his house, painting. He receives a call. The instructions given to him on the phone are left unheard by the audience, but can be seen as flashes of pain and reluctance streak across Rylance’s face. Throughout the movie, Rylance makes good use of his character’s loose physicality and expressive eyes to betray emotion without revealing what that emotion is; it becomes clear that Abel has many secrets and fears, but the audience is never completely privy to them.

And this is a theme that recurs throughout the movie.

The impacts of high-stakes espionage are shown to the audience through slow, fascinatingly satisfying reveals. This quiet, level pace of the movie does not obstruct the high stakes of the situations our heroes find themselves in. On the contrary, it is deliberately chosen, raising the tense nature of two countries at war, never pulling the trigger.

The film brilliantly captures this strained relationship.

While this is an American film, Spielberg effectively captures the depths and complexities of an entire world at war without giving preference to either country. Neither of the major world powers is presented as the savior of justice. Indeed, Donovan is fighting for a Rus-

Christine Jegarl / The Spectator

FILM

12/06/2015

Friday

ering a much more nuanced image of the warring nations.

From the first scene, the United States is presented claustrophobically, in nauseatingly yellow lighting and tight, focused shots of stuffed, sweaty trains. This is juxtaposed with the blindingly white and snowy atmosphere of the Soviet Union, made up of clean and unsettlingly peaceful streets. This comparison highlights the faults of both nations, while elucidating the role Donovan plays as the connection between the two countries. Like Abel and Donovan, the two countries are delib-

The quiet, level pace of the movie is deliberately chosen, raising the tense nature of two countries at war, never pulling the trigger.

Mark Rylance delivers a fla less performance as Rudolph Abel. Despite being a Soviet spy, the audience can’t help but root for him because of his effortless charm and wittiness. He becomes a sympathetic character

sian spy against the overwhelming odds placed on him by a corrupting United States. Rather than cheaply falling to the clichéd image of America as the land of the free, Spielberg retains his historical credibility by deliv-

erately portrayed as foils of each other. Enemies, yes, but both brave in their own way.

Spielberg, despite directing a politically substantive, impactful drama, allows for the development of humor within his film.

Hanks beautifully captures the awkwardness of a man balancing his rambunctious home life with his more politically charged legal office life. When he travels to the USSR, he develops a pesky cold that serves both as a source of humor, and a way to demonstrate his struggle against unfamiliar terrain.

Rylance, too, uses humor to develop his character further, gaining increased sympathy and support from the audience for a Russian spy. When Donovan asks Abel, “Aren’t you nervous?”

Abel immediately and coolly responds, “Would it help?” Abel, though a philosopher, uses humor to sway the sympathy toward his side.

This dichotomy between humor and drama works well in “Bridge of Spies” to portray a well-rounded view of the Cold War as a whole, as well as the struggle Donovan undergoes protecting the undoubtedly guilty Abel. Under Spielberg’s expert directing of a gritty and humorous take on the shadows of the Cold War, “Bridge of Spies” emerges as a beautifully nuanced, intense film that asks us to reconsider our knowledge of—and, indeed, our perspective on—one of the most significant times in our nation’s history.

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 22

Arts and Entertainment A Spectre-cular Sequel

FILM

By TJ Westfall Under giant skeleton balloons, hundreds of people dressed in black dance and celebrate the Day of the Dead.

Above the morbidly cheerful festivities, James Bond (Daniel Craig) hops along the dusty roofs of Mexico City’s buildings, chasing a target. The chase then escalates to a full-on brawl when Bond closely tails the villain into a helicopter. After a fantastic two-minute exchange of the classic 007 fist-fightin 100 feet in the air, Bond throws both the villain and the pilot out of the helicopter and flies himself to safety.

This rousing four-minute shot opens “Spectre,” the 24th installment of the 007 series.

The film, directed by Sam Mendes, who already had “Skyfall” under his belt, is set in several exotic locations. From the snowy mountains of Austria to the sun-drenched city of Morocco, British Secret Service agent James Bond uncovers the truth behind the mysterious terrorist organization known as Spectre and attempts to foil their evil plans. High-speed car chases, stupefying fight scenes, and the trademark “Bond girls” come together to create a worthy successor to “Skyfall.” While Mendes keeps the film fresh from its predecessors through new character developments and remarkable filmog aphy, the plot itself can be intimidating for new viewers to follow.

Mendes puts a lot of focus on the relationships between the characters, especially those involving Bond. With the lik-

Karen Lai / The Spectator

Music

By Sophie Feng On the heels of their fall tour in late support of their January 2015 album “American Beauty/ American Psycho,” Fall Out Boy released a remix album titled “Make America Psycho Again” (perhaps an allusion to Donald Trump’s ongoing presidential campaign) in late October. The album is composed primarily of collaborations with rappers such as Juicy J, Azealia Banks,

able Craig returning to portray the no-questions, smooth-talking Bond for the fourth time, Mendes assigns previously unseen emotion to the character between action scenes. Rather than solely focusing on Bond and his missions as seen in the older film , Mendes makes

(Christoph Waltz), who turns out to be the main villain and leader of Spectre, creating a compelling conflict unlike any seen in the fil ’s predecessors.

The fil ’s cinematography does justice to all the scenes, no matter how fast or complicated they are. Take the opening

into the back of the truck, snapping its wings into two. The two vehicles then tumble down the snowy mountain; the fast and unexpected way this scene unfolds calls for very precise shots that Mendes does perfectly. He places a camera on the bottom of the biplane to give a bird’s-

High-speed car chases, stupefying fight scenes, and the trademark “Bond girls” come together to create a worthy successor to “Skyfall.”

Bond’s relationship with Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), an Austrian physician, a source of perpetual emotional conflict.

Swann initially seems to be a normal “Bond girl,” doubling as a love interest and eye candy, but Mendes elevates her character to a new level of importance. Unlike the previous “Bond girls” who never left Bond’s side and supported him until the end, Swann questions the morality of Bond’s actions right before the final scene, saying that she cannot be with a man who kills from the shadows. This refreshing change in the fil ’s characterization can also be seen in Bond’s stepbrother, Ernst Stavro Blofeld

scene: The villain, a low-level member of Spectre, is pushing his way through a crowd to flee from Bond. Focusing on one person in a huge throng of people isn’t easy, but Mendes makes it look so. He places the camera right in front of the villain, who is hastily shoving people aside in an attempt to escape. This shot only lasts for fi e seconds but is just one of the many angles that Mendes clearly put a lot of thought into.

Mende’s sequences shine again during the action scene in Austria. Swann is kidnapped by members of Spectre, and Bond is chasing their truck in a biplane. As the truck tries to lose Bond by cutting through a forest, he crashes his biplane

eye view of the action below, a nice change from the usual onthe-ground shots.

Mendes sets the film to take place right after the events of “Skyfall.” Without proper clarification of the major plot points in the previous installment, a new viewer will be confused at the beginning of “Spectre.” For example, the plot is set in motion by the death of the previous “M,” the leader of the company Bond works for. In addition, the dual plot structure of “Spectre” makes it a bit complicated for a 007 movie. Accompanying the main conflict is a subplot concerning the future of

Bond’s job, which was hinted at in “Skyfall.” Following both the action with Bond and the drama back in London is harder than it should be.

With 23 previous films with the same protagonist, it’s hard to believe that Mendes pulled it off a second time. Perhaps Mendes could have made all potential audiences feel comfortable with the somewhat confusing storyline, but “Spectre” certainly lived up to expectations, and in some cases, even exceeded them. There was almost nothing lacking in the film, from the immersive plot to the carefully detailed costumes.

It’s clear that “Spectre” isn’t the last in the series, and the world will definitely welcome Mendes’s next work with open arms.

Sijia Ma / The Spectator

Dear Fall Out Boy, Make a Good Album Again and Migos, and brings a more techno-oriented sound to the pop-punk tracks of “American Beauty/American Psycho” by overlaying poppy guitar riffs with heavy beats.

The rap collaboration has miffed fans fond of the more rock-inclined tracks of Fall Out Boy’s previous albums; however, these fans fail to recognize that throughout Fall Out Boy’s career, the band has never been a stranger to rap music. From their small collaboration with Jay-Z on “Infinity On High” in 2007 to their co-headlining summer tour with Wiz Khalifa, Fall Out Boy has often encouraged rap as a means of enhancing its music, albeit these experiences were received half-heartedly by fans. If these prior run-ins with rap were akin to a wink, “Make America Psycho Again” comes as a wholehearted embrace.

One might wonder if the

The addition of rap proves itself to, for the most part, complement the music, though it never quite makes a track anything better than it was before.

sound produced by infusing pop-punk with rap would truly work, seeing as it is mostly unexplored by artists in the same vein. However, in the case of the tracks on “Make America Psycho Again,” the addition of rap proves itself to, for the most part, complement the music, though it never quite makes a track anything better than it was before. In many songs, singer Patrick Stump’s voice is stripped of the heavy background noise that characterizes “American Beauty/American Psycho,” and this change makes his melodies more powerful and evocative.

This is especially true for tracks such as “Immortals” and “Uma Thurman.”

Though some remixes work well, not all of them stand out.

They aren’t so much bad as insignificant, adding nothing to the original tracks. There isn’t one remix that is significantly catchy or original, and this leaves most fans content with only listening to the original album.

The lyrics of the rap additions are also nothing particularly special, including lines such as “Her booty look pregnant” from the remix of the track “American Beauty/American Psycho” featuring A$AP Ferg.

However, the occasional lyric is pleasantly endearing, such as Big K.R.I.T.’s yearning addition to “Jet Pack Blues”: “I just keep up all the pieces that I left you in, hoping, praying when

I’m home I see you again.” Or Azealia Banks’s line in “The Kids Aren’t Alright”: “Let me tell truth, I like me some you, and if you alright with me, then a bride got a groom.”

One remix’s lyrics stand out as the album’s most meaning-

fit what Fall Out Boy is singing about. Though Black Thought’s verse is certainly stirring, it does not work as an addition on “Immortals,” a song that was originally written for the soundtrack of the Disney movie “Big Hero 6.”

The oftentimes vulgar rapping goes against the meaningful declarations of love that preside in Fall Out Boy’s original lyrics.

ful, the track being “Immortals” featuring Black Thought. Black Thought, known for his politically aware lyrics, raps in this song about the racial tensions in Ferguson, speaking such poignant lines as “It’s already gon’ be another martyr, it’s already gon’ be another murder, the nature of the monster we’re a part of, say a little prayer for your son, for your daughter.”

The rap addition to “Immortals” comes from a black perspective that the entirely white members of Fall Out Boy are unable to relate to, and perhaps this is the best example of the crisis that is being faced by the majority of this album: the content of the rap just doesn’t

And similarly with the rest of the album, the oftentimes vulgar rapping goes against the meaningful declarations of love that preside in Fall Out Boy’s original lyrics. Although this doesn’t affect the overall sound of the album, it often reduces these remixes to nothing more than background noise: unmeaningful and unmemorable.

Though Fall Out Boy has attempted a bold musical endeavor with this remix album, it’s not quite on par with the rest of the band’s repertoire. Is it fun to dance to? Of course. Will you listen to it on occasion? Yeah, sure. Will it ever fulfill the title of the track “Favorite Record”?

Probably not.

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 23

Arts and Entertainment Star Cross(wor)’d Lovers ACROSS 2. Clark Kent and Lara ______ 4. Baz’s Romeo 7. Bonnie and ______ 8. Was in a committed relationship with Mark Antony—so committed, in fact, that they committed suicide together 10. Hazel ______ Lancaster and Augustus Waters 11. ______ Mountain: film about sta -crossed cowboys 14. “Oh there ain’t no love, no ______ or Capulets” 15. A man and his machine 18. Lancelot and the Queen of ______ 19. Could not help but lust after Adonis 20. Man who coined the phrase

DOWN 1. Gatsby’s elusive love 3. Juliet’s (Claire Danes) costume 5. According to the Disney movie, John Smith’s Native American love interest 6. “Heathcliff, it’s me, your ______!”

9. Oedipus’s lady lover 12. Angel or Spike?

13. The ______ Lovers: Chinese tale of a tragic romance 16. Ship name for the Hunger Games’s starcrossed pair 17. Composed an opera about Tristan und Isolde

Answers for Issue 5 1. DOUGHNUT 2. KATZ’S 3. S’MAC 4. FACTORY 5. PAYAYA (Across), PINKBERRY (Down) 6. ZABAR’S 7. NUM 8. SHAKE 9. CEREAL 10. JUICE 11. MAGNOLIA 12. DAUGHTERS 13. BAREBURGER 14. POTATOPIA 15. GOLDEN 16. GAY 17. SIXTEEN 18. MOAZ 19. CRUMBS 20. FAMOUS 21. DINER 22. PUB

Jennifer Huang / The Spectator

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The Spectator ● December 1, 2015

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The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 26

Humor A Very Serious Review of New Albums from Justin Bieber and One Direction

By WinTon Yee I listen to mostly mainstream music, which I guess means I have bad taste in music.

Anyway, on an unrelated note, the Biebs and our favorite fourmember boy band from Britain recently released albums, and I listened to them and now I’m reviewing them. For all you kids who were heartbroken by the lack of a “1989” review in the Spectator last year, this one’s for you.

“Purpose” by Justin Bieber Earlier this year, the smash hit “Where Are Ü Now,” featuring the Biebs, was released. The Biebs’ emotive, breathy voice, mixed with an electronic hook resembling the cry of a freshwater pelican in distress, lead to rampant speculation that it was soon going to be slightly less embarrassing to admit to listening to the Canadian artist. “Purpose,” the Biebs’ fourth studio album, is just what the doctor ordered: a soulful, artistic, Canadian album in which the Biebs finally grows up.

“Purpose” has two types of songs: electronic dance songs in which the hook is a subdued version of the aforementioned freshwater pelican cry, and more stripped-down acoustic songs. Certain songs on the album perfectly mix the dance/ soulful motifs: for example, on “Children,” we get a super-slick electronic hook that makes us bop our heads, but then the Biebs hits us with the lyric: “What about the children?”

The best part of the album is a trio of songs that strike early, starting with the third song, “What Do You Mean?” Released

as the album’s lead single, “What Do You Mean?” has dominated the charts, and it’s easy to see why. The Biebs’ soulful falsetto resounds above a rather pleasant metronomic clock beat, and the chorus incorporates many sounds I didn’t even know existed before I heard them (including a “wee WOO wee” and a “da du da du”).

Following that experience comes “Sorry,” also released prior to the album. Biebs goes with the breathy falsetto here instead of the soulful falsetto, and the effect is astounding— it’s as if he’s breathing right on

is the Biebs’ statement to the world. Soulful piano plays in the background as Biebs hits soul-ful falsetto, and we are taken on a journey. “I put my heart into your hands,” the Biebs croons. “You give me purpose.” “Pur-pose,” the album, is the Biebs’ heart, put into our hands. As we look at the Biebs’ heart, we see the various electronic animal noises within him and many beautiful ways that he sings falsetto. Coming in at 19 songs long, “Purpose” gives us a long time to look at that heart. It’s a pretty nice one.

As we look at Biebs’ heart, we see the various electronic animal noises within him and many beautiful ways which he sings falsetto. our necks. The chorus is an undeniable call to get up and dance, with loud synths, a rapidly increasing tempo, and the Biebs’ cries of “Sor-REE” mix with the AutoTuned sample of a confused toddler. On the heels of “Sorry” is the stripped-down “Love Yourself,” an elegant middle finger in musical form sung over a groovy guitar. “My momma don’t like you, and she likes everyone,” the Biebs sings, and the sass is palpable. And then a really sweet trumpet plays during the bridge.

The title track, “Purpose,”

“Made in the A.M.”

by One Direction Directioners were hit hard this year, with former member Zayn Malik’s departure from the band and news that the boys would be taking a year-long hiatus after releasing their new album, which many dreaded was the death knell of 1D. However, even with these obstacles in the past and future, One Direction has crafted another classic with “Made in the A.M.,” as the band’s sound evolves from sorta-rock, sorta-pop to maybe-rock, possibly-pop.

Short People Planning to Overthrow Tall People’s Reign

Ashley Lin/ The Spectator

the other hand, short people feel ecstatic when they see another fellow below-average height person, and the feeling

By Alexandra Wen Those shorter than 5’5” are starting to take action as the reign of those with heightinducing genes continues on.

Having already waited for many of their teenage years, they are done waiting for puberty to make them hot. At this point, they just want their growth spurt.

“Tall people need to grow shorter!” sophomore Marie Ivantechenko, at the height of 5’4”, cried out in rage. “You need shortness to survive in the real world! Natural selection will catch up to them. They’ll all die out and we’ll just be stuck with short people!”

Despite the amount of hate that somehow remains inside a short person without them

blowing up, tall people feel differently about those that are shorter. Much differently. “I feel like they’re normal people. Height shouldn’t matter; it’s personality that matters,” sophomore Kenneth Wong said. Quickly, he added on, “Short people tend to be cuter.

Just saying.”

The one-sided hate is linked with the one-sided teasing, and different reactions to seeing someone taller or someone shorter. While tall people are able to tease basically anyone they’d like to, their self-esteem falls short when they see someone taller. It’s like a fight for dominance to see who’s more powerful. Biology teacher Ms. Banfield laughed, “Oh yeah, y’all get vicious. It’s like you’re about to fight each other!” On

“Tall people need to grow shorter!”

—Marie ivantechenko, sophomore

only grows when realizing the other is shorter than they are.

Those that are neither considered tall nor short feel indifferent to the topic of height.

Freshman Addison Huang, sitting at either 5’4” or 5’5” (according to him), said, “I just view them as people; they aren’t really different. But to be honest, it’d be nice if no one cut off my legs.”

Like all of 1D’s albums before it, “Made in the A.M.” is comprised exclusively of love songs, exactly how I like my albums. No introspection, no politicization, no hard questions that force me to examine the bubble within which I live: just good ol’ music ‘bout lovin’ people. Though literally all of 1D’s songs are about love, 1D has never been called out on this fact, unlike, say, Taylor Swift. So maybe the media is sexist? Possibly? Anyway, back to the good ol’ music ‘bout lovin’ people.

The vibes of “Made in the A.M.” are similar to those of Taylor Swift’s once-in-a-generation work, “1989” (though “1989” is far superior)—it’s got its upbeat parts, it’s got its slower parts, but it’s still a chill album, the type of album you might listen to while raking some leaves.

The core songs of the album, all released prior to the full album’s release, come one right after another. “Drag Me Down” is a sassifracilicous song where the boys talk about their gals’ loves, leading to an infectious chorus in which all sorts of musical things happen. “Perfect” is a slick song about doing all sorts of crazy teenagery things, like “cars,” “secret little rendezvous,” and “going places we can’t even pronounce.” “Infinity” then spins us closer to puppy love, and we get a spacey, echoey version of the boys, who agonize over lost love. So sad. So beautiful.

1D keeps the low-key charm for “I Want to Write You a Song,” an expertly crafted second-person serenade that makes us feel as if One Direction is actually serenading us. The boys switch

off melodies until they near the chorus, at which point a really cool “ooOOoOOoooOOOOOO” enters the fray. The beauty of every syllable of that “ooOOoOOoooOOOOOO” hits close to home, putting this song up there with “Little Things” in the List of One Direction Songs to Use for a Promposal. The song “A.M.” delivers a similarly beautiful message about lovin’ a gal (or guy), though the really cool “ooOOoOOoooOOOOOO” is replaced by a guitar. It’s still a good song, though.

“Made in the A.M.” doesn’t fail to come through with the happy riffs we’ve come to love the boys for, either.

“Wolves” is a jaunty, upbeat song about newfound love (and there’s even a pretty sweet “ooOOOooOOOoOOO.”) In “History,” above a sick nasty guitar and sick nasty acoustic clapping, the boys literally belt out, “WE CAN LIVE FOREVER.” One Direction’s range across all these songs, from singing words to singing “ooOOOOooooOOOO,” is incredible.

Many speculate that this is One Direction’s last album and its “thanks for the memories” effort. Whether that’s true or not, 1D has come through once again with an album about breaking up, courting, and relationship-ing. The boys would have a lot to be proud of if they decided to call it now, but I’m hoping that this isn’t their last hurrah. That would make me very sad. The boys put it best in “Infinity”: “How many nights does it take to count the stars?

That’s the time it would take to fix my heart.”

Pope Reverses Church Position on Being Catholic

By Randolph Higgins THE VATICAN — Pope Francis announced this Friday that the Catholic Church would reverse its long-held position on whether people should be Catholic. In keeping with his message that the Catholic Church needs to adapt to the 21st Century, the Pope said that it should not be the Church’s prerogative to tell people whether Jesus Christ was or wasn’t our Lord and Savior.

Speaking before a congregation in the Vatican, the Holy Father was quoted as saying, “Our primary goal should be to remove from our society any and all delineation based on sex, orientation or religion—I can think of no better starting point for this than the total disavowal of most Church actions.”

One of the oldest and largest institutions on earth, the Catholic Church has been operating for nearly two millennia and has over a billion followers. However, in the last few decades, reform movements have sought to change the way Catholicism is preached throughout the world.

This latest change would end the practice of having priests tell both Catholics and non-Catholics that Jesus Christ died for our sins, because the practice has been deemed imperialistic and bigoted. It would also end the practice of confession. “Who

are we to absolve you of sin? The Church shouldn’t be able to tell you what God thinks is good and bad—that’s for you to decide,” Pope Francis said.

Although some have criticized the gutting of Catholic theology as unchristian, the Pope has defended the change. “It continues to be my policy to adapt Catholic liturgy to whatever Catholics seem to really want—attempting to derive religious practices from the contents of the Bible would be ludicrous,” said Francis, adding that the move would help stem the flow of people from the Church, since Catholics who have forgotten to officially renounce Catholicism would be counted among the Church’s members.

For many Catholics, the move is a much needed change. One Catholic who asked not to be named told reporters, “For a long time, I’ve struggled with keeping my faith. The Catholic Church thinks that going as hard as I do is somehow a choice but I was born that way. I can’t control whether I cheat on my wife or murder someone, so the Church should stop being so judgmental.”

The Pope will officially codify the change next week. The Church has said that translated copies of the Papal Bull will “be made available in churches worldwide this Christmas, or Easter, or whenever people decide to come in—we don’t really care.”

The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 27

Humor These articles are works of fiction. All quotes are libel and slander.

New 34th St-Hudson Yards Station Affects Students’ Health

By Michael Xu On September 13, the MTA opened the new Western terminus of the 7 train at 34th St-Hudson Yards. The station features pristine benches and gum-free floors, which is a new design trend that the MTA has been embracing, in contrast to its previous theme of stained floors and graffitied walls. We polled Stuyvesant students about their opinion on the new station, and the response to the clean escalators, non-sticky floors, and airy design was overwhelmingly negative.

The student body found the lack of vomit to be disconcerting, and the lack of human waste pungent to the mind.

For sophomore Mahesh Saha, the new station took a devastating toll on his health. He quipped, “Prior to the opening of the new station, there were plenty of seats on the train at Times Square, but nowadays, the train is packed by

the time it reaches there. Plus, the new station has turned into

station has resulted in so much sleep deprivation that even com-

“Students are coming in constantly complaining about back pain. They find standing too painful. Why can’t they manage to carry 100-pound backpacks for an hour? That is very easy to do.” —Anna Markova, physical education teacher a major tourist attraction. I don’t know why they are so engrossed by the cleanliness, but because of them, I haven’t slept since the new station opened.” The new

By Jacob Faber-Rico Calling it an “abomination,” the Student Union voted to ban the long held practice of samesex square dancing in a meeting on Friday, November 13.

For many years, physical education teachers have dealt with the unequal numbers of boys and girls in their freshmen classes by forcing boys to dance with boys, or in rare cases, girls to dance with girls. Now, teachers will be required to structure their classes such that these “sinful” and “kinda awkward” situations are avoided.

“It’s simple: same-sex square dancing is morally wrong and has no place in our school,” said SU President Ares Aung. “While I have nothing against the students who engage in such behavior, or the teachers who encourage it, I strongly believe that square dancing should be strictly between one man and one woman.”

Other members are worried about the long-term consequences of continuing to allow same-sex square dancing. “Square dancing has always been between boys and girls, so if we allow samesex couples, then where do we draw the line? Families may be allowed to dance together. Students may be allowed to dance with animals. We may have to allow groups of three, four, maybe eight people,” said Senior Caucus President William Yang. “Animals might actually dance better, but it’s still wrong. And eight-person groups? I think we can all agree that would be horrible.”

Still, some had simpler arguments. “It’s just weird,” said SU Vice President Matthew So.

ing,” Merrick said. “I just can’t wait to get chlamydia,” added Merrick, when asked which disease excited him most. “It sounds delicious.”

Other students, such as sophomore Clare Babski, are overjoyed by the fact that their attendance at such events is now school-sponsored. “Any regrettable and potentially illegal actions I commit are no longer my problem, since the school has given the OK,” said

Although most of the SU is content with only abolishing same-sex square dancing, radicals such as Senior Caucus Vice President Daniel Poleshchuk would like to take it much further.

Here is an excerpt from the fiery speech Poleshchuk delivered to the SU last Friday: “Today, our prestigious institution is under attack from those who wish to strip us of our traditional values, and as the greatest school in the world, we must stand up to them. Certainly,

Taylor Choi/ The Spectator

By Laszlo Sandler

“It’s just weird.”

—Matthew So, SU Vice President same-sex square dancing is an obscenity, and it must be abolished. However, that will not solve our problems. If we want to truly restore the honor and morality that this great school deserves, we must get rid of the awkward and disgraceful monstrosity that is square dancing, period.”

No matter how far the SU takes the issue of same-sex square dancing, it is clear that they will continue to make more hardline conservative decisions.

At the last meeting, the Aung Administration also outlined plans to illegalize recreational marijuana, defund the broken escalator system, and build a wall to keep out students who wish to enter the building before the warning bell.

the cost of construction. As the MTA builds the new light rail system over the next 150 years, students are dressing up as elderly, pregnant women to get seats. on you, but it’s just the creepy ones who do it.”

And it’s not only incomers who have problems with dibscalling. Upperclassmen with incoming younger siblings are also denouncing the practice. “I’d be totally pissed if someone in my grade was going after my sister [freshman Anna Lanzman],” Lanzman said. “But, like, if she weren’t my sister it would totally be fair game.”

With dibs-calling season set to come to a close in the next few days, junior Zachary Wakefield is optimistic that his work will pay off. “I’ve called a lot of dibs over these past few years,” said Wakefield, peering over the halffloor through a pair of binoculars. “Hopefully it’ll be 43rd time lucky.”

Sophomores Granted Out-to-Free Privileges

Jiaqi Gao/ The Spectator

Conservative SU Votes to Abolish Same-Sex Square Dancing

puter science teachers felt pity for students.

As a matter of fact, student visits to the school nurse have gone up exponentially since the

opening of the new station. The school now has a new Assistant Principal of Student Health, Wellbeing and Metaphysical Balance, filled by Dr. Markova. She told us, “Students are coming in constantly complaining about back pain. They find standing too painful. Why can’t they manage to carry 100-pound backpacks for an hour? That is very easy to do. Back in my day, I had to carry 500-pound backpacks for a month’s supply of food.” Indeed, the new station has resulted in many grievances for Stuyvesant students, namely the freshmen with backpacks the size of televisions.

As a solution, students are advocating for a light-rail system that will create an alternative to the extremely packed 7 train.

The school’s new Engineering for World Peace club generously made designs for the system, while the Investing in Public Transportation club will cover

Following a petition from senior Krzysztof Hochlewicz and the lobbying from Student Union president Ares Aung, sophomores were granted outto-free privileges on October 28. The privilege now gives sophomores permission to attend frees—a colloquial term for parties, often hosted and attended by thirsty, sweaty high school students, where alcohol, drugs, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are available in abundance.

One major fear expressed by the Stuyvesant faculty following the announcement is that the sophomore student body is not yet mature enough to be trusted with this privilege.

“How can students be ready to venture into the world of frees before they have taken health and learned about the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid?” health teacher Lisa Weinwurm asked.

To the dismay of those who are more responsible, some students, such as sophomore Sam Merrick, have illustrated that

they might not yet be ready. “I don’t know what the ‘transmit-

“Now that the school permits it, my parents won’t even be able to get mad when I get home after 7:00.”

—Clare Babski, sophomore

ted’ or ‘disease’ in ‘STD’ means, but since it has the word ‘sexually,’ it must be something excit-

“how can students be ready to venture into the world of frees before they have taken health and learned about the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid?”— Lisa Weinwurm, health teacher

a delighted Babski, adding that she now plans to attend as many frees as possible. “And, best of all, now that the school permits it, my parents won’t even be able to get mad when I get home after 7:00.”

In response to confusion over whether the privilege regards frees or free periods, Principal Jie Zhang offered to clarify for The Spectator. “In no way does this permit sophomores to go out during their free periods,” Zhang said. “If we gave out-to-free [period] privileges to underclassmen, what reason would upperclassmen have to feel good about themselves?”

Page 28

The Spectator ● June 14, 2011

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The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

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The Spectator ● December 2, 2015

Page 31

Sports Girls’ Volleyball

Nancy Cao / The Spectator

Vixens Move On to Quarterfinals

Olivia Kusio is ready to spike as the Stuyvesant Vixens plays against Metropolitan High School in the Girls Varsity Volleyball Second Round Playoffs.

By Andrew Qu The stands were full when the Vixens, Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity volleyball team, faced the Metropolitan Campus’s Lady Knights in their second round playoff game on Thursday, November 12. Though the match was held in Stuyvesant’s gym, the audience was mostly packed with the Lady Knights’ family members, who enthusiastically whooped, applauded, and cheered at every point the Knights scored. While they didn’t feel much of a homecourt advantage, the Vixens still narrowly bested the Lady Knights 25-23 in the first set, and then rallied together for an overwhelming 25-8 victory in the second. With this, the Vixens were propelled into the PSAL quarterfinals.

The first set proved to be competitive from the very beginning and continued to be so, as neither team led by more than three points through the entire game. Junior Chloe Delfau opened up with a score for the Vixens. However, the quick offensive start did not necessarily translate to their defense as

the Lady Knights quickly came back with two straight points.

Poor communication between two Vixens left both motionless as the Lady Knights attacked, and on the next play, a poor bump hit the ceiling and fell at an odd angle.

The match continued back and forth, with neither team gaining a clear advantage. Kills were hard to come by as both teams picked up their defense as the game went on. Seniors and co-captains Mariya Kulyk and Tammy Liang notably played major roles in the Vixens’ defense as each contributed five digs, hits that receive attacks and prevent the ball from hitting the floor. “They really tested our defense. We couldn’t lower our energy,” senior Ashley Xia Lin said.

In order to get past a stiff Lady Knight’s defense, the Vixen’s frontline employed several scoring tactics. In one play, Kulyk threw the defense off by faking a hard spike, then tipping the ball lightly over the net, giving the Vixens a 7-5 lead.

Unfortunately, the Vixens could not follow up Kulyk’s point, as a few hits into the net shifted the lead over.

Later, junior Madeleine Ostergaard attempted a dump, a maneuver in which the setter tips the ball over the net on the team’s second hit. However, it wasn’t the optimal time to attempt a dump; the Lady Knights were ready to block the surprise attack. “A lot of their points were from our mistakes,” Liang said.

The Lady Knights made their own mistakes, too. On consecutive plays, poor bumps sent the ball into the basketball boards hanging on the sides of the gym. The rest of the first set was marred with nets, outs, and technical errors on both sides.

The predominantly Metrotech audience was fired up after an out by Lin tied the game 23-23. Unfortunately for them, Kulyk scored a kill to put her team up one point, and a double-touch violation by the Lady Knights handed the set to the Vixens, 25-23. Coach Vasken Choubaralian acknowledged his team’s struggles. “We made a lot of attack errors in the first set,” Choubaralian said. “Also, we didn’t know what to expect; we underestimated them.”

The closeness of the first set served as a wake-up call to the Vixens. This was evident

as the Vixens visibly improved in the second set, making significantly fewer errors. With the second set tied at 2-2, the Vixens began to pull forward due to several mistakes from the Lady Knights; poor bumps and service errors resulted in easy points for the Vixens.

While the Lady Knights continued to make unforced errors, the Vixens’ offense picked up.

Ostergaard performed wonderfully, setting perfectly for strong hits by both Kulyk, who finished with nine kills, and junior Olivia Kusio, who finished with three. Ostergaard’s spectacular setting also allowed the Vixens to execute tandem attacks with precision. Their unpredictable offense put a lot of pressure on the Lady Knights, who appeared to be tiring as the game went on.

After the Vixens went up 13-4, the Lady Knights scored after Liang was too far away to save a kill. However, they immediately lost possession afterwards, serving the ball into the net. The two teams played evenly for a while, and the Lady Knights scored some wellaimed kills that, again, were too

did not actually make contact with the ball and didn’t interfere with the play, there was no fault. In fact, the play would not have had any significant bearing on the game, as the Vixens ended the set with a 7-0 run, winning 25-8.

Ostergaard credited her team’s dominant performance in the second set to their energy. “Our energy was a lot higher; energy is just as important as physical capability,” Ostergaard said. It was unusual seeing the Lady Knights struggling so much, since they finished the regular season with a clean 10-0 record. Ostergaard also acknowledged her team’s “consistent serving.” The Vixens finished with five aces and 25 service points.

While both teams struggled in the first set, the second set was a different story, with the Lady Knights continuing to make unforced errors and the Vixen pulling it together. “We started off on a positive note, good plays in the beginning,” Choubaralian said. “We built confidence and confidence led to fewer errors.”

Indeed, the Vixen’s errors

“We made a lot of attack errors in the first set. Also we didn’t know what to expect; we underestimated them.”

—Vasken Choubaralian, coach

far from Liang for digs.

The Vixens were up by nine points when a controversial call by the referee upset the crowd.

The Vixens just barely managed to get the ball over to the Lady Knights, and the Lady Knights netted it as they tried to return it on their first hit. During the process, a Vixen collided with the net while trying to hit the ball. Shouts of “Call it both ways!” and “Open your eyes!” were directed at the referee, but because the Vixen in question

almost lost them the first set.

However, as the playoffs continue and they face stronger teams, mistakes will become more and more costly. Choubaralian has also noted in the past that they have some trouble brushing off mistakes and staying focused. In addition, the Vixens won sets by as much as 20 points sometimes in the regular season. The change in competition could catch them off guard in the future, as it did on this occasion.

Boys’ Bowling

Spartans End With Confidence

By Nadia Filanovsky The boys’ bowling team entered the playoffs with an impressive 8-3 record, and won their first game 2-0 against the Academy of American Studies Eagles. “In the first round of the playoffs, we were the underdogs, but with persistence and teamwork, we outlasted the other team and advanced to the next round,” senior and co-captain Eric Zhou said. Both rounds were close, with Team A scoring 545 versus the Eagles’ 531, and Team B scoring 409 versus the Eagles’ 393.

Unfortunately, the next game in the playoffs did not go as well; they lost 2-0 to the Petride’s Panthers, a Staten Island school they had not played in the regular season. The first game had a combined score

of 787 (Petrides) versus 663 (Stuyvesant), and the second game had scores of 554 versus 405. The Panthers averaged close to 200 per person, while Stuyvesant only averaged slight-

Peter Strbik, a senior who had just begun playing for the team this year, played his best game of the season and scored a 234, which included seven straight strikes. “Knowing it was

“Knowing it was going to be a difficult game, I just cleared my mind and bowled the best I could.”

—Peter Strbik, senior ly over 150 in the first game.

The Spartans were still proud of themselves, though, considering that the Panthers are the fifth best team in the city.

going to be a difficult game, I just cleared my mind and bowled the best I could,” Strbik said.

Last year, the team went un-

defeated in the regular season and made it to the third round of the playoffs. Unfortunately, two-thirds of the team graduated last year. As such, the team started this year knowing the season would be difficult, especially in the beginning.

Even though the team did make it to the third round of the playoffs this year, Coach Di Wu was very happy with the team’s performance. “Overall, I consider this season a successful one after over two-thirds of the team graduated. The team certainly had its ups and downs but I am very happy with how quickly everyone bonded and collaborated. The more experienced players really took their time and helped the newcomers. Special shoutouts to my seniors who really made some clutch performances both dur-

ing the regular season and in the playoffs. Alex Baren (155), Eric Zhou (174), Sanil Dave (187), and Peter Strbik (234),” Wu said.

With the team gaining so many new players, the members have developed a great dynamic and become very supportive of each other as the season progressed. Everyone really wanted their teammates to improve, and also tried to improve their own skills.

“We encourage each other to do better and constantly try to beat our own high scores.”

Zhou said.

The majority of the team this year aren’t seniors, so that’s a bright spot for Stuyvesant.

Looking to next year, their goal is to return to their former glory and go deeper into the playoffs once again.

December 2, 2015

Page 32

The Spectator SpoRts Boys’ Basketball

SporTS caLeNDar

Adil Kabir / The Spectator

Boys Varsity Basketball Season Preview

The Runnin’ Rebels listen in as coach Phillip Fisher draws up a play during a timeout during the pre-season home opener against LAB.

By Tousif Hossain and James Ng With seven new players, an undersized roster, and an aggregate lack of experience, the 2015–2016 Running Rebels will no doubt be one of the toughest coaching experiences for coach Philip Fisher.

With so many unknowns, there will be many variables the teams must deal with this season. However, it will certainly be interesting to see how well the team can learn and perfect the offense by the start of the season.

Size will be the Rebels’ major enemy this year. This has been a reoccurring theme with the Stuyvesant basketball team, as it has traditionally been an extremely undersized team. This year will be no different, with the only exception being 6’7” freshman Frederic Minzberg. However, despite his immense size, Minzberg is still a very raw player and will likely need some development before he becomes a true threat on the court. The Rebels typically play against taller and much more athletic teams. This means they are at a disadvantage when it comes to rebounding and blocking shots. To overcome the size hurdle, the Reb-

els will really have to learn to box out collectively on defense. Everyone, down to the guards, must pick up and block out a man whenever a shot goes up.

during tight games.

Beyond all of the challenges the team faces, there are some upsides. What they lack in size, the Rebels can make up with speed and quickness. If the team uses their lack of size to their advantage, they should be able to outrun other teams on the fast break. Another advantage the Rebels have is their outside scoring and passing. With swift ball movement, the Rebels should be able to take easy shots on the perimeter. Efficient outside shooting will eventually lead to open lanes for easy drives.

This year, one should expect junior Michael Feinberg, one of last season’s top three pointer shooters, to be a major factor in the offense.

Senior Vladimir Shapiro, another returning Rebel, should also have a big scoring season. With a quick first step, and a dangerous pull-up jump shot, Shapiro is simply a natural scorer. If the Rebels maximize their advantages, they will be able to stay competitive.

“we have smart players who are all very excited to get the season started. The energy is definitely here. let’s just hope that excitement will be enough to win games.” —Felipe mansilla, captain and senior Another challenge the Rebels face is simply all of the new players on the team. With more than half the team graduating last year, including the two leading scorers, Arlex Gole and Roman Szul, the Rebels are going to have to quickly learn the offense and discover their ideal playing style. The new team captain, senior Felipe Mansilla, said, “It’s going to be tough.

We have seven rookies. It is a very new team.” Before the Rebels can be competitive, they must figure out what their team identity is, who their main scorer is going to be, and who is going to take charge

The 2015–2016 basketball season is going to be one of Stuyvesant’s most challenging. There are a lot of opportunities for the team to be very good, but it is possible to do equally as badly. The goal of the season is to make the playoffs.

However, how well the team can execute and work together will determine if they get there or not.

“We have smart players who are all very excited to get the season started,” Mansilla said. “The energy is definitely here. Let’s just hope that excitement will be enough to win games.”

Boys’ Fencing

A Great End to an Epic Season

By Xuanjia Fan with additional reporting by Aaron Choi Finishing third overall in the city and undefeated during the regular season, the Stuyvesant boys’ varsity fencing team performed well during the 2015–16 season. Led by captains Aaron Choi and Edward Ansour, the team emerged from their supposedly underperforming slump to close out the season with high hopes to do well at playoffs. With team morale and support higher than ever, the team proved once again that they are not a force to be reckoned with.

The Stuyvesant foil team displayed very high quality skill throughout the season. Choi finished the season with 69 total touches and nine match wins.

Other high performers include junior Jian Ting Gao with 89 touches and fourteen match wins and junior Lowell Weisbord with 60 touches and thirteen wins.

The foil team only had one tough rival throughout the regular season: Nest+M. Nest+M defeated the foil team 45-24 on their October 16 meet, handing the boys their first loss. During their second meet on November 6, the Stuyvesant foil team came short a mere three points, losing 42-

45. Considering the Nest+M foil team’s reputation as the number one seeded foil team last year, the Stuyvesant foil team’s loss was not unexpected.

The Stuyvesant épée team

“We’ll have our work cut out for us but if any team can turn subs into city champs it’s the fencing team.”

—Lucian Wells, junior performed with exceptional skill no team in the city could match.

Led by seniors Nicholas Yang and Ansour, the team has an almost perfect record throughout the season. While the foil struggled against Nest+M in their first matchup, the épée team had no trouble defeating its épée counterpart. Furthermore Yang and

Ansour both had perfect match records, the former finishing with 86 touches and 16 wins and the latter finishing with 85 touches and 17 wins. Another top player is senior Tinghe Lu who finished the regular season with 80 touches and 13 wins. Overall, the épée team lived up to their expectations as the top performers in the city.

Looking forward to next season, the fencing team is in a predicament. “Next year will be very different considering we’ll be losing the entire starting épée team and with it every rated fencer Stuyvesant has. We’ll have our work cut out for us but if any team can turn subs into city champs it’s the fencing team,” junior Lucian Wells said. Wells will become the épée captain next year and must fill the big shoes of Yang and Ansour.

The foil team looks to build upon the foundation they have had throughout the last few years.

They look to improve upon their level and maybe even match their Nest+M counterpart. Gao, the future foil team captain, is very optimistic for next season and confident in Stuyvesant’s chances in earning its thirteenth consecutive undefeated regular season.

“It won’t be easy, but it will be well worth it,” Gao said.

December

2 8

Boys’ Table Tennis vs.

Civic Leadership Academy at Stuyvesant H.S. Jim McKay Games Track and Field at Armory Track

6

Boys’ Basketball vs. Murry Bergtraum at Stuyvesant H.S.

Girls’ Gymnastics vs.

Christopher Columbus Campus at Stuyvesant H.S.

wRAPUP enior Danielle Wong is New York One Scholar Athlete of the Week for her outstanding performance in S tennis. tuyvesant’s varsity football team, the Peglegs, lost to Frederick Douglass High School on November 15 in S the first round of the playoffs. The Peglegs ended their season with a 4-6 record.

tuyvesant’s girls’ varsity volleyball team, the Vixens, lost to McKee Staten Island Tech High School in the S third round of the playoffs. The Vixens ended their season with a 11-1 record. Congratulations on a great season!