Volume 105, Issue 7

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume CV No. 7

December 23, 2014

Features

stuyspec.com

Stuyvesant Responds to Eric Garner Case Krista Stark / The Spectator

Newsbeat • The Stuyvesant Chess Team competed in the National Chess Championship where they received first place in the Blitz tournament, a form of speed chess. The freshman and sophomore teams placed second overall. The junior team placed first overall.

• Senior Fauna Mahootian was selected to participate in the Reischauer Scholars Program sponsored by Stanford University. The program is a rigorous online course that focuses on United States-Japanese relations with a special focus on Japanese history and culture.

• Stuyvesant Speech and Debate Team Varsity Public Forum Debate entrants Ben Kessler and Jakob Urda and novice Public Forum entrants freshman Inbar Pa’er and Abie Rohrig both placed first in the Ridge Invitational Speech and Debate Tournament.

• Computer Science teacher Michael Zamansky was invited to “Code and Beyond,” a conference that gathers leaders in the field of education technology to discuss the future. Zamansky has also received 10,000 dollars from the Digital Ocean, a digital hosting company, to subsidize his Software Development students in setting up virtual cloud servers.

• The Stuyvesant Speech and Debate Team placed second overall in the George Mason University Patriot Games. Seniors Ben Kessler and Jakob Urda won the Public Forum category and sophomore Lela Ni was a finalist in the Declamation category.

• Social Studies teacher Linda Weissman brought her Criminal Law students to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office where students listened to a presentation about the inner workings of the judicial system and were also given the opportunity to observe a criminal trial in session.

These students also recently visited New York Law School to serve as guest jurors during the law school’s mock trial program.

• Social Studies teacher Robert Sandler’s class received the opportunity to listen to Rita Meed, the daughter of noted World War Two Warsaw Ghetto resister, Vladka Meed, talk about her mother’s life. The class was also given the opportunity to listen to a presentation

by Holocaust survivor Sally Frishberg about his family’s experience during the war.

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

Several Stuyvesant students joined a large crowd protesting police brutality and racism on 25th Street and Broadway, as part of “Millions March NYC” on Saturday, December 13.

The poster on the left reads, “If this doesn’t lead to an indictment, what will? Make police accountable.”

By VANNA MAVROMATIS and NAMRA ZULFIQAR In Staten Island, New York, several police officers of the New York City Police Department approached 43-year-old Eric Garner with the suspicion that he was selling loose cigarettes illegally on July 27, 2014.

The confrontation escalated, with Garner verbally—but not physically—resisting arrest. Officer Daniel Pantaleo put Garner

The poster in the middle reads, “White Silence=White Consent.”

in a chokehold, ultimately leading to Garner’s death. Garner was black and Pantaleo is white.

A grand jury’s decision on December 3, 2014, not to indict Pantaleo, led to massive protests, rallies, and “die-ins,” where protesters lie down in a public place to raise awareness against the racism that caused the incident. Garner’s last words, “I can’t breathe,” have become the rallying cry of people demanding change.

The banner reads, “Real Thugs Wear Flag Pins.”

The case inspired sophomores Livia Kunins-Berkowitz, Zora Arum, Evan Lieberman, Solomon Medintz, and Kofi LeeBerman to lead the racial equality movement at Stuyvesant.

“I was talking to a friend from Bard who asked what Stuyvesant was doing and I said ‘Oh, nothing!’ It was frustrating. So I chatted up my friends who were also interested in social justice,” Kunins-Berkowitz said.

“We decided a meeting is the

first step. We had a lot of people who had different political ideas, looked different from each other, and had different opinions.”

Wanting to take action, the five aforementioned sophomores organized a meeting on Monday, December 8, to discuss the Eric Garner case and racial inequality. “We discussed changing speech — like how the n-word is so thrown around continued on page 2

Check out page 12 for a comprehensive look into Stuyvesant’s response to the Eric Garner case.

Senior Mohammed Islam Presents Contradictory Story About His Finances

By TINA JIANG and ARIELLA KAHAN

New York Magazine published an article on Sunday, December 14, titled “A Stuyvesant Senior Made Millions Picking Stocks” as a part of their “Reasons to Love New York” edition.

The article was about senior and president of the Stuyvesant Investment Club Mohammed Islam, and it reported that Islam had accumulated a net worth of $72 million through his trades on the stock market.

As this story began to trend on social media, some questioned the $72 million figure. On Monday, December 15, The New York Observer released an exclusive interview between Islam, his friend Damir Tulemaganbetov, and a reporter from The New York Observer in which Islam admitted that the $72 million was a hoax; Islam explained that he made $72 million on simulated trades with fake money, not with real money.

The next day, The New York Observer released a videotaped formal apology in which Islam profusely apologized Article on pages 8-9.

Are You There God? It’s Me, _____ A Buddhist, a Jew, a Muslim, an atheist, and a Catholic walk into a classroom”...what happens next you’ll have to read and find out! The Features department follows the lives of several Stuyvesant students, and how they identify with certain religions.

for lying to the media. “I’ve always dreamed of one day starting a business and becoming wealthy. But at the age of 17, I spent my recreational time doing simulated trades. My financial prowess has not been finetuned and practiced in the real world,” Islam said in the video. “I pretended to be something I’m not, and I’m more than sorry. I can’t even explain it anymore.

I didn’t fully realize the consequences of my actions.” Islam did not respond to The Spectator’s request for an interview.

In response to the amalgam of comments on social media and The New York Observer’s article, New York Magazine published an editor’s note in which they affirmed that Islam had lied to their reporter. “We were duped. Our fact-checking process was obviously inadequate; we take full responsibility and we should have known better,” New York Magazine wrote in their editor’s note.

Despite New York Magazine’s affirmation of Islam’s inaccuracies, the publication continued on page 3

Student Councils Across the City

By ARIEL LEVY and SHARON LIN One of the major campaign promises of the current Student Union (SU) leaders was to bring necessary experience to the task of governing the school, an asset they claimed to be especially important in light of the relatively new administration.

However, the SU has struggled to act without the help of a Coordinator of Student Affairs (COSA) this year. “The SU has been severely maimed without a COSA,” SU Vice President Jonathan Aung said in a previous interview with The Spectator. “The SU has to take whatever plans we have and directly ask the administration for approval, which can be pretty ineffective.” Despite lacking an adult advisor, how does the Stuyvesant student government compare to governments of other schools in the city?

In Stuyvesant, the SU student body president and vice president, as well as each grade’s president and vice president, are elected by student votes for joint tickets. Campaigns are primarily advertised using social media and in-school posters.

The elected leadership of the SU then chooses the SU Cabinet, which includes positions Article on page 16.

such as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Executive Secretary.

Student governments of high schools throughout the city have very diverse structures and election processes.

For example, the Trinity School, an independent co-educational school on the Upper West Side, operates a School Senate.

Their Senate has four representatives from each grade, each elected by student vote. The four senior representatives are candidates for Senate president, which is elected after a formal assembly during which each candidate makes a speech to the student body concerning their goals for the school year. The Senate then selects a vice president, treasurer, and speaker from a separate pool of candidates by vote. The treasurer and speaker have similar responsibilities to the CFO and Executive Secretary respectively, managing funds and taking minutes for meetings. Similarly, Townsend Harris High School, a public magnet high school in Queens, elects the members of its Student Government Executive Board. Each spring, candidates are required to make a speech to the student body to appeal for their votes. continued on page 3

A&E

The High School Rock Band Lives On A&E writer and Photo editor Anne Duncan reviews Dolly Spartans, an up-and-coming indie rock band that’s bound to make headlines in the future. Check it out on page 16.

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 2

News

By BLYTHE ZADROZNY and ARIEL LEVY

Courtesy of Michael Waxman

While most Stuyvesant students were celebrating Thanksgiving at home with their families, social studies teacher Michael Waxman was on the opposite side of the world in the Al Fateh Grand Mosque in Bahrain. After receiving a private tour of the location, Waxman was greeted by the chief Imam of Bahrain, or worship leader in the Muslim community. “It was a surreal experience,” Waxman said.

This experience was just one of several exciting events Waxman attended as a part of the sixth annual Teachers Educating Across Cultures in Harmony (TEACH) program.

TEACH is a cultural exchange and curriculum development program for United States (US) educators, organizing events in the Kingdom of Bahrain and State of Qatar where participants can connect with local professionals. The Bilateral US-Arab Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit organization of international business leaders, sponsors TEACH. After an extensive application process, including written statements and interviews, 11 applicants, including high school teachers, administrations, and university professors from various states, were selected for the program. “I was representing not only Stuyvesant, but the New York City Depart-

ment of Education and New York State as a whole,” Waxman said.

Waxman’s religious affiliation made his selection all the more important. “This was significant because an Arab institution chose a Jewish representative,” social studies teacher Anthony Valentin said.

“It says something about the individual and America as a nation.”

During the program, TEACH participants met with locals in many different professions. “The whole purpose was not only to exchange cultures between the United States and the Middle East, but [to] establish human relationships,” Waxman said. “The program was special because it connected us with people across so many different spectrums: business, education, politics, and religion.”

In the area of education, Waxman was invited to observe classes at international schools such as the American School of Doha in Qatar. He also visited branches of several American universities in the Middle East, such as Carnegie Mellon University and Georgetown University. He spoke to local faculty members about Stuyvesant and screened a Stuyvesant promotional video produced by technology teacher Elka Gould.

TEACH participants also met with executives at the Gulf Petrochemical Corporation (GPIC), a Bahraini company that uses natu-

ral gas to produce several fertilizers and petrochemicals, including ammonia and methanol. GPIC offered private tours of their refineries and hosted a banquet with traditional cuisine and dancing performances.

One of Waxman’s most significant meetings was with the first Jewish and third female Bahraini ambassador to the United States, Houda Nonoo. “I arranged in advance for a private meeting with [Nonoo],” Waxman said. “I wasn’t expecting to be invited to a private dinner at her home with her family.”

At the dinner Waxman also met with the only Jewish female member of the Bahraini Parliament, Nancy Khedouri. “As I am very interested in Jewish culture and history, I am a great admirer of Khedouri,” he said. “She wrote the definitive history of Jews in Bahrain, [‘From Our Beginning to Present Day’].”

At each meeting, Waxman exchanged gifts of Stuyvesant items such as the Stuyvesant Centennial Book of 2004, “Stuyvesant High School: The First Hundred Years,” and the Centennial Edition of The Spectator. “The Stuyvesant Alumni Association was very enthusiastic in their support,” he said. “They provided me with a ton of t-shirts and other Stuyvesant merchandise. I actually had to take an extra suitcase to carry it all.”

In addition to the official program itinerary, Waxman sought supplemental opportunities to learn more about Middle Eastern culture. “One of the highlights of the trip was a nighttime excursion of sand dune bashing. An expert driver took us on a four-wheeler racing up and down these amazing sand dunes; it was almost like going on a roller-coaster,” Waxman said. “We stayed out all night and saw the sunrise. We also visited Bedouin tribes and were guests in their tents; they let us ride on their camels. This wasn’t Epcot Center in Disney World or a dry textbook. It was keeping it real.”

In preparation for his trip, Waxman spoke to colleagues from the region. “[Stuyvesant Physics teacher] Dr. Jamal Ali was kind enough to speak to me about proper clothing, dining etiquette, and even how to present business cards,” he said. Additionally, Waxman’s own experience traveling in the Middle East twenty years ago, his knowledge of Arabic, and his undergraduate major in Middle Eastern studies facilitated communication with his locals, although most of them spoke English.

Overall, Waxman thought the trip was extremely successful. “If I was asked to do a summer seminar or guest lecture at one of the universities [I visited], I would go back in a heartbeat,” he said. “It was one of the highlights of my life.”

Stuyvesant Responds to Eric Garner Case continued from page 1

right now, and that’s not right.

But it’s also important not to go overboard on assuming things.

Assuming never leads to peace; assuming leads to turmoil,” sophomore Danny Akilov said.

On Thursday, December 11, SPARK supervisor Angel Colon and leaders of StuyUnity, a combination of clubs centered on equality, discussed potential initiatives to be brought up on a December 17 meeting that would be open to the school. “[Assistant Principal of Guidance Casey] Pedrick was there. She gave us some ideas on what to do for the long term: maybe make a video, [write] poetry. There were marches, other ideas, but we want to go over it with the general population see what their ideas are,”

freshman Sammie Paul said.

The discourse turned into reality when a group of Stuyvesant students represented the school at the Millions March on Saturday, December 13. Roughly ten students from Stuyvesant were among the marchers, who chanted phrases such as “We can’t breathe,” and “How do you spell racist? NYPD.” Many believed the march to be a success. “Because of the mob mentality that evolves from mass marches, it’s hard to promote a nuanced message that fully addresses a multi-faceted issue,” Kunins-Berkowitz said. “Today was a democracy.

I danced, wrote, marched, and sang with wonderful strangers trying to resist silence.”

StuyUnity organized the second part of the conversation

on Wednesday, December 17, where the 41 students present discussed police brutality and Stuyvesant’s role in responding to the issue. One of the main points of discussion was the possibility of starting a protest at Stuyvesant. “The main part of the protest would have to be nonviolent. Stuyvesant gets a bad rep in papers, and we wouldn’t want them to blow it out of the water.

At the same time, it can’t just be like every other protest. We need a common goal,” Akilov said.

Overall, the goal of activist leaders at Stuyvesant is to make people aware of the issue of racial equality. “There’s good and evil in every community,” Colon said. “But we have to put aside our differences and competition and become one united Stuyvesant community.”

Woo Peg Leadership Transitions to the SU

Yi Zhu/ The Spectator

Waxman Visits Bahrain and Qatar

By JAN WOJCIK and SOPHIA HEO In the beginning of this school year, sophomores Solomon Menditz and Tobias Lange decided to run Woo Peg, Stuyvesant’s school spirit club. However, Woo Peg turned out to be more work than they thought. After deliberating about the idea, Menditz and Lange decided to step down from their positions in Woo Peg and handed the club over to seniors Deanna Taylor and Annique Wong. Despite this seemingly clear transition, Woo Peg has been surrounded by confusion as to who the leaders are since the beginning of the school year.

Starting its sixth season this year, Woo Peg is a booster club with a general goal of rallying support funds for the school’s sports teams. Traditionally, two members of the Boy’s Varsity Baseball team run the club, with proceeds going towards the Baseball team. Woo Peg is entirely student run and all funding for its actions comes out of the pockets of the students that are in charge of it.

Last year’s Woo Peg leaders, Alex Mandell (’14) and Ben Sydel (’14), made T-shirt designs, but they failed to sell a sufficient number of shirts, and no net profit was made on the venture.

The duo deemed the project a failure. “We bought too many [shirts] and we weren’t able to sell them all,” Mandell said in a phone interview. Mandell and Sydel stepped down from their positions shortly afterwards.

According to Lange, Mandell and Sydel put the unsold shirts in Menditz’s and Lange’s lockers. When the two sophomores opened their lockers and found the extra shirts, they decided to run Woo Peg for the 2014-2015 school year. “We both do a lot of sports, and we love our school, so we thought that we could do some good for the community of Stuyvesant,” Lange said.

Menditz and Lange made a Woo Peg Facebook page shortly after. Menditz and Lange told Taylor and Wong that if they had any problems running Woopeg, they would let them know. About a month after the creation of the page, Lange spoke to Taylor and Wong, asking them if they were interested in running Woo Peg. “We dropped out of it because we thought that we bit off more than we could chew,” Menditz said.

“We don’t want this to turn into what happened last year.”

While Menditz and Lange were stepping down from their position, Student Union (SU) Vice President Jonathan Aung was already thinking of Woo Peg designs. “Woo Peg is normally done in the springtime, as it was

in the past two years, so I saw no harm in creating a winter Woo Peg design,” Aung said.

This created greater uncertainty around the Woo Peg leadership because many assumed the SU had assumed de facto control of the organization.

“Student apathy is very prominent in the school, but easily fixed through clever advertisement. […] The sweaters will come and, with direct marketing, people will be informed of what Woo Peg really is.”

—Student Union Vice President Johnathan Aung

Aung tried to clear up the situation about a week ago. “[The Student Union] isn’t claiming anything until we release our designs. Woo Peg is up for anyone to initiate and run,” Aung said.

“Currently no one is running it as no one has released designs or sales.”

According to Aung the SU is currently the definitive leader of Woo Peg. As of Friday December, 19th, the SU has begun to sell their Woo Peg crewneck designs, officially giving the SU full control.

Aung is optimistic that Woo Peg can play a larger role in the school in the future. “Student apathy is very prominent in the school, but easily fixed through clever advertisement,” Aung said.

“This doesn’t concern me in the slightest. The sweaters will come and, with direct marketing people will be informed of what Woo Peg really is.”

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 3

News Student Councils Across the City continued from page 1

One of the primary responsibilities of the SU is overseeing the distribution of funds to student clubs, publications, and special events such as SING! Across the city, most other student governments are also responsible for managing budget money allocated to students.

“Giving money to clubs is a big part of what we do. Whenever a club needs anything moneywise we are the ones funding it,” Junior Senator of the Trinity Upper School Senate Samuel Schiff said. “The treasurer is in charge of our budget, which is about $120,000 per year.”

“Giving money to clubs is a big part of what we do.”

—Samuel Schiff, junior at Trinity High School The SU is also responsible for communicating with the student body, a role that Aung acknowledges could be performed better. “I believe that the SU has been a bit lacking in terms of communication,” he said. However the SU is working on a number of new communication initiatives. “The SU can’t take all the blame for the lack of communication. We’ve hosted our Town Hall Meeting, which

barely 15 people came to. We’ve consistently posted once or twice a week on Facebook, and as a sign of good faith, we’ve opened up our inner sanctum to the student body,” Aung said.

The Trinity Upper School Senate also struggles with student body communication. “We are not necessarily as good about the small stuff,” Schiff said, “We talk about and work hard on a lot of things that no one ever really realizes we are working on at all.”

The Trinity Upper School Senate, unlike the SU, makes minutes from meetings publicly available. On the other hand, while the SU is considering releasing SLT meeting minutes in the future, Aung is currently hesitant. “I want to release SLT minutes, but we have to take into consideration how to do it safely. If it’s released on Facebook and a newspaper like the Post gets a hold of it, then they essentially have an inside view into Stuyvesant, all of its pros and cons,” Aung said.

Francis Lewis High School, a public school in Fresh Meadows, Queens, holds regular meetings between the student government and student body similar to the recent SU Town Hall meeting. “Our student government always [tries] to hold meetings for the student body to attend, where they can educate us on [school activities]. During the meetings, they allow the student body to address any issues they are having,” senior Henry Wang of Francis Lewis High School said.

Benjamin N. Cardozo High School, a public high school in Bayside, Queens, also has a student government considered to be transparent by the student body. “The Student Council is extremely open. Every day

of the school year, the Student Council is at the school’s [Student Organization] Office to answer all student concerns regarding the school,” junior Kelly Song of Benjamin N. Cardozo High School said.

Many student governments have effective relationships with their school administrations. “The administration is very involved with the student government. Once every month, we meet with the

“While the adults normally don’t hesitate to cooperate [with] the students when they reach out, it is mainly student-run.”

—Evan Schaffer, sophomore at the Collegiate School for Boys principal as well as [the assistant principals] to discuss the issues going on in the school and new ideas as to how we can improve the current problems,” senior Igor Portnoy of Townsend Harris said.

Student governments, however, strive to work independently of adult liaisons. “While adults normally don’t hesitate to cooperate when students reach out, [the student gov-

ernment] is mainly studentrun. [For instance,] they host their own meetings, assign their own tasks, [and] make their own ideas,” sophomore Evan Schaffer of the Collegiate High School for Boys said.

Despite the wide variety of student government structures and policies throughout the city, high-school student government leaders often collaborate with those of other schools at monthly meetings. The Interschool President Meeting, between student leaders of 12 independent schools in the city, is a forum for discussion of government election processes and plans for the school year.

Some current issues facing Interschool President Meeting attendees are the possibility of phasing out AP courses and selling school merchandise.

Stuyvesant SU leaders attend a similar interschool meeting called the Borough Student Advisory Council (BSAC). Aung is the body’s coPresident. Other members come from schools such as Lab High School for Collaborative Studies, NEST+m, and the High School of Fashion Industries.

“Each student union describes the problems that they have been facing,” Aung said. “Together we tackle the problems and bring the solutions back home.” At a recent BSAC meeting, Aung raised the issue of the urgency for distributing school attire. The BSAC helped him improve his ideas to streamline the process, and the SU will be releasing attire very shortly.

There is a wide range of opinions on the effectiveness of each student government. Wang believes that the student government of Francis Lewis High School has a large degree of influence.

“The student government is highly respected in our school for what they do,” he said.

Schiff believes that the Trinity Upper School senate has a more indirect influence on the school. “We have the power to sway other people to get things done. But [the Senators themselves] don’t really have the power to do much except give money to clubs and fund events,” he said.

Overall, it seems that the SU faces several of the same issues of and has similar responsibilities to other student governments throughout the city. As far as communicating information from the SU to the student body, which the SU leaders have already taken several steps to improve, there are tactics used by other schools to improve government transparency.

These include releasing minutes from government meetings and holding more frequent open discussions with students.

Whether the student government employs a Senate or an Executive Cabinet is not the issue. The same problems reverberate throughout the student councils of the city—from dealing with the administration and school restrictions to raising money for clubs and publications. Many of the schools in the city take part in interschool communications, but more defined responsibilities and goals would certainly set apart the Stuyvesant Student Union as a more productive and open student governing body.

“The SU is crucial to keeping the student body together as one, because although they often make mistakes and can be inefficient [at times], they are [necessary for] the school’s wellbeing,” sophomore Lowell Weisbord said.

continued from page 1

has not affirmed that Islam in fact made no money. Since the story has been taken to both extremes by the media, how much money Islam has really made remains unclear.

“I pretended to be something I’m not, and I’m more than sorry. I can’t even explain it anymore. I didn’t fully realize the consequences of my actions.” — Mohammed Islam, senior The controversy surrounding Islam’s story has led to a diverse set of opinions among Stuyvesant students. Some closer to Islam believe that the

criticism Islam has received is not warranted. “Mohammed deserves a lot of respect. A lot of people on social media who are disrespecting him don’t have an understanding of the stock market and don’t have a respect for the fact that no matter how much money he’s made, he’s doing something that is very difficult and he’s been doing it since he was 11 years old,” junior and Stuyvesant Investment Club member Jake Tuckman said. “When some people were learning how to read he was learning how to trade stocks. And whether he did it on a simulation or he did it in real life, I don’t even think that is relevant.”

Others blame faulty factchecking among journalists for Islam’s predicament. “Mohammed is an incredibly intelligent guy who has put in a lot of work into the stock market and building a network of connections.

The only thing that changed people’s opinions is the fact that The New York Post and other half-assed newspapers decided to put together articles as fast as possible. And they just destroyed public opinion of Mohammed. And what ended up happening was they made him look like a liar; that’s completely inaccurate,” junior and Stuyvesant Investment Club

member Isaac Belenkiy said.

While Belenkiy and others may blame the publications for supposedly false or unclear reporting, New York Magazine maintains that Islam lied to their fact checker. In their editor’s note, New York Magazine states that a fact checker was sent to Stuyvesant to confirm the $72 million figure. At that time, Islam produced a document that appeared to be a Chase bank statement confirming an eight-figure bank account. The magazine then cites The Washington Post’s report that a source close to Islam and his family told the publication that the bank statements were falsified.

Still, some students believe that, while Islam may not have made $72 million, he has, in fact, made several million.

“I don’t know if he lied or not, because I don’t know him personally, but I have friends who say they know he must have made some money because he has wads of hundred dollar bills and expensive shoes. So I think he has a lot of money, but definitely not $72 million,” junior Shadi Qurashi said.

Those who knew Islam cite his personality as a reason to not believe the stories being published. “I just think that Mohammed Islam wants

Courtesy of Mohammed Islam

Senior Mohammed Islam Presents Contradictory Story About His Finances

some privacy and that it is more likely he’s covering up his story than it is false. He’s very humble. He doesn’t like to make a big deal out of it and won’t bring it up unless someone else does or you mention it,” an anonymous source said.

Despite not knowing for sure which of the conflicting stories about Islam is true, it seems that, in general, the student body is sympathetic to Islam and his situation. “People should be more educated on

the subject before they talk about it. Knowing Mohammed personally has really opened my eyes to how much of a difference there is between the actual situation and what people read online and what people post on the internet. And I feel really bad for Mohammed because all that Mohammed is is a really smart kid who is really good at something, and people who don’t understand him are being really mean about it,” Tuckman said.

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 4

News Sarah Burns visits Stuyvesant Courtesy of Tribeca Film Festival 2010 portrait studio

tary and the case surrounding it.

English teacher Maura Dwyer showed the documentary to her Advanced Placement English class as part of a unit concerning race related literature. The documentary prompted many emotional responses from students.

“I was literally crying when we watched the movie in class,” junior Valerie Vishnevetskaya said. “The movie sort of avoids saying their ages for a while, but when it was mentioned for the first time you could hear how outraged everyone was. I can’t even imagine 14 year olds committing such a serious crime, but the thought of going to prison at age 14 for something you didn’t

By VANNA MAVROMATIS and NAMRA ZULFIQAR “When I first read about this case, it made me angry, and I hope it makes you angry too,” Sarah Burns, director of the documentary “The Central Park Five,” said in a question-andanswer session in the Stuyvesant High School library on Monday, December 1st. Burns and New York Times Columnist Jim Dwyer, who has written extensively on this case since it first began, hosted this session, which focused on the documen-

do is just absolutely terrifying.”

“The Central Park Five” documentary detailed a notorious 1989 case, in which 28 year old Trisha Ellen Meili was brutally raped. Following the incident, a group of approximately 30 boys of mostly Hispanic or AfricanAmerican background who had been at Central Park that night was interrogated. Five boys, four black and one Hispanic, were prosecuted and convicted. The youngest was 14; the oldest was 16. 13 years later, Matias Reyes, a man in prison for unrelated crimes, confessed to the rape of Meili. Through the use of DNA evidence, it was revealed that the original boys who were pros-

“For one thing, the lack of forensic evidence would have shut it down immediately. In 1989, DNA technology was so new, and people were scared of it. But now, a rape case can barely even be tried without DNA evidence.” —Valerie Vishnevetskaya, junior

Courtesy of Michael Waxman

Students Invited to Attend Jewish Foundation Dinner

By SHARON LIN The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR) invited history teacher Michael Waxman and Principal Jie Zhang to attend its annual dinner to honor Iris and Saul Katz, the founders of the Katz Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides for charities focused on hunger and nutrition, the needs of senior citizens, and the homeless.

Iris and Saul Katz were awarded with the Foundation’s Recognition of Goodness, a prestigious award annually given to a public service worker who has given a considerable amount to their community, on Monday, December 1, 2014.

Waxman was able to invite eight of his students to the dinner. “I invite different kids each year, because there are those among the student body

who effectively embody the diverse “faces of Stuyvesant” to the public and serve as student ambassadors,” Waxman said.

The students were chosen from a pool of prospective attendees that Waxman had compiled and vetted at the start of the year. “I eventually narrowed it down to those who stood out to me as memorable, outgoing, charismatic, and leaders among their peers,” Waxman said.

All of the attendees arrived separately at the Waldorf Astoria on Park Avenue at 6:30 p.m.

Monday evening, in formal attire. After meeting up with Zhang and Waxman, they walked upstairs for a cocktail hour, during which hors d’oeuvres, drinks, and other international delicacies were served.

The president of the JFR, Roman Kent, gave a short introductory speech for the at-

tendees, thanking the presenters for coming to the event.

He explained the goal of the JFR: to fulfill the Jewish requirement of hakarat hatov, the searching for and recognition of goodness. He also spoke about the educational resources and events provided by the JFR, such as the dinner for teachers and students to attend to hear first-hand accounts from survivors of the Holocaust.

Saul Katz later visited the Stuyvesant High School table to meet the attendees and take photos with the students. Katz, a Stuyvesant High School alumnus, currently serves as the President of the Mets and Brooklyn Cyclones baseball teams and the president of Sterling Equities, a real estate firm. Zhang and Waxman presented him with a copy of “Stuyvesant High School: The First 100 Years,” the Stuyvesant Alumni Association’s commemorative centennial edition book, along with Stuyvesant apparel.

The reunion of Helena Weglowska Szachniewicz, a rescuer from Poland, and Mira Gutfilen, the Jewish girl she and her family saved, followed. They originally met at John Fitzgerald Kennedy Airport, but had not seen each other since 1945. Szachniewicz was presented with the Yad Vashem medal and certificate from Israeli Ambassador Ido Aharoni on behalf of the Israeli government for her volunteer efforts and rescuing missions. “[The reunion] made me realize how much one person can impact someone else’s life,” senior Mindy Kristt said.

“Without [Szachniewicz], [Gutfilen] would most likely have frozen to death, or worse.”

“I really enjoyed the event [and] I thought it was a one-ina-lifetime opportunity,” senior and Jewish Culture Club President Jonathan Mikhaylov said.

ecuted were innocent, and that Reyes was indeed the culprit.

The documentary also covers the racial tint many people claimed the case had. The prosecuted boys were all Black or Hispanic, and the victim was white.

“New York City was a different place in 1989,” Jim Dwyer said. “[The detectives] had already decided that these boys were responsible. [...] All that was left was to try and squeeze the evidence into the template, and it didn’t really fit.” The media also played a role in the case, with the majority of coverage painting the boys as guilty before the trial even took case. “The media was both setting the tone and following the general ideas of the time,” Jim Dwyer said.

Many students thought the question and answer session was a great supplement to seeing the documentary. “She seemed very well informed and very personally involved,” junior Talia Conye said. “She knew each of the boys personally; she kept in touch with them just to see how their lives [were] going.”

For the boys falsely prosecuted in the 1989 case, it seems that their nightmare has finally ended. “At another question and answer session, Kevin [Richardson] talked about what it was like to be defined

as an animal at 14,” Jim Dwyer said. “[Burns] gave us our lives back,” said Richardson, with tears streaming down his face.

“She seemed very well informed and very personally involved. She knew each of the boys personally; she kept in touch with them just to see how their lives [were] going.”—Talia Conye, junior

Students Discuss Human Rights with US UN Ambassador

By HELEN JIN and GRIFFIN STROUT

As crises everywhere worsen, one organization, the United Nations (UN), has a responsibility to see that these problems are managed on an international level. Founded in the aftermath of World War II, its goal has been to bring stability to all of its 193 member states. A large part of this is the handling of human rights.

Ten Stuyvesant students had the opportunity to meet with the United States Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, on Wednesday, December 10. Along with social studies teacher Kerry Trainor, the students departed from Stuyvesant after school for the 5:45 p.m. event, which was held in commemoration of Human Rights Day, a celebration of the acceptance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948.

Stuyvesant was able to bring students to the meeting due in part to the fact that Trainor’s spouse, Stina Skewes-Cox Trainor, works for Power as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Manager of Protocol.

The event was held at the United States’ Mission to the UN, adjacent to the UN building. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss both domestic and international human rights.

Twenty-one high school students attended, with the majority of the students from Stuyvesant and Bronx Science.

Power first talked about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Students at the meeting received copies of this document to keep. Power then talked about how the document was being used in the world, and specifically where its message had succeeded and where it still has yet to do so.

Power then discussed human rights issues here at home. “Some of the topics we discussed were

the recent release of the CIA report on torture and how that was going to impact her job, which is to represent the United States in front of the world. [Other topics included] issues relating to race like Michael Brown […] and various other questions related to her role in the United Nations,” Trainor said. Issues surrounding war torture, women’s rights in the Middle East, and Ebola in West Africa were also mentioned.

Many students were impressed by Power’s knowledge.

“She [Power] appeared very smart and was eloquent if a little too shy about more controversial topics,” sophomore Lorenz Vargas said.

“I wanted them to get exposed to that and be able to see a future career not just as an ambassador but also in supporting roles.”

—social studies teacher Kerry Trainor Additionally, Trainor expressed that events like this one can be essential to the students.

“I wanted them to get exposed to that and be able to see a future career not just as an ambassador but also in supporting roles,” Trainor said. In the future, he hopes to organize more events like this one where students have a chance to meet real people who are in a relevant line of work.

The Spectator â—? December 23, 2014

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The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 6

Features The Stuyvesant Faculty Holiday Gift Guide 2014

Helen Jin / The Spectator

In Pedagogical Currency

By Danielle Eisenman Well, it’s that time of year again.

If, in the past three weeks, you have been remotely close to a supermarket—or any public establishment for that matter—you have probably heard Mariah Carey belt out the fact that you are all she wants for Christmas this year.

However, very few people in this world are as content as Mariah Carey with non-materialistic gifts; there is something universally gratifying about tearing off wrapping paper and making a mess of things.

Given that teachers also happen to be people, it can only be concluded that they, too, are appreciative of receiving gifts—just like you and me.

If you are dissatisfied with your latest report card and are looking for an against-the-rules and most likely ineffective way of flattering your teachers—thus (possibly) improving your grade standings—let The Stuyvesant Faculty Gift Guide be of assistance to you.

As it can probably be inferred, many of our school’s staff members are particularly, if not exclusively, invested in things concerned with Stuyvesant. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that their desires can only be found within the yellow brick walls of this building.

Physical education teacher Anetta Luczak and computer science teacher David Holmes would both like to see respect, attentiveness, effort, and various other aspects of admirable studentship in the children they instruct.

Other teachers ask more specific tasks of their students. History teacher Josina Dunkel, in reference to the essays written by her AP European History students, would like to read 64 good thesis statements. Topher Brown-Mykolyk, who teaches computer science, asks that his students start posting to Piazza regularly. In a similar vein of thought, computer science teacher JonAlf Dyrland-Weaver wants to see amazing programming final projects. “However,” DyrlandWeaver added, “a lightsaber would also be much appreciated.” $1-$1,000,000 While it is not absolutely certain how much an actual lightsaber will cost you or whether it will be used to save the world or slay those who do not complete homework on time, it may be important to know that mainstream retailers, such as Toys “R” Us and Target, sell perfectly legitimate replicas for prices ranging from $10.99 to $32.99. As its members’ job descriptions imply affection toward “Star Wars” and other forms of entertainment of this variety, it should be of no surprise that lightsabers are of high demand in the computer science and mathematics departments—

math teacher Ashvin Jaishankar would like one, too.

However, it should be noted that Jaishankar is not intrinsically deserving of a lightsaber, as his request was heavily influenced by a fellow coworker’s. “Actually,” he told me, “I change my answer. I want Wolverine claws and Jedi mind tricks, because Dyrland-Weaver already called dibs on the lightsaber.”

While I don’t doubt Jaishankar’s genuine interest in Marvel Comics, it seems as if he has yet to let go of the prospect of acquiring a lightsaber. If your math grade is suffering, buy the man a lightsaber—you know he wants one.

When asked what he wanted for Christmas, Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman said, without hesitation, “guitars and amps and pedals.” Grossman, however, is not unique in his longing for musical instruments. I discovered that Spanish teacher Robert Weldon wants power tools, and after twenty minutes of prodding Assistant Principal of Health, Security, and Student Affairs Brian Moran—a cautious skeptic, careful to reveal his deepest desires to leeching reporters like myself—told me that he hopes for a leaf blower. (It should be noted that though Weldon and Moran aren’t specifically looking to make music, the noises that emanate from the instruments they have proposed will involuntarily serve as ear-pleasing melodies for their neighbors.)

Nostalgic for the days of being a teachers’ monitor in high school, math teacher Debbie Goldberg hopes that she will one day get a chalkboard eraser-cleaning machine. As a student, she had witnessed what now appears to be a legend: a monstrosity of a machine (so big that it required its own room) that took erasers completely saturated with chalk dust and made them appear to be

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brand new. “I still remember the immense amount of satisfaction I felt holding those clean erasers in my hands,” Goldberg explained.

“My cleaning methods since then have not been nearly as effective— I’m no longer allowed to hit the erasers against the bricks outside the window. Someone told me to stop because they thought I would accidently drop the erasers and hit someone on the head.” The cost of these machines, though largely unknown, are “cheap enough for a public school to afford.”

The demands of our faculty are of varying extremity, and music teacher Liliya Shamazov’s request represents the greater end of the spectrum. “Everything,” she said. “I want everything—a million dollars.” Good luck scraping that up. Of course, if you would rather opt for a gift that is more affordable, you can get economist Ben Bernanke’s beard for economics teacher Catherine McRoy-Mendell.

It’s not entirely clear why she desires this man’s facial hair (other than the fact that “it’s totally awesome”), but it’s soothing to know that it could probably be acquired for next to nothing, though this is largely dependent upon your chosen method of acquisition.

Priceless

When I asked each of the faculty members what they wanted for Christmas, I demonstrated the spectrum of possible answers with the phrase, “anything from world peace to Go-Gurt.” Many teachers seemed particularly attached to the idea of world peace—band director Gregor Winkel and Jaishankar are among those drawn to it, along with substitute teacher Asher Lack, who noted, “If world peace is on the table, how can I choose anything else?”

Peter Brooks, who teaches com-

puter science and mathematics, is undecided about whether he wants an abstract gift or a more tangible one. “Well, if I could somehow use Go-Gurt to achieve world peace…”

He looked off to the side as he ruminated. “While I would appreciate world peace, I am also rather fond of whirled peas.”

History teacher David Hanna and band director Raymond Wheeler favor wholesome tradition, and both hope to spend Christmas with their families. If you are failing orchestra or have yet to learn how to write a DBQ essay, I hate to break it to you, but you are not likely to find happy, healthy families at your nearest Costco.

Michael Waxman, who teaches history, assured me that while he “obviously” does not celebrate Christmas because he is “obviously 100 percent Jewish,” what he would want for Christmas if he celebrated it would be health. “Look, obviously, I’m not sick or anything,” he explained. “But I think good health is a good thing to wish for.”

If you are looking to get on math teacher Edward Lostal’s good side, look no further. His response to being asked what he wants for Christmas was, “Nothing. For me, everything is math. So I say, ‘nothing.’”

It seems like a daunting task— you have an overwhelming number of teachers to please, and, therefore, an overwhelming number of gifts to buy or somehow grant them. To calm your gift-buying fears, I will let you know now that buying presents for teachers is definitely not allowed. As Holmes put it, “The teacher-student relationship should never reach that level of intimacy. Leave things as they are—instruction, assistance, and nothing more and nothing less.”

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 7

Features

By Kamila Radjabova I walked into a room full of chatter. The students were standing up in their seats, greeting each other and math teacher Peter Brooks. In a matter of seconds, Brooks caught sight of me and welcomed me into his classroom.

As I approached the back of the classroom to take my seat, I began to reach into my bag to grab my pen and notebook. Soon after the students had settled down, Brooks began his lesson and the chatter faded. I looked over at the student sitting next to me: his desk was bare, his hands were at his sides, and his backpack was not open.

On the other hand, my desk was cloaked with my notebook, paper, and pens; it was the only desk that lacked the shine of a bare surface.

“Due to our guest today, Kamila, we will have a quiz,” Brooks told the class. “Take out a piece of paper.” In reply, students shouted: “Wait, really? Do we actually have to?” But their comments subsided and they took the quiz—however, it was not collected or graded.

The quiz consisted of multiple-choice questions that students had to try to answer correctly by using their logic and prior knowledge of the world we live in. One question was, “What do you think is the percentage of literary adults in our world today?” And another was, “What will the human population be in the year 2200?”

I finished the quiz with only two out of eight correct answers, and some students in the class had similarly low scores. Brooks compared the class’s choices for the answers to those of university students. Though the class’s results were similar to those of university students, they were completely different from the correct answers. As the class went over the questions, students called

Human Reasoning: Just Think About It

out: “Wow!”, “Really?”, or “I was so close to getting that right!”

I sat in my seat, stared at our results on the board, and rethought my conclusions and evaluations of the questions. Brooks had mentioned that the environment we grow up in influences the way we think about the world and the way we conclude things. Everything from what we hear from our friends to the media develops into how we learn to perceive the situations in the world. That moment, when my results really sunk in, was when I realized that in the twenty minutes I spent in his class, I had started to reevaluate my conclusions and correct my assumptions. This is the kind of thinking that has been going on ever since the first day of class in September.

“We started off with a kind of a bang!” Brooks said enthusiastically. The “bang” that Brooks began the semester with was a joke, evolved into many jokes, and resulted in thinking. Jokes are a topic that we all know well and enjoy. We laugh about them and talk about them, but do we really understand them? Why is a joke actually funny? Why do we laugh?

Why are there such things as jokes to begin with? At the beginning of the year, the Human Reasoning class started off with discussions on this topic and tried to answer the questions to the best of their ability. Three days in a row, everyone brought in a joke and discussed it with the class. There were a lot of laughs, but most importantly, students were taught to think about why they were laughing.

“What I’m hoping for is that my students learn to question everything,” Brooks said. The Human Reasoning class is aims to get students to think critically and try to understand where their

opinions come from. “I’m hoping what the students realize is how thin the threads of knowledge are and how much our environment dictates what we think,” Brooks said. The students are expected to think about how they conclude things and to learn how to think in different ways, and such is accomplished through arguments in the class—“We argue a lot, and bitterly!” Brooks said. Once, Brooks asked the class to debate whether living in a foreign country is better than living in the U.S. These arguments usually began with Brooks reading a persuasive essay to the class and the class would vote on whether it was compelling or not.

The students then took different sides of the argument and this led to a “bitterly” argued discussion.

Senior Fia Hargil, a student in Brooks’s Human Reasoning class, also pointed to discussions that have taken place throughout the semester as a highlight of the class.

“Oftentimes, Brooks asks a question at the beginning of the period [that] will lead to a discussion on that one topic for 40 minutes,” she said in an e-mail interview.

Hargil thought that the discussion they had about overpopulation was particularly interesting, because it had to do with a problem that’s coming closer and closer to the forefront of people’s minds. “[Brooks] also gave us a mini quiz of basic questions about the world and fertility, for which most people scored either zero or one right, out of six or seven. His point was to explain to us how much of what we think we know is based off of pessimism, rather than objectivity. We always hear about famine and problems in third world countries, because it makes for good news, but we never hear about [it] when anything average happens. Since, to some extent, we seek out the sen-

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sationalized; it’s what sticks in our minds,” she said. Brooks teaches his students to look at the situation from all sides of the equation.

He is there to facilitate discussions and point his students in a direction where they will create or revise conclusions about the topic at hand.

Perhaps discussions in the Human Reasoning class are so interesting because of the wide variety of students taking the class. As a new course, Human Reasoning has attracted a range of students, each with different interests and different motives for signing up for the class. Some are taking Human Reasoning because they had to fulfill the new four year math requirement and were not interested in Calculus. Others, such as senior Abe Lusk, are taking Human Reasoning because they were disenchanted with the drilling associated with typical math classes. “I didn’t want to take a math class that would make me do 20 problems that are all the same every night for homework.

Some of the math classes I have taken so far at Stuyvesant seem like human memorization, so I took Human Reasoning in the hopes that I would be allowed to do some thinking,” Lusk said. And a few are taking Human Reasoning because they were fascinated by the synopsis of the class Brooks gave to his AP Computer Science students last year.

As this is the first semester Human Reasoning is being taught, Brooks is looking at his course with a critical eye, hoping to improve it for the future. “I should have worked much harder than I have. This class is really really really a work in progress,” said Brooks, reflecting on the semester. “There are many things I’m dissatisfied about: my scheduling, my leading, and the amount

of time I spend on some topics.

I’m highly self-critical.” The class usually spends a week or two on a specific topic and Brooks hopes to improve his timing, leading and development of the class as he experiments with his newly developed course.

One of the potential problems that Brooks mentioned was the lack of exams in this course.

He hasn’t decided whether to give exams or to teach the course without them. He believes that tests motivate the students to work harder, in competition with all the other demands the students have.

Though Brooks thinks that the course needs a lot more improvement, he enjoys teaching it. “I enjoy it and I get some sense that a significant group of students do too,” he said. He likes to watch his students analyze different ways of viewing a topic, and realize that there are different approaches and ways of thinking about everything we experience in our lives.

Brooks’s sense that his class is well-liked by students has proven to be accurate. “Human Reasoning is my favorite class. I like to argue and the rapid change of topic keeps the discussion interesting.”

Lusk said.

Hargil agreed, saying, “It’s a class people love to be in, and it’s a class people love to share things in. I’ve had a lot of funny teachers at Stuy, but Brooks is the only one who’s been able to incorporate his humor so seamlessly into the curriculum.”

Brooks hopes that his students remember this class as an interesting, unusual, or altogether positive experience that they had in high school and one that they won’t be able to forget. Most of all, he hopes they come out of this course “questioning everything.”

Page 8

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Features

Lydia Wu / The Spectator

Are You There God? It’s Me, _______

By Elizabeth Lawrence and Kachun Leung A Buddhist, a Jew, a Muslim, an atheist, and a Catholic enter a classroom; while this sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, fortunately, this article is not just a joke. Instead, this is the story of a freshman who spends countless hours immersing herself in another culture. It is the story of a junior trying to break away from her family background and find individuality. It tells of a sophomore whose faith in God gets her through her obstacles in life, and ends with the tales of two students who love religion because of the community and customs associated with it, not because of the worship of a higher power.

When A Fourteen Year Old Walks into a Synagogue If you were to walk through some of Brooklyn’s largest Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, you are likely to come across a group of men wearing yarmulkes. But, if you wait long enough, you might run into someone different, someone unexpected— and that is freshman Gabriela Loh. Loh, who is fascinated with the Jewish religion, has been to a synagogue multiple times this year and is beginning the process of converting to Judaism.

Loh’s interest in Judaism is unexpected. She never really looked into Judaism until she had a conversation with an Orthodox Jewish boy over the summer about the situation in Israel.

Before this, Loh had read a lot about the tension and violence between the Israeli and Palestinian government over the Gaza Strip region of the Middle East, and sympathized with the Palestinian perspective. But after her conversation with the boy, she became angry about what was going on. “And then I went home and I thought about it, and then I decided to change my view,” she explained. She started doing research about the specificities of the situation in Israel because she wanted to give the Israeli perspective on the situation a chance, but soon became so enthralled by Israeli culture that she wanted to explore Judaism.

It was after this one event that she made her first trip to a synagogue. Loh had to go alone because her family did not share her enthusiasm. Due to this, she couldn’t help but feel a mixture of nervousness and excitement during this first visit. “It was after a major Jewish holiday, and they were starting to read the Torah all over again. So, I went there,

and there were only two people there. There was this rabbi and he had this huge beard. I was super scared, and I did not know anyone,” she said. Even though Loh did not know what to expect from her first time at the synagogue, she ended up loving the experience. In fact, the same rabbi she met during her first visit is now preparing her to begin the process of converting.

Loh also admitted that when she first started going to her synagogue, people were surprised by the fact that she was doing this alone. “They just say to me, ‘Hi, how are you?’ Then they’ll ask if I am with a family, and they don’t directly ask me if I am Jewish or not,” she said. “They’ll ask me what brought me to this synagogue. I told them that I am exploring Judaism. They’ll then ask me stuff like, ‘Is anyone in your family Jewish?’ and I’ll tell them no. They’ll ask me if I am adopted or half Jewish,” Loh explained. Additionally, some members of the synagogue were surprised by how young Loh was, and despite the fact that Loh is Malaysian and thus looks Asian while most other Jews are white, Loh found that her age was the most distinctive element of her presence in the synagogue. “It wasn’t so much the fact that I was Asian...when you think about this, when you’re a fourteen year old girl, unaccompanied by anyone, it distinguishes [you] from everyone else there,” Loh said.

Even though Loh may have initially appeared as an outsider, she admits that she has quickly been accepted into the community. “When I go to those places they welcome you. They just look at me up and down, and they check if my skirt is below the knee and up to their standard, and I am covered up, and it’s fine,” she said. Loh explained that since she started going to the synagogue she has adapted the style of dress that is found in Orthodox communities. For example, she wears a skirt up that goes past her knees, and a shirt that passes her elbows and does not expose her collarbone.

Not only were members of the Jewish community welcoming of Loh, but her parents have also accepted her desire to explore Judaism. Yet at times her newly adopted Jewish culture can get in the way of her and her family. “They’re open to it, but they’re also concerned about the amount of time I’m spending with it, especially observing the Sabbath,” Loh explained. Over the Sabbath Loh tries to refrain from using electronics, as doing so is forbidden by Jewish custom, but she has found that this was hard to get used to.

Another difficulty Loh en-

countered was the fact that she occasionally wears a yarmulke, which is a head covering typically worn by Jewish males. She started wearing one when she noticed men in her synagogue wearing them, and she wanted to do the same. However, she finds that people tend to be critical of her decision. “This past Thursday, I wore it, [and] this group of people came up to me.

They asked me, ‘Is that a yarmulke on your head? Are you a boy or a girl? If you’re a boy why are you wearing a skirt?’” she said.

Though she ignores many of the rude comments people throw at her, Loh believes that she’ll stop wearing it out of respect for people in the Jewish community.

“There are people that are actually Jewish, and they don’t wear it. So, I realize I might be wearing it for the wrong reasons, but I think that’s a learning experience,” she said.

Despite some of these problems, Loh still hopes to continue learning more about Judaism and to begin her conversion.

She explained that the process involves learning Hebrew and a lot of Jewish history, and she’ll also have to go through a courtlike experience in which several rabbis will test her on her knowledge. Due to this, Loh admits that she still doesn’t know if she’ll be able to fully commit to the whole conversion process. “I say I’m exploring Judaism because it’s not definite that I’m converting yet. There’s no, like, this is gonna happen and then you’ll be Jewish. This is all happening so quickly, so I just want to give it some time,” she explained.

God Helps Me Get Good Grades You may know sophomore Jessica Sparacio as the girl who played the crazy, vivacious Maureen in our school’s production of “Rent.” But what most people don’t know her as is a religious Roman Catholic.

Sparacio grew up in a religious environment—her parents encouraged her to be Catholic, and she routinely observed Catholic holidays. But even though her parents emphasized religion, Sparacio said that, “they were never crazy [about it], they were never like ‘you have to go to church every Sunday, and if you don’t you’re going to be a disgrace to God and go to hell.’” It was thus on her own accord that Sparacio became a very dedicated Christian. “I go to church with my family most Sundays; I actually cantor at the mass. I also celebrate the holidays of my religion—Christmas and Easter being the most major holidays– –and even though I believed in Santa and the Easter Bunny, I always understood that the other reason behind these holidays is the meaning of them in church,” Sparacio explained.

Unlike many other teenagers who have doubted their religious upbringing and belief in God, Sparacio’s faith never faltered. She explained that religion makes her feel more comfortable about life, especially when thinking about her eventual death. “God saves me when I’m having an existential crisis about death and what’s after death and when I’m freaking out about there being nothing after death,” she said. “It makes so much more sense to me that there’s someone up there that is more than life and death, rather than there being just a black hole of nothing.”

Though religion allows Sparacio to gain a better understanding of life, one might won-

der how Sparacio reconciles the science she learns in school with what she learns from the Bible and Catholic tradition. Sparacio explained that she does not try to fuse what Catholicism teach with what school teaches, and rather accepts both theories as part of God’s plan. “I think that God and his ideas and the way he created Earth and all that that we learn in religious education is just too vast for us to understand and one day, when we die, we’ll learn what it’s really all about. I’ll listen to anything and I don’t dispute evolution or other creation theories because who knows what really happened? No one.

It’s all part of God’s plan.”

Instead of getting hung-up on the smaller details of the implications of her religious faith, Sparacio uses religion to deal with obstacles in life. “In general, religion always helps me whenever something goes wrong, like if someone dies, or something huge changes in my life. It’s always comforting to have your religion. You can rely on it and use it to express everything you’re feeling. It happened a couple times where I just felt very connected to it, and felt like it was even more important in my life,” Sparacio said.

But it is not only in big, lifechanging moments that Sparacio feels drawn to God and religion.

She described her relationship with God as more of a friendship, saying that it helps her a lot in her everyday life. “Before I take a test, I’ll pray, because it actually helps me. And not in a huge religious way. I’ll be like ‘Bro, help me out here, because I’m going to fail,’” Sparacio said.

However, there is a certain level to her belief that is not as light. “I definitely believe in [God], and I’m trying to believe more in Him. As time goes on, and I find more circumstances and situations where things unfold the way they do, it just makes more and more sense.”

One example of Sparacio’s faith explaining events took place while she was waiting for her train to arrive at the station.

“One day I was standing on the R train platform, and I was coming back from school really really late, and I hadn’t told my mom. I wasn’t really supposed to be staying after school. I was waiting for the R train but it wasn’t coming, and I was really upset because I had a lot of work to do that night, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to finish it if the train didn’t come. I felt so bad about staying late, and I knew I had screwed up. So I was like ‘Please, please God let this R train come, I am going to die if it does not come very soon, I’m not going to be able to finish anything unless this train comes,’” Sparacio said.

“And then the R train pulled into the platform.”

Girl Problems, Boy Problems, Parents Problems… and God Problems We all have problems with our parents. But most of the time these conflicts are minor and we brush them off after a while.

However, junior Saima Haque’s problems are more permanent.

Haque, who comes from a conservative Muslim family, has always fought with her father over a number of issues and by the time she left middle school, Haque had grown so frustrated with her father that she converted from Islam to agnosticism and then later to atheism.

But Haque has not always questioned her religion. “When I was younger, I wanted to be

Muslim. Both of my parents are really religious; in fact, I wanted to be as religious as my mother,” she explained. That changed when Haque grew older and she began to question her father’s arrogance and his role in the family. She also grew frustrated by her parents’ unwillingness to answer many of her questions about their religion. “I wanted to know why, why I had to do these things and follow certain rules, but my parents just never did that,” she said.

Haque first began to rebel against her family by refusing to wear her hijab. She originally started wearing it in fifth grade, but stopped one year later. “I would wear it in front of my parents, but once I get to school I would take it off. It wasn’t until the end of ninth grade that I would openly stop wearing it in front of my parents,” she said.

Haque explained that she originally stopped wearing it because she hated her father for forcing her to wear it; even today she associates him with the headscarf.

Not only would the two argue over Haque’s refusal to wear a hijab, but they also disagreed over the type of clothing she wore.

“He wouldn’t let me wear something with too deep of a neck or he would complain if my t-shirt was too short. When I started high school, he wouldn’t let me wear dresses with tights underneath,” she said. Nevertheless, she ended up ignoring him and wearing them anyway, which led to several fights between Haque and her father. “One time during the summer I was wearing [shorts] that he didn’t like and we got into this huge argument.

It was just a one time thing though. It’s sad that nowadays I just consider my father to be someone I live with, and nothing more than that,” she said.

More recently, Haque has been frustrated by her parent’s response to her sexuality.

Haque identifies as bisexual and wishes her conservative parents could be more accepting of her identity. “I didn’t get any guidance from my parents. My mom would never answer my questions about homosexuals. I ended up thinking that I hated religion because of that,” she said.

When she first came out, Haque remembered her mother yelling at her. “She told me, ‘you can’t get involved with these people’ and she was really upset at me,” Haque said. On the other hand, due to their strained relationship, Haque has never spoken with her father about this. Even now Haque’s parents still haven’t accepted her sexuality and the topic isn’t discussed a lot in her household. Nevertheless, Haque still hopes that her parents can someday accept her sexuality.

“My mom is okay with homosexuals, but she’s just not used to the fact that her own daughter is bisexual. I really wish we [could] talk more about this,” she explained.

Even though Haque is constantly fighting with her father and has rejected Islam, she is currently thinking about converting back to Islam. When asked why she suddenly started looking into Islam again, she said, “At times I didn’t really see the point of God. But, nowadays, I am looking for things that religion might have an answer for.

Since Islam is something that has been part of my background, it’s out of convenience.” Haque later explained that she’s hoping that religion might be able to help her find out more about herself as an individual. How-

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 9

Features Are You There God? It’s Me, _______ ever, she still isn’t sure if she’ll become a Muslim again in the future, because of her sexuality.

“I see it as a possibility, but at the same time I don’t know how my bisexuality would fit into this.

It’s something that is going to be with me forever, and I won’t ever stop being bisexual, but I don’t know how I could be both Muslim and LGBT. So, it is a confusing time, and it just sucks to be sixteen and thinking about this,” she said.

The Best of Both Worlds Sophomore Kaia Waxenberg lives the best of both worlds as the daughter of a Christian woman and a Jewish man. She frequents church and synagogue, and values the traditions of these religions greatly. Even so, she is an atheist.

“If somebody asks me what my religion is, I’ll probably say I’m atheist. But going to church is not because I feel a strong connection to God, or Jesus or whatever, but that I feel a strong connection to the people there, and I feel a strong connection to the sense of community, and to the morals of the church, and to the morals of Judaism, and to the morals of any religion. And that’s why I think religion is important,” Waxenberg explained.

Though religion was present in Waxenberg’s household, it was never forced upon her.

“For both of my parents it was really important in their lives, so they didn’t want it to be super important; they just wanted me to know what it was. So, it was definitely present, like I’ve been going to Church and I went to Hebrew school and I know everything about religion, but they weren’t going to force it onto me,” she said. She is able to choose for herself whether she wants religion to play an important role in her life; her parents will accept her no matter what decision she makes.

Over time, Waxenberg’s religious identity has developed; she explained that shifting to atheism has been a very gradual process. “As I got older, I realized that the prayers didn’t mean that much to me and that God wasn’t the reason that I kept returning to church and synagogue. I began to understand the morals and realized that the equality and kindness that the church was teaching was more important to me than God was. I was probably in seventh or eighth grade when this became very

clear,” she described.

As she realized that she was an atheist, she realized that she didn’t want to give up on religion altogether because she loved the community aspect of religion.

“Instead of having someone like God that’s bigger than you, I think that being a part of something that’s bigger than you, like a church or a synagogue, is really nice. It’s like having a second family,” Waxenberg said.

In a world full of deeply religious people, however, Waxenberg is bound to face some judgment for her atheism. “Going into church, being an atheist, you’re obviously going to face people who are like, ‘Why the hell are you here? You don’t belong here’... [and] definitely you face people who are like ‘You don’t exist if you don’t believe in God,’” Waxenberg said.

“I do feel like I have been judged from both sides. There is a history of religions being this inclusive community inside but isolated from outside religions.

Some of my friends will judge me for not knowing a prayer by heart, but I know that it isn’t a personal thing, it’s just what they have been taught is important to them. I’m not going to give up religion because of it.”

Stuyvesant’s accepting environment has also contributed to Waxenberg feeling more comfortable with her religious identity. “I guess that the multiethnic and inclusive Stuy atmosphere has helped me be more comfortable challenging religious borders because I face a little discrimination and condescension everywhere else. I don’t really talk about it much though, so the support isn’t so direct. It’s more like it’s good to know that there is a safe space where people will understand just in case I start to feel bad about it,” Waxenberg explained.

Waxenberg thinks that her experiences with religion have made an overall positive impact on her and said that in the future, she will make sure that her children are exposed to religion.

“Having religion play a part in your life is really important, and I’m glad that religion has played a part in my life. But I wouldn’t confine them to one religion.

I think that happens in a lot of families, where religion is really put upon the kids, and they don’t really know anything about other religions and what other religions can bring. I would like to expose them to other religions.”

Student by School Year, Monk by Summer Most students spend their summers interning at a company, traveling to exotic destinations, or preparing for the SAT. But if you’re junior Jonathan Aung, you spend your summers as a Buddhist monk. Aung and his older brother began this tradition during the summer of eighth grade. At the time, their grandmother was going through stage four liver cancer, so this step was taken to honor her. However, things soon took a tragic turn. “She died the day we were supposed to be coronated, in Burmese terms its shinbyu, which is the process young boys go to become monks. She died four hours before we did it, so we were like ‘we now have to do this in memory of her.’ Doing it was more of our emotional drive more than anything else,” he explained.

Prior to attending a monastery, Aung was raised in a religious household. He lived in Yangon/Rangoon, the capital of Burma, before moving to New York ten years ago. “My parents are very religious. Over the ten years we’ve been here, they’ve gotten more and more lenient, but at the start they were very focused in their religious aspects.

They wanted me to pray almost every single night. Nowadays I don’t really pray because it ties in with the whole God-worshipping thing. What I would classify myself as is an atheist who lives

by Buddhist ways, but I do become a monk as often as I can, and I’m doing it again this summer,” he said.

The process of joining a monastery included a very distinct physical change for Aung: he had to shave his head. After this transformation, the ceremony began. “We’re blessed in by the head monk and then essentially we are rebirthed into a new name and we become Buddha incarnate. And then, basically after we adopt a new name, and adopt this lifestyle, we become disciples of Buddha himself.

That’s the logic behind the type of Buddhism I am, which is Mahayana Buddhism. And after we give up being a monk, we give up our connection to Buddha and we become normal human beings again,” he described.

Aung’s experience at the monastery involved the prohibition of eating after 12 p.m., a

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lot of praying, and only eating meals prepared by someone else. “We can’t eat anything that we prepare ourselves, because we’re, in a sense, above humanity. Monks live off donations purely, there’s no ownership to your name. Once you become a monk you own nothing; you give up all worldly attachments,” Aung explained. Aung considers the transition between “normal” and monastery life pretty easy— his only major struggle was the dietary constriction.

Aung’s monk name is Shin Wathawa, and his brother’s is Shin Janita. Aung said that monks names are based off the day of the week that one is born in. “I was born Wednesday morning, and Wa is the starting syllable of Wednesday, so Shin Wathawa derives from Wednesday morning, and Shin Janita is derived from my brother’s Tuesday afternoon birth. If you go to most temples, you’ll see circling around that there’s a Monday spirit, there’s a Tuesday spirit, a Wednesday morning spirit, an evening spirit, and so on. They’re different Buddhas to pray to,” he said.

In the monastery, Aung wakes up at 4:30 a.m., then prays from 5:00 until 6:00, eats breakfast from 6:00 until 7:00 and prays some more from 7:00 until 10:00.

From 10:00 until 12:00 p.m., Aung has free time and he eats as much as he can, because after 12:00, eating is forbidden. Elder monks don’t even drink after 12:00, but since Aung is younger, he is allowed water or whatever beverage suits his desire.

Most Stuyvesant students do not transform into monks over the summer, so Aung is bound to feel a little different. Fortunately, however, students have been accepting. “When I first came into Stuyvesant, I was relatively bald and my hair was just growing back in. I felt pretty alienated but nowadays I believe the Stuyvesant community is very sensible in topics like religion,” he explained.

Aung’s monastery experiences have strongly influenced him as an individual—eighth grade Aung was very different from ninth grade Aung. “That was really when I picked up all the ideas of Buddhism and how it’s a lifestyle. In middle school, I was very aggressive; maybe it was just hormones, but I would always yell. I would give the silent treatment a lot. After I learned all these teachings I realized that

there’s really no reason to antagonize other people. I believe that no inherent person or soul is bad, it’s the experiences that they’ve gone through that have tainted them. And because of that, I feel that everyone is always good on the inside, and no matter what you do you can always reach out to that part of them.

I guess I’ve learned throughout this entire monastery experience that there’s so much that we control about ourselves, like how we react to situations, and that my parents have given me so much and I should have to respect them all the time,” Aung reflected. He described his experience as a “Renaissance of the Mind.”

He also explained that he would teach his future kids the Buddhist ideals and values. “I won’t teach them to respect Buddha as a God, I’ll teach them to follow the lifestyle choices that I think are best for advancing as a human being in society. Don’t desire too much, it’s alright to be who you are, but don’t infringe on other people’s beliefs, and respect everyone as an individual.

The major thing that I’ve learned as a monk is to be kind to our parents, and this especially tied in with my grandma dying on the day of my shinbyu. You never know when they’re going to be gone forever, and it’s alright to have fights—I have fights with my mom all the time, especially being the only one left in the nest, but it’s always important to remember to apologize. No matter what, you guys will always love each other. In the end, you don’t want to go to bed angry and have them not wake up the next day.”

Aung’s monastery experience made him wiser, and completely altered his view of the world.

Maybe it’s time for all of us to discover our inner monk as well.

You might still be wondering what happens when a Buddhist, a Jew, a Muslim, an atheist, and a Catholic enter a classroom. The answer is you’ll find a group of students who have been changed by their relationship with religion. And while they might not share the same beliefs, each student will have a fascinating story to tell about how religion has shaped their lives.

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 10

Features

Anne Duncan / The Spectator

I’d Tell You About Mr. Trainor, but Then I’d Have to Kill You

Mr. Kerry Trainor: Social Studies teacher, connoisseur of Tazo tea and button down shirts.

By Rose Cytryn Although New York City is a place of fashion, there are only a few people who can wear a camouflage print and not look like a soldier in the army. Among those select individuals—who range from Pharrell Williams to Tim Gunn—is Stuyvesant social studies teacher Kerry Trainor. With a thermos of Tazo tea in one hand, he adjusts a camouflage tie and looks out onto the Hudson River as we sit down in front of the history office for his interview. Leaning back into his chair, Trainor rests his free hand on the table top.

A Park Slope native, Trainor attended John Jay High School for a year before his family decided to leave the city and move to Long Island. His years in the New York City Department of Education were “good to [him],” he said with a smile. During and after high school, Trainor wanted to be a writer, remarking, “Actually I wanted to be a screenwriter.

I was super interested in film.”

This desire came from his joy of writing and telling stories, a love he easily displayed in his English classes, as he wrote short stories in his notebook instead of paying attention. Unfortunately, Trainor didn’t make it to the big screen.

Smiling and shaking his head at his younger self, he said, “I realized [that I] couldn’t really write that well. My pieces [for the paper] always got chopped up and edited. […] I realized I didn’t have as much of a talent as I thought I did.”

The passion for history and politics that Trainor always possessed flourished during the 2000 election. It wasn’t the outcome

Michelle Guo/ The Spectator

Comic

of the election that triggered the fascination, but the process of the election itself. Trainor was intrigued by the way the entire election came down to a “small county in Florida.” This election, paired with 9/11, which occurred only months later, intensified his desire to teach. It was, in fact, after the 9/11 attacks that Trainor decided to become a teacher. In an interview with Humans of Stuyvesant, Trainor explained, “Those people who hijacked those planes wanted to take something beautiful away from us; they wanted to subtract from this world. I wanted to act, to add… to give back.” So along with some of his friends on the same career path, Trainor entered SUNY New Paltz, “because they had a really great education program.” He talks about his fall into teaching, commenting, “These events made me wake up and pay attention.”

As it happens, many outside events have turned into lessons or appeared in lesson plans. With his spirited voice and interactive lessons, Trainor’s energy never ceases, even during the last periods of the day. He keeps his AP World students captivated with his lesson as he paces up and down the open center of the room. Sophomores surround the room to face a lone desk and SMART Board in the center, where the first question of the period is literally bouncing across the screen. Occasionally, Trainor abandons his desk in front of the board to move around: first from a perch on the radiator, then to a chair by the computer so he can look up facts about Belgium.

Drawings and portraits of famous historical imperialists appear on the screen and are soon

replaced by interactive maps of Africa. Trainor pauses the lesson for a minute, adjusts the pencil balanced behind his ear and begins to tell his student about his own trip through Belgium and stop in Brussels for waffles and chocolate. Just as quickly as the anecdote is brought up, he tells his students how some types of chocolate were created, some modeled after the hands that Belgian imperialists sawed off their victims. And then suddenly, he’s back to describing the Belgians in the Congo. Trainor’s class is speckled not only with stories of his travels, but also with famous and funny cartoons, and movie recommendations.

Trainor also incorporates his areas of expertise into his lessons. Particularly in his elective, History of Intelligence and Security Studies, Trainor dives into the history and function of the American intelligence community—a topic that also happened to be the basis of his masters’ thesis about congressional oversight. Before writing this thesis, Trainor spent around ten hours a day researching in the Library of Congress, a habit he grew to very much enjoy.

Many of his personal experiences have also become stories for his students, complete with memorabilia to enhance the tales. “I [get] all these credentials and buttons—or as you guys would call it, ‘swag’—and I use it every year in my lessons,” he laughs. Trainor is able to create these experiences partly because of his new wife, Stina SkewesCox Trainor, who has worked in a number of political positions with well-known influential figures in government (such as Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the house, and Samantha Power, the United Nations ambassador to the United States.) In 2012, Trainor even attended the Democratic National Convention with his future wife due to her connection to the party. He gets excited as he remembers the convention floor, lobbying events, and soon-to-be-historic speeches he witnessed. The opportunity to see the political world so close up was one Trainor could not pass up. “I wanted to go down because it was a weak spot for me.

I didn’t really understand what happened at conventions [and] it turned out to be this crazy experience,” he says.

Trainor has frequented other memorable political events

in Washington and around the country. In addition to the Democratic National Convention, Trainor has visited the White House four times, each experience better than the last. The first time he attended it was for his wife’s birthday party in the bowling alley. “It was really fascinating just to get there. We went through the basement, places that haven’t been renovated since Nixon […]” he recalls, motioning with his hands the twists and turns of his journey. Trainor also took a tour of the West Wing, which he remembers as “incredible. […] I stepped into the oval office [but] there was a red velvet rope so I couldn’t actually get in.”

Unexpectedly, Trainor got into an argument with one of the secret service agents on the tour “over the Lyndon Johnson taping system. I was asking him where it was and he said there was no taping system under Lyndon Johnson, and I said yes there was.” He bangs on the table for emphasis, saying he told the agent, “I’m a teacher—I use the presidential tapes in class.” It was then that his wife told him to drop it.

Trainor’s last two visits were through the East Wing tour, and on the second of the two, Trainor proposed to his wife, “a ‘promposal’ magnified by ten.”

He had originally planned to propose in the East Room, but minutes before popping the question, the room was suddenly swarmed by a tour group of 8th graders, instantly ruining his East Room prospects. Switching to Plan B, he told the secret service agent on the tour about his plan: “I’m going to propose to her; I’m going reach into my pocket take out the ring,” he quotes, pretending to reach into a jacket pocket the way he showed the agent.

She was quick to calm him and inform his friend of the best angle from which to take a picture.

Trainor immediately salvaged the opportunity and moved to the Blue Room to get down on one knee.

The perfect moment was a while in the works, and on more than one occasion Trainor thought he’d given his secret away. While preparing, he needed to decide how to ask his future parent-in-laws for permission, so he googled the best phrases. He laughs at himself as he recalls the search: “I stupidly Googled ‘what to say to your girlfriend’s parents before you propose’ and I left the screen open. She came home and

she wanted to use my computer, but I closed it shut. I thought she saw so I thought the jig was up.”

Fortunately, though she hinted at the possibility of an engagement, she was surprised and said yes. He rambles on about the moment, continuously smiling. “She started crying so we had to leave the tour […] she was starting to cause a scene crying and jumping up and down.”

Trainor had wanted to propose to his wife in a historical place, a desire that seems characteristic of someone this dedicated to history. To Trainor, history is a study of understanding the future, and not making the mistakes of the past—a study of human behavior, decision-making, and the study of outcomes of decisions. “Even if you’re talking about something in the 13th century or 14th century, it’s about how people behave with each other, the decisions that they make and the consequences of the decisions. […] Looking at history is the best way to illustrate that,” he explains. There are other advantages to studying history, he recognizes, adding, “Critical thinking, the ability to formulate an argument, then defend it, the ability to persuade and to accumulate research for a specific task—are all incredibly important skills.”

Trainor’s students are able to take these skills above and beyond in other classes and outside of school. Even for those who mock the idea of studying people who lived 700 years ago, a few weeks in Trainor’s class would change their mind. “My energy is my trademark,” he says. “Students know me for being able to talk to me, being relatable to them, being really passionate about what I teach, but also really caring about what I teach.”

His persona as a teacher carries out of the classroom as well: “My door is always open and students can always talk to me about whatever they want and I’ll help them [whatever] way I can.” Though he is no longer the high school student who writes the day away, Trainor has discovered a whole new way to share stories and influence young minds. Although it would have been very cool to see his name roll up the screen after a movie, it seems that most students would agree they are by far better off seeing his name on their schedule at the beginning of a semester.

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 11

Features Twelve on Three Thousand: A Cross-Section of Guidance

Alice Oh / The Spectator

bers offered compensatory time, allowing them to teach fewer classes in exchange for their additional positions. English teacher Emilio Nieves described his previous position as an SSR writer “crazy” and “time-consuming.” Although the writers never explicitly complained to the administration, “we [writers] certainly made it clear that there was a lot of work,” Nieves said. Grade advisors complained similarly.

Blaufarb advised acting principal Stanley Teitel to change the department into what exists today. In the words of Blumm, the addition of nine guidance counselors would “simplify and improve the department,” he said. “[Students] got to know their counselor and build a relationship.” When the counselors wrote students’ recommendations, “there would be a preexisting core,” Blumm added. In 2002, the Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers changed regulations, thus allowing for such a shift. In the same year, however, Blaufarb left the school and the guidance department due to medical complications.

Assistant Principal of Guidance Eleanor Archie would oversee the shift when Teitel decided to ultimately make it in 2006.

“We begged him not to do it,” one counselor who requested anonymity said. “We’re less able to [help students emotionally] if we have to do other things.”

Ultimately, each counselor took on academic, social, and recommendation responsibilities for roughly eight homerooms, or 300 students. The compensatory time positions were abolished, and the guidance suite was increased threefold. The department’s budget also increased drastically to match the hiring of new counselors. The school currently spends over a million dollars on the department annually.

“We’re putting the money where the mouth is,” Blumm said. “It’s not only about giving students the academics they need.”

What has resulted from the shift is not an increase of work, but rather a diversification of it.

Another counselor, who cites meeting 10-15 students daily, recounts her student meetings on one given day: three for behavior-related issues, one for personal income, and two academic, among others. Two cheating cases have manifested over the past week, and she has been in touch with programming re-

By Scott Ma, April Lam, and Liana Chow with additional reporting by Kachun Leung Certain names in this article have been altered or withheld under anonymity.

Junior Angela Chen recalls her first conversation with guidance counselor Mazra Schindler.

“I wish we could have met on a better note, but my friend just passed away,” she recounted. “I [didn’t] really know who to talk to, so I came here.” Schindler spent the remainder of the period comforting Chen and explaining how age skews perceptions of death. She then invited her to come back the following day.

Chen now visits Schindler daily. “Whenever something happens, whether it’s good or bad, she’s one of the first people I go to,” Chen said.

Chen’s story is unique. With 104 homerooms, well over 3,200 students, and only twelve guidance counselors, it is logistically impossible for Stuyvesant’s guidance department to maintain such close relationships with all students. Some students turn to their counselors for primarily academic purposes, whereas others visit the department rarely, if at all. “I didn’t know what the purpose of the guidance counselor was; it was never really explained to me,” one senior said.

Perhaps as a result of that, students usually ask their friends before their counselors for personal issues, even though their counselors often have resources and experiences their peers do not. Some counselors and students point at the negative stigma attached to the department.

“I go there when I have an incon-

venience, that’s probably why it feels like an inconvenience to me,” sophomore Harold Yang said. Yang, who has pushed back a meeting with counselor Harvey Blumm for weeks, is “just waiting for a problem to occur so [he] can just go knock out two birds with one stone.”

Another potential issue is the generation gap. “They feel like we’ll be more allied with the parents and the school,” one counselor who wishes to remain anonymous pointed out. Chen and most other students agree. “I want to express myself to someone I can relate to,” Chen said. “I know I don’t have to censor myself around Ms. Schindler.”

Assistant Principal of Guidance Casey Pedrick has a different theory. “They don’t go to their guidance counselors for their emotional times because their counselors write their letters of recommendation,” she said. A student’s counselor recommendation, better known as a Secondary School Report (SSR), serves as the student’s primary biographical and personal background when he or she applies to college.

Guidance counselors, however, did not always write students’ SSRs. Gene Blaufarb, who served as Stuyvesant’s Assistant Principal of Administration and Pupil Personnel Services from 1994 to 2002, oversaw the guidance department throughout his decade-long career. During that time, the department constituted of four counselors who worked primarily with students’ emotional and personal issues.

To supplement the work of the counselors, however, there also existed six SSR writers and four grade advisors. Each writer served around 100 seniors, and each advisor serviced one entire grade. Both were faculty mem-

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garding several seniors who are missing coursework they need to graduate. Half of her appointments are unexpected walk-ins, the other half planned. “We get e-mails or visits from teachers all of the time about students’ behavior,” she noted.

When teachers request for counselors to meet with students, counselors need to put their requests over the rest of their workload. “If you have a student who’s failing, you need to address him first,” an anonymous counselor said. “We don’t necessarily have a set schedule like teachers. You come in not knowing what to expect.”

When not meeting with students, counselors have recommendations to write and other regular paperwork. “There are a lot of myths that get spread about us,” one counselor said.

“Don’t assume that when we’re hunched over a computer, we aren’t doing anything.” Additionally, counselors, like other administrators, often take up roles outside of their faculty positions: Audra Parris advises StuySquad, Di Wu coaches the boys’ bowling team; the list goes on.

Pedrick is moving to dispel those rumors. By pushing the department into a more active and recognized role in the school, she hopes to gain more respect from the community and funding from the administration. “I’d like to see us get out of the office more,” Pedrick said.

“If we can demonstrate our value and show how much we can do for the school, I think that those in charge will see how important we are to the school community.”

She has purchased signs pointing to the department, required each counselor to hold student workshops on topics such as body image, and recently begun meeting with her counselors in groups of three. She cites that having smaller meetings means fewer voices and less competition between the counselors to speak, and thus more productivity. Though her efforts have been met with mixed results and opinions, she is adamant about her goal.

Despite the workload counselors face, some assert that the current system works. “We’re fairly good at being able to juggle what we have to do,” one anonymous counselor said, though noting that the “[counselors] are torn between having to take work home or being accessible to the students.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say we need more people,” another explained. “I’m able to manage.”

Pedrick believes the most direct solution lies in increasing funding for her department, a sentiment echoed broadly by students and faculty alike. The issue with that, however, lies in the system itself. According to a 2010 study by the American School Counselor Association, which recommends a 250:1 student-tocounselor ratio in schools, the entire country falls short. Only two out of fifty states meet the standards, with New York trailing behind at 392:1 and the national average at 471:1. Stuyvesant sits at eight homerooms per counselor, approximately 300:1.

The likelihood of change is slim. “When budgets are cut, guidance department budgets are often the ones cut down,” Pedrick said. Putting money into academics means putting fewer dollars into guidance, but no administrator will claim that one is more important than the other.

“The school needs more money across the board,” one anonymous counselor noted.

Another anonymous counselor points to a different problem. “I don’t feel like we’re respected or valued as a department,” she said. “We had a meeting about proving our value, and I was like what does that mean?

Why do I have to prove how valuable I am?”

She also explained there is no system that measures guidance counselors’ performance. “Once the numbers are there, kids are passing their tests, passing their classes, passing their SATs, kids are passing their Regents, then you’re a great teacher,” she added. “But how do you measure guidance? What stats do you use to measure us?”

Regardless of whether the perceived problems with the guidance department exist, counselors are certainly in demand. Sophomore Alice Cheng has sought Schindler through depression, anxiety, and conflict with her mother. “Every day for two months I just sat on her couch,” Cheng said. “I didn’t do much except use her spare laptop and do homework. When I was really stressed, I’d talk to her.”

“In my last meeting with Ms. Schindler, I told her I’d been crying periodically for the past few weeks,” Cheng continued. “She said, ‘If you really feel sad, just talk to me about it.’”

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 12

Features “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police”: Students’ Reactions to Eric Garner

By Philipp Steinmann A YouTube video from September shows a grisly scene at a gas station in South Carolina. From the dashboard of a police car, we watch as a state trooper drives up to a man emerging from a minivan and asks to see his license.

The man turns around, reaches inside—and now the state trooper appears in the frame, yelling “Get out of the car! Get out of the car!” aiming a gun at the man, and, without waiting for a response, shooting him several times, even as the man staggers out and puts his hands up. “Get on the ground!

Get on the ground!” the trooper yells. He handcuffs him and asks the man whether he was hit.

“I think so, I can’t feel my leg,” the man replies, sounding incredulous at what just happened.

“Why did you shoot me?”

“Well, you dove head-first into your car,” the trooper replied. For the next few minutes we hear the man groan as the two wait for an ambulance. At some point the trooper finally mentions why he even asked to see a license in the first place: a seat-belt violation.

But what supersedes all details of the story is the fact that the state trooper was white and the man was black. It joins the ranks of the dozens of outrageous police brutality cases that remind us over and over again that race is still very much an issue in our society. Because of similarly shocking stories that have occurred recently—Michael Brown, Eric Garner—racial inequality has again moved to the forefront of discussion. Despite nationwide protests since August, when the shooting of unarmed eighteenyear-old Michael Brown occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, the Stuyvesant community is only now beginning to take a stand.

The recent death of Eric Garner in Staten Island was much closer to home. He was suspected of selling loosies, untaxed cigarettes, when a police officer approached and tried to arrest him, and Garner resisted. The ensuing altercation was caught on tape: Garner complained about always being

picked on, and the police officer grabbed him around the neck and forced him to the ground, applying an illegal chokehold until Garner died—this in spite of Garner’s 11 now-famous cries, “I can’t breathe!” As with the Michael Brown shooting, the case was brought before a grand jury, and, once again, the police officer responsible was not indicted, setting off protests in New York City and a new round of discussions about the problems with the judicial system and with race in America.

Until recently, Stuyvesant lacked such a dialogue, let alone any kind of political movement.

A group of five frustrated sophomores decided that action was necessary, and thus organized a meeting in conjunction with SPARK supervisor Angel Colon.

Sophomore Zora Arum, who has also become involved in activism, elaborated on the motive for holding a meeting. “It’s easy, as Stuyvesant students, to get wrapped up in grades, get wrapped up in the stress, and only think about yourself, but it’s also very important, as Stuyvesant students, to do something,” she said.

The meeting took place on Monday, December 8, when roughly 40 students squeezed into a social studies classroom for what the sophomore organizers dubbed a Racial Equality Meeting. Because race is so rare in our common discourse, attendees spent some time grappling with defining the problem and its extent in our everyday lives.

Despite the organizers’ attempts at guidance, the conversation only touched briefly on possibilities for action, and there were so many disagreements that some energy was sapped from the initial activist enthusiasm. Nonetheless, it was a clear step forward to hear Stuyvesant students discuss problems like micro-aggressions and a lack of diversity at school.

“We got a conversation going, and it was immensely satisfying,” sophomore Livia Kunins-Berkowitz said. “The attention that’s been paid to it, […] just having this focus is very essential.”

It is worth asking, however, if race in particular was really the cause of the Eric Garner case. Of course he was black, but he was also resisting arrest, and, at 6’4” tall and 350 pounds, definitely a formidable presence; it is not implausible that race was not the only factor for the police officer’s undue aggression. Social studies teacher Matthew Polazzo would even go so far as to say that “if Garner was Latino or white, I could imagine things going down the same way”—it was more a problem of class than race, he explained. One would not find a middle-class person of any race selling loosies on the street. Polazzo also cited other non-racial problems in the story, such as the imbalance of the judicial system and the policeman’s lack of delicacy in bringing about such a direct confrontation. It is worth noting that even Eric Garner’s daughter told the media that her father’s death had not been racemotivated—rather, “It was about the officer’s pride. […] He wanted to be the top cop that brings this big man down.”

Whether race was the cause or not, the case has brought about a much-needed dialogue. This dialogue found further outlet in last week’s Police Brutality Meeting, organized by Colon on the behalf of ASPIRA and the Black Student League. Students and faculty shared their stories in an understanding atmosphere. Guidance counselor Audra Parris told how her son was confronted by a police officer on the subway even though a much rowdier group of white students sat nearby. The cop refused to acknowledge the rowdier group’s presence and only left when Parris’s son and his friends all claimed that their names were Sean Bell (who was shot by police in 2006). Students, too, had a surprising number of harrowing tales to share. One was called the n-word by a passerby in a bus terminal; another was shadowed by police at the Atlantic Avenue subway station when he was younger; a third student choked up as she told how her older brother was almost falsely

arrested for alleged marijuana possession.

“We shouldn’t just sit in rooms and talk about it. I feel like we should just go out and make our views known.”

—Georgia Kamm, junior While we need to educate ourselves, students agree that there is a need for more public action, especially because the problem is now in the media’s spotlight. “We shouldn’t just sit in rooms and talk about it. I feel like we should just go out and make our views known,” junior Georgia Kamm said. “This is an opportunity that we shouldn’t miss.” A few weeks ago, Kamm spontaneously joined a march in her Greenwich Village neighborhood, and sat down in the middle of a street in protest.

“It was really powerful, because it was almost dead silent, and people were just holding up their signs and sitting,” she said. “It makes such an impact that you’re just willing to go and sit out there, and you’re not angry, you’re not throwing things […], you’re saying ‘this is my right as a citizen, to be out here and stand up for what I believe in.’ I think that’s important. If I didn’t have to go school I would go to protests every day.”

More radically, a proposal to stage a die-in—an event where protesters lie on the ground and act like they’re dead—was hotly debated on Facebook. Junior Zoe Leaf, who supports the idea,

said, “You want to shock people.

Because it’s such a shockingly unjust thing that’s happening.”

Leaf, who is also involved in the feminist and LGBTQ movements, urged others to “go learn about this stuff, and learn about what you can do, and if you have any feeling about the issue, if you feel in any way remotely that it’s not right, then act on that. […] Turn your anger into something positive.”

In the end, a simple march can also call prominent attention to an issue and incite a latent passion in its participants. Tens of thousands of protesters marched from Union Square to the New York Police Department (NYPD) headquarters, close to Stuyvesant, two weeks ago. Stuyvesant’s presence was scattered but energetic.

The sophomores who had organized the Racial Equality Meeting, having spread news of the march on Facebook, brought two large signs—one said “JUSTICE” and the other “STUYVESANT STUDENTS 4 RACIAL EQUALITY”— and shouted until they were hoarse. Students who were previously skeptical seemed swept up in the movement and the chants “I can’t breathe,” and “No justice, no peace, no racist police.” In the evening, people crammed into the square in front of the NYPD headquarters, and family members of victims of police brutality held impassioned speeches over a speaker system. It was cold, and almost became uncomfortably crowded, but people stayed for hours, listening and chanting.

“There’s constant little flames going in this world,” KuninsBerkowitz explained. “But then something like this happens, and the media lashes on to it: spark!

It’s about constantly fanning the flames and keeping it going.”

With the Racial Equality Meeting and the Police Brutality Meeting, Stuyvesant has made some progress toward creating a dialogue about racial injustice. However, it still remains to be seen whether the very concerning case of Eric Garner will develop into a fiery movement at Stuyvesant.

Roving Reporter: Reactions to Eric Garner

By Namra Zulfiqar and Vanna Mavromatis

“Some people may say that this was not an example of racism, but an example of police brutality. But they are one and the same, they’re tied together. [...] Police were brutal because of his race.”

—Evan Lieberman, sophomore and co-organizer of the Racial Equality Meeting

White police officer Daniel Pantaleo tried to arrest black 43-year-old Eric Garner for selling untaxed cigarettes on July 17. Because Garner resisted arrest, Pantaleo put him into a chokehold and thus ended his life. A Staten Island grand jury decided not to indict Panataleo for his actions on December 3. Below are various students’ thoughts about the jury’s decision and the larger problem of racism in the United States.

“What [police] have is some subconscious image of what a suspicious person looks like, and that’s been ingrained by institutionalized racism.

The police are just perceiving what they believe to be a suspicious person. [...] The problem with racism in our society is that it’s not something that was incorporated into our society, it’s something that our society grew around, and that’s why it’s going to be such a struggle to eliminate it.”

—Kofi Lee-Berman, sophomore and co-organizer of the Racial Equality Meeting

“I don’t believe that race played any role in this case, or in the Michael Brown case. I think that the police used excessive force in this situation, but not because Garner was black. Race has become an easy explanation for why this occurred, but it is completely irrelevant to the actions that took place.”

—Alexis Kushner, junior

“[Race played] a huge role. I mean, the whole point about it is that this was not an isolated incident. There’s so much precedent, especially in recent years, that allows white cops to kill black men without consequence.”

—Zoe Leaf, junior

“I would say that all of it was fear [...] I don’t think any policeman goes into the world thinking ‘What I want to do today is kill someone,’ whether he’s racist, whether he’s a black man, it doesn’t matter. [...] No one wants that for their profession, and no one wants to live with having killed someone. It was more that [Garner] was a very large man and [the police] were intimidated by him.”

—Zora Arum, sophomore and co-organizer of the Racial Equality Meeting

“Assuming that race may have played a part in this is unfair due to the evidence available. No one knows what’s going on through the officer’s mind, but jumping on impulse and saying that it was a case of racism just because the officer was white and the victim was black is completely unfair.”

—Danny Akilov, sophomore

“It’s not just the police—I think we all suffer from institutionalized racism. [...] The media teaches us who to fear, the movies teach us who to fear, the crime statistics teach us who to fear. But often these statistics are flawed. Everything is teaching us who to fear, and we all grow up with it, it’s so deeply ingrained in our society.”

—Livia Kunins-Berkowitz, sophomore and co-organizer of the Racial Equality Meeting

“I don’t want to say the officer was being racist. He just has this subconscious bias because of how ingrained institutionalized racism is in our society. [...] It’s just something he’s grown up with. Eric Garner was a pretty big guy. Part of it was fear.”

—Rhys Suero, sophomore

“People want change, but I feel like it’s more of a judicial thing. We can change us as people, but we can’t really cause change until the people in charge or the system sees the areas they’re lacking in. [...] I hope that in years to come, even if it takes our generation to do it, that some changes will be made.”

—Sammie Paul, freshman

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

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The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Editorials Staff Editorial

It’s Time to Leave Stuyvesant’s Bubble

When a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, decided on Tuesday, November 25, not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for shooting and killing black teenager Michael Brown, Stuyvesant students buzzed— hallway conversations drifted towards Ferguson, and social media websites were flooded with posts about the case. Nine days later, when a grand jury decided not to indict NYC police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of 43-year old Eric Garner, students’ buzzes grew to shouts and the case drew a lot of attention from the Stuyvesant community. Some students even organized an after-school meeting aimed at discussing the repercussions of both cases and what high school students could do to express their outrage with the decisions reached. Students were galvanized by the two cases.

In order to have a functional democracy, we need a school system that promotes a politically aware electorate.

Such an awareness of current events, however, is not the norm at Stuyvesant. Rather, students are predominantly concerned by typical teenage matters, and contentious worldly events are usually unknown to students. When President Obama announced that he was normalizing diplomatic relations with Cuba on Wednesday, December 17, there was an alarmingly small amount of “buzz” among students—in fact, it’s probable that a large fraction of Stuyvesant’s population did not even realize that the event took place. Instead, the concern was that the new movie “The Interview” had been canceled and students were thus being deprived of another Seth Rogen comedy. This movie itself is emblematic of the relations between Stuyvesant students and the world— despite the fact Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s regime hacked into Sony’s computers, concerns about Kim Jung Un were not the focus of conversations about “The Interview.” Seth Rogen was.

The fact that students are so uninformed about what is going on in the world around us is problematic because, as soon-to-be-voters, high school

students have a responsibility to maintain some degree of knowledge about current events. And Stuyvesant, as an elite high school, has the responsibility to make sure that its students are aware of key events as they take place.

Education’s basic functions are to provide two services: to create people who will thrive in the real world and to nurture an informed civilian population in a democracy. In order for us to effectively exercise our voting rights as citizens, it is essential that we understand the nature of governments, world affairs, and geopolitical interests. In order to have a functional democracy, we need a school system that promotes a politically aware and active electorate.

Recent studies have found that a lack of knowledge about current events is a problem plaguing students across the country—a study conducted by the Global Studies Foundation found that 43 percent of 18-24 year-olds are unable to identify Mexico as the largest source of American immigrants today, and 56 percent do not know that the European Union is the organization sponsoring the Euro. While one may be inclined to believe that, as such an esteemed school, Stuyvesant is immune to this problem, this is not true. In a survey conducted on the Tribeca Bridge

by The Spectator last April, only 37.3 percent of 135 students knew that Russia was controlling Crimea at the time, and a mere 67.2 percent knew that Joe Biden is the vice president of the United States.

Stuyvesant ought to implement a number of measures to fight such low levels of students’ familiarity with the world around us. First, history teachers should make sure to bring up key current events during class. While we understand that many history courses cram several hundred years’ worth of history into a semester’s worth of classes, teachers should be willing to take a couple of minutes of class time every week to educate their students about what is going on in today’s world. It is pointless for students to know more about the implications of the Hammurabi Code than recent amendments to the Constitution, or for students to be more informed about President Thomas Jefferson’s foreign affairs policy than Obama’s. History should inform our views on current events, not replace our knowledge of them.

Furthermore, when history teachers have an opportunity to look at current events through the lens of a historical time period, or explore how certain turning points in the past have affected the world we live in now, they should seize these moments. While many social studies teachers, including Robert Sandler, Kerry Trainor, and Matthew Polazzo, do connect their lessons to current events, some are too pressed for time to discuss these in depth.

Curricula should be adjusted to bridge the gap between history and the critical issues of our time—how should the Mexican-American War inform our opinions regarding Obama’s actions on immigration? How can the evolution of Islam in the Middle East help us un-

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derstand the conflicts between Sunnis and Shiites? History is a valuable tool, and we should allow it to inform our perspectives on today’s world.

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The Spectator Lastly, Stuyvesant should consider adding a one-semester required course that teaches an in-depth history of the late 20th century, focusing on how key events have led to problems the world faces today.

While such material is technically part of the World History curriculum, it is often rushed through because teachers find themselves with too much material to cover at the end of the year to discuss recent historical events in a substantive manner.

Learning about modern history is imperative for students to be able to pick up a newspaper and understand what they’re reading, or have informed conversations with their peers about recent developments in longterm conflicts that are taking place across the globe. After all, without understanding the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it may be difficult to get through a newspaper article about it. Students should leave the class understanding the merits and downfalls of America’s political system, the key issues being debated around the world, and who the key leaders of certain countries are.

Though it is good that the cases of Eric Garner and Michael Brown provoked students to inform themselves about current events, such a situation should be the norm, not an anomaly. Stuyvesant students have a responsibility to understand the nature of politics and the way we interact with it, and for Stuyvesant to fully live up to its reputation as an elite public school, it must nurture a group of graduates who are informed citizens and active participants in society. Without doing so, Stuyvesant will have failed in its primary goal of creating citizens who will thrive in the world.

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Page 15

Opinions

By Munawar Rahman When satire mimics reality so well that you can’t tell the difference, you know not all is well with the world. Such is The Onion’s latest satirical effort, Clickhole. com, which parodies websites like Buzzfeed and Upworthy. It’s a parody of a parody, considering how well websites like Buzzfeed mock real journalism by featuring clickbait titles for overpromising and

under-delivering articles. However, unlike the Clickhole, Buzzfeed and its sister sites intend to reap profits from their trickery. They’ve certainly succeeded.

What is clickbait exactly? If you’ve ever used Facebook and haven’t bothered to filter your feed, you’ve been flooded with such titles as “Can you answer these 4 questions and save the media industry from Taylor Swift?”

(Upworthy) or “George RR Martin has 2 words if you think he’ll die before finishing Game of Thrones” (Buzzfeed). Clickbait is characterized as life-changing and worldshattering on the surface, but the moment you click the link, you realize you’ve wasted yet another precious six seconds of your life.

The system of clickbait expands far beyond those few wasted seconds of your precious life.

According to QuantCast, which measures site traffic, sites like Upworthy and BuzzFeed receive from two million to 12 million unique visitors daily. This phenomenon is a result of the Internet’s natural evolution into a more accessible nexus of information. The idea of clickbait, despite the derogatory name, is technologically progressive. Publishers can get content

on the private screens of consumers instantly, without ink or paper usage, and customers continuing to read and share these gimmicky headlines will guarantee at least a few million views and, subsequently, revenue.

The relationship between clickbait and more legitimate forms of media is the difference between Doritos and crème brûlée. Chips are made for rapid consumption, even if afterwards you feel like your stomach wants a divorce. You always want to reach for more; junk food is the result of capitalist innovation, as the busy man or woman can grab a bag at the stand in a rush. Meanwhile, crème brûlée requires more dedication, and is consumed at a slower pace. But at the very end, you’re exposed to something different, unique, and of higher quality. And, in the long term, whether you’ve finished up that cake or completed that lengthy but well-written article, you feel more satisfied.

It doesn’t seem like clickbait poses a danger to the rest of the news industry. After all, fancy restaurants haven’t been shut down because Frito-Lay is making a profit. But consider that obesity in the U.S. has exploded due to

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No Fracking Way!

By Sharon Lin It’s early spring—the usual time for the Delaware River to begin swelling from the late April rains.

But if you take even a glance at the area today, you’re unlikely to find such untainted waterways.

Instead, enormous construction vehicles and artificial dams obstruct the natural waters, crowd the skyline with soaring steel towers, and blast blaring horns. What had once been a peaceful wooded landscape has become an industrial wasteland, thanks to the hydraulic fracturing corporations that have taken over the Marcellus Shale.

They hunt for natural gas more than a mile beneath the shore; it is estimated that there is enough within our borders to power all of the homes in the United States for about two years.

And yet, just a couple weeks ago, New York Governor Cuomo officially passed a moratorium on fracking in New York state. Why? Because as study after study as shown, the process of hydraulic fracturing results in great public health risk, far outweighing the economic benefit.

The rest of the nation must follow along in Cuomo’s footsteps—before it is too late.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a technique for obtaining natural gas by shooting cocktails of chemicals at incredibly high speeds into the ground to dislodge the sedimentation and bedrock that exist deep within the earth.

And it turns out that these cocktails of chemicals often include acids, detergents, and poisons that could be near fatal if they seep into drinking water.

“More than 700 chemicals are

used in the fracking process, and many of them disturb hormone function,” Dr. Susan C. Nagel of the University of Missouri School of Medicine explained. “This could raise the risk of reproductive, metabolic, neurological and other diseases, especially in children who are exposed to [endocrine-disrupting chemicals].”

Moreover, after the actual fracking has taken place, radioactive elements and salts are left behind in the deposit. Shale rock is known for containing radium, which is highly carcinogenic. Fracking displaces the water that has come into contact with the shale, allowing it to rise to the surface and taint equipment, like the fragile casings and wall linings used in the process.

“The radioactivity in the wastewater is not necessarily dangerous to people who are near it. It can be blocked by thin barriers, including skin, so exposure is generally harmless,” New York Times reporter Ian Urbina said. “Rather, E.P.A. and industry researchers say, the bigger danger of radioactive wastewater is its potential to contaminate drinking water or enter the food chain through fish or farming. Once radium enters a person’s body, by eating, drinking or breathing, it can cause cancer and other health problems, [as] many federal studies show.”

Even with the development of safer methods of fracking, such as using steel casings to prevent leakages of radium and chemicals from permeating into the groundwater, most companies prefer allowing traces of methane gas to leak into the local water supply, rather than paying extra to purchase new equipment, and even for compa-

nies less profit-oriented, problems remain.

However, statistics show that even when companies use safer practices of fracking, there is still a small chance that mistakes will be made. When the numbers are concerning levels of carcinogenic and toxic chemicals, a fraction is all that is needed to result in a steady increase in the pollution of the water supply. As civil engineer Anthony Ingraffea points out, even with the most modern technology, there is a six to seven percent failure rate with well casings.

At first, this statistic may seem trivial; considering, however, that over 100,000 wells have been drilled in just the Marcellus Shale, the numbers grow in significance— they imply more than 6,000 wells have suffered failures. Since only small amounts of leaked carcinogens and otherwise toxic chemicals are necessary for a steady increase in pollution of the water supply, those 6,000 wells (and the countless others across the country) result in further deterioration of the public health.

Most companies prefer allowing traces of methane gas to leak into the local water supply, rather than paying extra to purchase new equipment.

Even as the carcinogenic and radioactive chemicals shot into the ground grow in concentration, our federal government fails to change its outlook. While the economy may experience a short-lived respite and a similarly small peak, it is foolhardy to base the future of our state on the gain from a few years’ worth of employment growth, as opposed to decades of scientific study. We cannot incessantly worry about short-term economic issues when the future of our nation’s health is at stake.

people making convenient yet unhealthy choices that harm them in the long run. The busier we get, the more appealing clickbait news will seem to us, at the expense of not being deeply involved with the content we read. With further advances in social networking, the issue of clickbait will only be magnified. Real journalism will appeal only to a disciplined, niche audience who can afford the time, and media outlets may change their content to be less substantive.

The desire for “snack-food” journalism is apparent even now.

A study last year done by researchers from the University of Bristol based on data from 11 news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and BBC, shows that even amongst these non-clickbait publications, users gravitate towards certain key words such as “iPhone,” “sex,” or “murder” and tend to avoid “Obama” or “politics.”

A lot of political articles concern life-changing issues, as opposed to the fake ones presented in clickbait. But people short on time aren’t going to invest in something they’re not guaranteed to be immediately entertained by, even if their alternatives lack real-world

relevance. Considering that readers stay in their comfort zone even when reading more legitimate publications, the fact that many people never leave the warmth of their Facebook feed isn’t surprising.

We can’t defeat clickbait, because it’s ultimately fun. As tech analyst Nilay Patel describes it, the titles are like one-question quizzes and games that put us in a loop of silly content, just as Doritos keep us reaching for more to the point when we lick the powder off our fingers.

But if you’re someone who wants to feel more enriched by what you consume, then you’ll have to take more risks, ask for journal recommendations, and show some loyalty to a brand other than Buzzfeed or Upworthy. Even if you stumble upon material with which you disagree, you’re at least learning and developing views on the world. And you will certainly find other valuable articles that allow you to craft your own judgment instead of telling you how to feel, and the time investment is well worth it if you find a topic in which you’re genuinely interested.

Those six seconds of clickbait add up; let’s not do the math.

The Trap of US Foreign Policy

By Scott Fairbanks

Iraq is an active volcano. For the past century, this region has spewed catastrophic waves of violence and oppression, and these conflicts have had a destabilizing effect on social and political life in the Middle East. After the 9/11 attacks, the security of this region has been a critical objective of the United States and its western counterparts.

These nations believe that, by securing reforms in Iraq’s political leadership, they can produce stability in the region. Yet these countries fail to recognize Iraq’s social and political undercurrents—groundswell movements that are unaffected by changes in top government positions. Just as covering up the opening of a volcano will not prevent it from erupting, changing the political structure of Iraq will not stop an onslaught of western culture resistance and a confluence of tribal warfare. Consequently, western political action in this region will never have the societal legitimacy needed to affect long lasting reform in Iraq.

The forces in constant conflict with western influence became abundantly evident in response to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The 2010 National Security Strategy of the United States asserts that “the unity and security of Iraq and the fostering of its democracy” is one of its top priorities. These efforts, however, have been impeded by a lack of political understanding, as well as the ineffective borders of Iraq, which are not based on legitimate ethnic and political differences. As a result, violent tribes and extremist groups such as ISIS, who are motivated by bigotry and a perceived infiltration of the Iraqi government, run rampant. They will not obey the weak democratic rule that is currently in place.

Additionally, lack of social equality makes an organically formed democracy almost impossible. Women, who have been oppressed for centuries, and members of different religions or sub-religions, will not be offered the same rights as males of the majority denomination. In order to coalesce, the country’s political system would require prolonged Western interference; a costly and mostly ineffective policy.

The stability of Iraq needs to

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Are Sensationalist Titles the Greatest Idea of the 21st Century?

You’ll Never Guess Why (Not)

come from political and economic forces within the region. As of now, the best way to combat extremist groups such as ISIS is economic empowerment of the common people. Impoverished areas are infinitely more vulnerable to the influence of radical groups than areas where success and innovation promote education and prosperity.

In order to encourage growth and progress in disadvantaged regions, business-friendly laws must be enacted immediately. Arab businessmen are already advocating for these reforms all over the Middle East. One businessman at a conference in Tunisia said, “We’ve always been entrepreneurs. Our prophet was a merchant!”

But for now, the US should refrain from meddling in areas like Iraq. With domestic oil production growing one million barrels a day per year (due to advances in oil field technology), the US is importing substantially less from this volatile country. This trend should continue as US domestic production continues to grow. Therefore, US economic interests in the Iraq, and many other areas in the Middle East, are quickly declining.

Much of US influence in this region is targeted at reforming and maintaining political institutions, which has proved counterproductive and fiscally wasteful. We need to wait for societal change to originate in local economic development rather than in the misinformed calculus of a foreign power. While the volcano continues to erupt, the US should keep its distance.

Page 16

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Arts and Entertainment

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Movie One Last Time, For Better or, Mainly, For Worse

By Shahruz Ghaemi The trailers for “The Battle of the Five Armies” touted it as “the defining moment of the Middle-Earth legend,” an absurd overstatement.

“The Hobbit” by J. R. R. Tolkien, published in 1937, is an ultimately feel-good tale about the fantastical adventures that one simple, homeloving hobbit was swept up into.

Calling the last of three “Hobbit” movies “defining” should be ridiculous, when “The Lord of the Rings” is actually about a world-saving quest.

Yet that is exactly what this movie has become. It is the capstone on director Peter Jackson’s vision of Tolkien’s epic fantasy world, a six-movie vision that started with the first of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, in 2001. It is a legacy, both justly beloved and deeply flawed, that Jackson has clearly looked to cement in this movie.

First let’s consider this movie which so perfectly crystallizes Peter Jackson’s strengths and weaknesses.

Having reclaimed their mountain kingdom from the fire-breathing dragon Smaug (Benedict Cumberbatch), the motley band of dwarves plus our titular hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), now has to defend the dragon’s hoard. Everyone, from elves and humans to the goblins who have been hunting our heroes from the first movie, wants in on the loot, and their collective descent on our besieged heroes gives the movie a title that could have been torn out of a West Point military history textbook.

Not that Thorin (Richard Armitage), now King-under-theMountain, has any intention of letting even one moocher past his doorstep. Consumed by “dragonsickness,” he shuts himself in and wanders through the vaults, clad in regal fur but presiding over an empty kingdom. It is here that I am reminded that Jackson is still a masterful interpreter of Tolkien, able to take text that wouldn’t translate well verbatim and spin an interest-

ing story out of it (he just does it to excess).

Thorin addresses his friends like servants in scenes that are far angrier and psychologically darker than the sparse versions that appear in the book. Richard Armitage’s haunting stare, empty yet searching, makes for some of the best character moments of the film.

Martin Freeman’s eccentric facial expressions will also last the ages, and his Bilbo always remains a grounded character to touch base with as adventures spiral out of control into all-out war.

The backdrop of “Five Armies” captures much of what I love about Jackson’s adaptations of MiddleEarth. The landscape shots are gorgeous and breathtaking—The Lonely Mountain stands desolate against the sky, swabbed with blues and greys. Mist and death swirl around a frozen waterfall, and the ancient glory of cities now ruined still shines through in their architecture. The world of Middle-Earth, its colors, languages, and costumes, have always been my greatest fondness.

A mixture of CGI (computergenerated imagery) and the awe-inspiring actual scenery of New Zealand works for creating the world, but Jackson runs into complications populating it with warring dwarves, elves, and orcs. Instead of working on the post-production end to make massive armies look like the grimy, prosthetic-wearing actors on the ground, Jackson has drawn live-action and CGI into unholy congress, creating battles that are more appropriate for video games than the silver screen.

Here, the epic action is better experienced from a birds-eye point of view, as you appreciate the pretty ranks of identical soldiers march in formation. And when you are on the ground in the midst of it, armor seems to count less than tissue paper as meaningless bodies are thrown around. It is a dissatisfying way to sit and watch half of a 140minute film.

Because that’s how much time “The Battle of the Five Armies” takes up. Jackson is at his best when he takes little character moments and fleshes them out. He is at his worst when the need to make everything “epic” leaves him with over two hours and only 50 pages of text to fill it with. Just when you think everything is over, another orc army appears on the horizon. Villains who have been pursuing the heroes since the first movie—since two years and six and half hours of movie ago—aggravatingly refuse to die. One of the few upsides of this torturously protracted action is that Jackson is able to get more personal with major character deaths that happen off-stage in the book.

Right now, though, what nothing can take away from this (hopefully) final “Hobbit” movie is that it is our last journey back to Middle-Earth.

It doesn’t excuse the highlight reellike way Jackson lifts a truly stunning number of speeches, charges, and establishing shots from “The Lord of the Rings.” What it does redeem, though, are the touches that lent Jackson’s first successes their magic. Howard Shore’s score, alternately elegiac and adrenalineinducing, will never again grace the screen. Neither will New Zealand’s magnificent scenery.

At the end of the movie, after all the trekking and fighting and worrying, Bilbo arrives back at his front door. He seems at once shocked and relieved, and so was I. After a saga as grueling as the adventure it depicts, I was more than happy to bask in the rolling hills and quiet peace of the Shire.

Jackson clearly wants the “Hobbit” movies to serve as direct prequels to “The Lord of the Rings.” By Durin’s beard, the last scene in “Five Armies” shows Bilbo reminiscing about his adventures seconds before Gandalf knocks on his door in “The Fellowship of the Ring.”

If he wants “The Battle of the Five Armies” to stand as a referendum on his hours of cinematic work, let’s take it as such. Jackson is a skilled interpreter of Tolkien, and for many, the only one. But his prowess is a coin whose flip side tends toward a love of excess for its own sake. Including Gandalf’s side quest to root out the resurgent Sauron and send him fleeing to Mordor certainly sets the pieces up for “The Lord of the Rings.”

Still, it makes for a depressingly bloated trilogy that feels (to quote Bilbo in “Fellowship”), “like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.” Moviegoers shouldn’t be subject to this kind of grueling punishment year after year, and judging by the successively smaller box-office returns for each movie, their wallets agree.

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Video Game

Trouble in Paradise

By Caroline Bredthauer From the moment I realized that Far Cry 4’s main villain was wearing a neon pink suit, I knew that I was in for a wild ride. Far Cry 4, Ubisoft’s latest addition to the Far Cry series, is an open world video game set in the fictional country of Kyrat (based heavily on Nepal). You play as Ajay Ghale, born in Kyrat and raised in America, and you are returning to your place of origin to scatter your mother’s ashes. Very quickly, however, you find yourself caught up in a civil war fighting for the Golden Path, a ragtag group of rebels trying to bring down tyrannical king Pagan Min (owner of the finest pink suit money can buy).

Far Cry 4 is visually stunning.

During the very first moments of the game, and every so often while I was playing, I had to stop and simply appreciate my gorgeous surroundings. From the lush lowlands to the harsh mountain peaks of the Himalayas, Far Cry 4’s designers have poured hours of work into their visual effects, and the work has paid off. The world of Far Cry 4 is the game’s heart. It is a reactive and interactive world, filled with animals to hunt, plants to collect, and hundreds of non-player characters with whom to talk. Everywhere you turn there is something going on, whether it is a tiger stalking you through the underbrush or a group of your Golden Path pals in need of some backup in a firefight with Pagan Min’s henchmen. The most fun can often be found by simply walking around and waiting for something to happen. I, for example, was once attacked by two bears, and ended up setting an entire forest on fire in order to save myself.

While the game’s world is exquisite, the story is comparatively uninteresting. The plot takes a back seat to the open world, which is so exciting that advancing the main storyline never seems very important. The player character, Ajay Ghale, is incredibly flat, likely one of the most boring video game protagonists I’ve ever played as. Many of the other characters, including your Golden Path allies Amita and Sabal, as well as your nemeses, are more interesting, but don’t undergo character development.

Amita and Sabal are constantly fighting over the leadership of the Golden Path, leaving you as the mediator. Pagan Min’s henchmen all have their own agendas and are more than willing to kill you if you get in their way. Still, these characters never evolve from their respective roles in the story: villains are villains, heroes are heroes, and anyone who could potentially grow

out of their stereotype is either killed off or simply vanishes from the story. If Ajay is the worst in what is, overall, a boring cast, Pagan Min is the only character who could breathe life into the story, but he isn’t featured enough to do so.

It is more than likely that the flattened story was brought about by the criticism heaped onto the game’s predecessor. In “Far Cry 3,” the player character was thrillseeking American tourist Jason Brody, captured on a tropical island by the maniacal slave trader Vaas. Far Cry 3’s characters were infinitely more memorable. Villains could be sympathetic, letting you into their twisted heads with the use of superb dialogue, and several of the protagonist’s allies had turned against him by the game’s end. However, Far Cry 3 was criticized for the fact that a white male (who many players found annoying) easily became the savior of a native people fighting against Vaas’ pirates, leading them to a victory that they apparently couldn’t achieve without his help. In order to avoid more accusations of racism, Far Cry 4’s Ajay Ghale is a native returning to his homeland, trying to oust the outsider king who has taken over.

The attempt to rectify Far Cry 3’s mistakes was well-intentioned, but the game’s writers went too far in their attempts to create a “different” story. In order to generate a player character that wasn’t offensive, they stripped him of all personality whatsoever. Similarly, they stripped the storyline. What was meant to be a role reversal ends up creating a boring, forgettable plot.

Almost everything else about Far Cry 4, though, is firmly positive.

Real Nepalese music plays on the radios of the cars you often travel in, which adds to the authenticity of Far Cry 4’s world. The gameplay itself is also very smooth. I played on the PS4, and the shooting controls were easily mastered and fun to use. This was a good thing for me, because when I found myself in a series of tight spots, including a moment when I ended up fighting a very angry rhinoceros with nothing but a tiny pistol, I was able to enjoy myself while frantically mashing every button on my controller.

Far Cry 4 is an eclectic, colorful romp through an exciting open world. The visuals are the true stars of the show, especially when the story and characters fall flat. I would definitely recommend this game to anyone looking to spend some time having casual fun. To quote Pagan Min, “We’re going to tear this up!!”

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 17

Arts and Entertainment Music

By Sunjay Lee

KenKen

Swift vs. Spotify

Within the last two decades, the music industry has been facing an indomitable enemy: illegal online downloading, or piracy.

Sites such as Napster allowed people to download music for free, without paying royalties to the artist. Of course, there was much controversy over these illegal downloading websites, which many artists have sued in order to gain compensation when people listen to their music. Nowadays, one of the most prominent—and legal—sites for music streaming is Spotify.

Spotify allows users to listen to music for free, but it also has a premium membership (ad-free listening) for those who pay approximately $10 a month. The company states that 70 percent of its revenue goes back to the music labels, yet it has faced various controversies concerning its method of giving royalties back to the artists, many of whom have complained that their profit of less than a penny per play is far too little.

In order to counteract this meager payment, Taylor Swift has pulled her new album, “1989,” from Spotify, along with her older albums. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last July, Swift wrote about her motivation and decision to take her music off Spotify: “The value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when

it goes out into the marketplace.”

She also countered the objection that her fans will not be able to connect to her or her music anymore.

It isn’t just Swift who holds the sentiment expressed in her op-ed.

Last year, Radiohead’s Thom Yorke also pulled his songs from Spotify due to the same concern. Spotify released a statement that Swift had raised $2 million worldwide in the past 12 months from her songs on Spotify. Her representative, however, stated that Swift had received only $496,044 in domestic revenue. Swift herself commented on this issue in her op-ed: “Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for.” In financial terms, Swift, has been earning far too little from Spotify, and would have continued to earn far too little if she hadn’t pulled her music off Spotify. However, she misses a fundamental point.

Many fans remember Swift from her country pop days, singing “White Horse” with big blonde hair and pink lips. Now, we see a brand new Swift wearing red lipstick in her music videos for pop songs such as “Blank Space.” Since her early days, she has amassed a huge number of fans and continues to rake in new ones as she releases new music. Many people gain access to her music through services such as iTunes, YouTube, and Spotify. Pandora, another popular internet radio service, unfortunately does not have all the Taylor Swift songs to satisfy a fan’s content. Therefore, the Swift-

obsessed fan is inclined to use services such as Spotify, paying a reasonable fee of $9.99 a month to listen to all of Taylor Swift’s songs.

Swift had nearly two million followers on Spotify, and her songs could be found on about 19 million playlists. That is a huge fanbase for one girl from Nashville.

Swift assures her fans that she will not lose connection with them, but she already has. By boycotting one of the most popular streaming services on the internet, Swift has distanced herself from her fans. Those two million active followers on Spotify now will have to refer to other sources to find her music. They might resort to the one thing Swift feared and advocated against the most: illegal downloading. Swift has brought upon herself her biggest enemy by pulling away from Spotify and will continue to do so.

Streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora are constantly growing; in fact, they account for more than 27 percent of the music industry’s revenue and have grown 28 percent in quantity during the first half of 2014.

Other artists have also boycotted Spotify, though hardly with the same popularity and fame, but Spotify will continue to prevail, and Swift’s movement away from these services will only result in defeat for her and her music. Instead of fighting one-sidedly with Spotify, Swift should negotiate the revenue deal between the two parties. Right now, she sounds like a cavalier diva just out for more money.

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By Lev Akabas

Fill in the grid with numbers 1 through 6. Do not repeat a number in any row or column. In each heavily outlined set of squares, the numbers must combine, in any order, to produce the target number in the top left corner using the operation indicated.

If you finish the puzzle, send a picture of your completed grid to stuyspeckenken@gmail.com, and if you are the first student to complete the puzzle, you’ll get your name mentioned in the next issue of The Spectator.

Issue 5 Winner: Jessica Titensky

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 18

Arts and Entertainment Music

Movie

By anne Duncan Most of the teenagers milling about Webster Hall on December 5 seemed to know each other, as if I had stumbled into a class reunion.

Hugs, hellos and selfies were exchanged between new arrivals, while the impatient crowd awaited their friends’ and peers’ performances.

The Blue and Lucky Showcase, which has been held at Webster Hall four times in the last two years, strives to promote up-andcoming indie rock bands, and this year’s lineup included The Kinsey Scale, The Bonnie Situation, Dolly Spartans, and Yabadum. Despite the anxious buzzing of the crowd, the bands on stage presented their music with the skill of professional musical groups. In fact, if you were to ignore the clump of parents standing awkwardly in the corner, for a moment you might have even mistaken Dolly Spartans for The Strokes.

The first band showcased by Blue and Lucky last year, Dolly Spartans was formed earlier in 2013 when frontman and songwriter Michael Eliran pulled the other three members of the band together. He and guitarist Aiden Bergland are both seniors at LaGuardia High School, and he met New York City Lab School for Collaborative Studies senior and bassist Benjamin Gordon, and college student and drummer Steven Bartashev at shows. Each having worked on other musical projects, Eliran asked the group to start playing live with him. Soon enough, Dolly Spartans helped launch the Blue and Lucky Showcase, hoping to foster a musical community between local

bands. They have played at each annual showcase since and have recently released their eponymous EP. Comprised of six rock anthems, the EP draws heavily on the styles of popular indie rock bands. Berglund and Eliran listed various indie rock bands—The Strokes, The Walkmen, Yo La Tengo, and Porches—as some of their musical influences. In an interview with The Spectator, Berglund even jokingly said, “Michael wants to be The Strokes.” Indeed, Eliran’s sliding and wavering vocals are very reminiscent of Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas’ and his songs rise and fall with similar melodic motifs.

In “She’s Got Treasures,” arguably Dolly Spartans’ most popular song among their fans, the band’s tone rings optimistic and defiant, a refreshing reprieve from the often dispassionate tone of modern indie bands, such as Alt-J or, to an extent, the Arctic Monkeys.

Recognizing obstacles or unpleasant realities, Dolly Spartans maintain a jovial mood and encouraging message. Eliran sings that though, “Something’s going wrong,” and “I can hardly see the light,” still “She’s got treasures, anyways.” The song starts out catchy and repetitive, but unlike other garage band songs, memorable chord progressions give way to vibrant riffs, transforming into a sophisticated and professional piece of art.

The self-explanatory “Don’t Be Sad” similarly emphasizes the importance of happiness over traditional success: “Don’t feel down ‘cause your life went south./ Yeah that’s just the way it goes.” With second person lyrics and punchy rhythmic guitar, the song hits hard.

Yet, Eliran said that the lyrics are not directed at any person or moment: “There are certainly songs I’ve written in response to specific moments in my life, but many of the energetic songs, such as ‘Don’t Be Sad,’ come from a kind of energy burst, almost like a creative adrenaline surge.” Listening to these songs stimulates similar elation.

Though their talent and optimism is enough to make them unique in the Blue and Lucky showcase, it is difficult for high school bands to really stand out among a slew of aspiring rock stars, especially in New York City. Berglund stated in an interview with The Spectator, “A lot people just don’t take you seriously because you look underage, even if your music is newer and a little bit fresher.”

Eliran added, “There are so many different bands, kind of in a whole scene, and that’s a good and a bad thing, because there’s a community but it’s also borderline competitive at times.”

Despite the challenges they face, Dolly Spartans have the potential to gain national attention.

According to Eliran, “A lot of these garage bands, they kind of just play a hook, and it’s borderline incoherent.” In contrast, with their clean instrumentals and happy-go-lucky tone, Dolly Spartans have “a little bit more than noise.” If this isn’t enough, they have a unique stage presence that immediately separated them from the other three bands at the Blue and Lucky showcase. They exude confidence, calling their audience “beautiful” and “sexy people.” Especially compared to the jumpy members of The Kinsey Scale and The Bonnie Situation, Dolly Spartans commanded confidence and nonchalance on stage, while maintaining a high energy level to match their lively audience.

Berglund and Eliran plan to take gap years after high school to pursue their musical careers, and possibly tour the cities where Dolly Spartans are popular on college radio, including Cincinnati, Berkeley, Austin, Oberlin, Pittsburgh, and New York. Their EP is even ranked at #187 on the CMJ national college radio charts. Berglund said, “None of us expected to get this far, but we knew that music is what we wanted to do and that, as long as we kept doing it, something would happen.”

Playlist Lesser-Known Holiday Songs As the holidays come around, the A&E department is excited to offer up some lesser-known holiday tunes. Straying away from the overplayed “All I Want for Christmas is You” and “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” we chose some more obscure songs, along with some of our favorite covers of classics.

“Fairytale of New York” The Pogues Celtic Punk

“O Tannenbaum” Vince Guaraldi Trio Jazz

“Same Old Lang Syne” Dan Fogelberg Rock

“I’ll Be Home” Meghan Trainor Pop

“Christmas in the Room” Sufjan Stevens Indie Folk

“I Remember Christmas” The Drifters Pop

“Five Pound Box of Money” Pearl Bailey Jazz

“Christmas in July” Jonathan Coulton & John Roderick Folk Rock

“Silent Night” Pentatonix A Cappella “Just Like Christmas” Low Indie Rock

“That’s Christmas to Me” Pentatonix A Cappella “It’s Christmas!

Let’s Be Glad!”

Sufjan Stevens Indie Folk

“Sugar Rum Cherry (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy)” Duke Ellington Jazz “My Favorite Things” The Supremes R&B “White Winter Hymnal” Fleet Foxes Indie Rock “Christmas Unicorn” Sufjan Stevens Indie Folk “Blue Christmas” Postmodern Jukebox (ft. Kate Davis) Jazz

Dumber & Dumberer

Yuxin Wu / The Spectator

Anne Duncan / The Spectator

The High School Rock Band Lives On

By adi kapoor In 1994, directors Peter and Bobby Farelly released an icon of the comedy world, “Dumb and Dumber.” The comedy received mixed reviews, but was admired for its engaging storyline, interweaved with good humor. Twenty years later, in 2014, they released a movie filled with whatever silliness they had left. “Dumb and Dumber To,” the third movie in the Dumb and Dumber franchise, was a major disappointment for casual moviegoers and Dumb and Dumber enthusiasts alike.

The movie starts out with the main characters, Lloyd (Jim Carrey) and Harry (Jeff Daniels), 20 years after the events of the first movie. The movie opens on a paralyzed Lloyd sitting in a wheelchair. Since the last movie, Harry has been taking care of Lloyd due to injuries inflicted after a freak accident.

Harry is about to abandon their age-old friendship, and, as he makes a final farewell speech, a small smile creeps onto Lloyd’s face. Lloyd immediately doubles over laughing and reveals that he has been playing a trick on Harry for the last 20 years by faking his injuries.

From this point on, the story goes downhill. The plot quickly and nonsensically progresses from Harry needing a kidney, to trying to find Harry’s daughter, to, eventually, saving the world. Some twists throughout the movie allow for excitement, but none of them drastically change the storyline. For example, when Harry and Lloyd speak to Harry’s daughter’s biological mother, the audience discovers that she gave up the daughter for adoption. This unnecessarily stretches the length of the movie, resulting in a halfhour of the two main characters traveling aimlessly.

One can’t help but compare a sequel to its original when forming an opinion about the movie. There are many observable differences between the humor of the first “Dumb and Dumber” movie to that of the new one. For instance, the 1994 version was a much closer representation of a classic family comedy. This year’s film, however, includes jokes that are considerably dirtier and barely fit under the movie’s PG-13 rating, often making the audience utter a unanimous “ewww” or an “oh dear God” instead of what should have been a good laugh. Though there isn’t anything too vulgar or obscene, it’s more of a late-night flick than a

movie you’ll want to watch with your family over the holidays.

“Dumb and Dumber To” also includes many new characters, including Harry’s daughter, his partner, a professor, and a variety of other new faces. There is still the appearance of a few minor characters from the previous movies, such as the blind kid, Billy. The main surprise in the new movie is Harry’s daughter, who is just like him in every way, except for her looks, and is equally as dumb as Harry and Lloyd. For example, in preparation for a speech she must give at a science fair convention, she takes off all her clothes. When asked why she does this, she answers that to avoid nervousness one must imagine everyone without his or her underwear, so she uses this logic on herself to practice. Though Harry’s daughter may provide a fresh taste in the movie, her character is overused and redundant.

It would have been nice, on the other hand, to have seen more

“Dumb and Dumber To” is a decent movie for a late night with friends, but only when there is nothing else to watch. It boasts some good laughs, but it does not meet expectations.” of the original side characters.

The acting in this movie and its original, however, is of relatively the same quality. Carrey and Daniels manage to keep their characters alive on the screen, and their personalities are dynamic, always posing the question of who is dumb and who is dumber. Carrey, known as a strong slapstick comedic actor, fits his part perfectly.

In general, “Dumb and Dumber To” is a decent movie for a late night with friends, but only when there is nothing else to watch. It boasts some good laughs, but it does not meet expectations. Instead, most aspects of the movie are forced, including the ending, which does not provide viewers with a satisfying conclusion.

Page 19

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

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The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

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The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 21

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

Anne Duncan / The Spectator

Stuyvesant’s First Town Hall Meeting a Great Success, Says Student Union

By Saif Zihiri Student Union (SU) President Keiran Carpen opened up Stuyvesant’s first ever Town Hall and SU

Propaganda Distribution Meeting on Thursday, November 20, in the library. Bouncing with energy, Carpen breezed through a 324slide power-point on the current

nuances of the SU, from the $0.47 allotted to the Stuyvesant Frog Hopping Club to the delicate intricacies of the diplomatic relations between student representatives and the third security guard at the main desk on the first floor.

Carpen was excited to answer the many questions of the students at the town hall meeting.

“Honestly, I was ready for some Hillary-Clinton-Senate-debatetype grilling,” Carpen said. “But I’m really glad to see that the student body is just composed of malleable sheep.”

As it turns out, however, many students in attendance weren’t there for the meeting at all. “All I wanted to ask was if I could print something in the library,” said freshman Kevin Zhang, one of the six students who attended the town hall meeting. According to Zhang, he had wandered in hoping

to print his late history assignment on the Taiwanese tea pot industry, when Carpen suddenly seated him down and began his slide show. “I kept asking him if I could print my homework,” the distraught freshman said. “But all he did was shake his head up and down and tell me what a great question I had.”

Zhang was too afraid to leave the meeting, citing his fear of “something being put on his transcript” as a powerful motivator. He was unable to print his assignment.

Senior Caucus leaders George Kitsios and George Triantafillou, on the other hand, disagree with Zhang’s view of the events, stating that, while attendance was not as high as expected from the student body as a whole, the seniors more than made up for it by showing up in overwhelming numbers. “I was really happy to see how involved all the seniors are with the policies

of the SU,” Kitsios said. “Both of them seemed so happy, like they were high out of their minds.”

The two seniors who were there agreed with the events as described by Kitsios. “Yeah, bro, […] we totally were high out of our minds,” said one senior, who wishes to remain anonymous.

The students allegedly only entered the library to escape a relentless search headed by Assistant Principal of Safety, Security, Student Affairs, Health, and Physical Education Brian Moran knowing that “the town hall meeting would be the last place he would want to be.” The students sat in the chairs constantly giggling at the “Siamese twins giving the lecture at the front of the library” and said that they “couldn’t wait for the next time the circus came to town.”

By Daniel Goynatsky

Utilizing Renderings Examination (TORTURE), Fong gave students their graded lab notebooks. She happily exclaimed that the results were some of the best she has seen in years, with a class average of 23.7 percent.

When students opened their notebooks, now unrecognizable because of the red ink that seemingly spilled all over their pages, they were shocked to see the deductions that they received. “I lost 40 points because my pen ran out of ink and I used another pen that was slightly thicker,” freshman Luola Chen said.

Ms. Fong handed out 50x microscopes to each of her stu-

dents in order for them to examine their mistakes. As freshman Abie Rhorig examined his diagram of a baby pig, he noticed why seven points had been deducted; the 12th eyelash on the right eye was not at an 11 degree angle to its adjacent eyelashes.

As Abie began to cry, Fong told him that everything would be alright because “[he would] do much worse on many more tests.” Abie wiped away his tears and put the microscope away, but, to his dismay, he wasn’t gripping the machine correctly and lost three points from his final grade.

Club-Making Club Now Biology Teacher Takes Off Points for Accepting New Members Tear Stains on Student’s Lab Notebook

By Shindy Koo

Junior Melvin Chang is excited to announce the founding of the newest of over a hundred clubs at Stuyvesant High School: the ClubMaking Club. “Our objective is very simple,” he explained. “We’re creating an environment for students to be productive and, more importantly, get some more extracurriculars to buff up our apps, because that SSR form ain’t gonna write itself.”

Every Friday, a large crowd of juniors and seniors gathers outside Room 435 and writes up club application drafts. “I’m thinking of starting a Promposal Club for guys,” senior Yuhan Zou said, hyperventilating excitedly. “We can make cardboard signs and practice our kissing skills on each other.”

Junior Lea Ormandy was excited to reveal her own idea. “The Sleeping

Club might actually get approved by the SU,” she stated. “At least half the school seemed interested. The other half was asleep so we couldn’t ask them.”

Among the submitted applications include requests for an Eyebrow Appreciation Club, a Cat Petting Club, a League of Underachievers Club (and its associated act, The Future Panhandlers Club), an Aromatherapy Club, and the Proud Speedo Wearers Club. “All of these are pretty self-explanatory,” Club-Making Club faculty advisor and English teacher Philip Mott said.

When Student Union Vice President Jonathan Aung was asked about the sudden increase of club applications awaiting approval, he replied with “No comment” and promptly burst into tears.

Students didn’t think much of the grading rubric Assistant Principal of Biology Elizabeth Fong gave out in the beginning of the year. Little did they know that Fong added, in size 0.5 font, the sentence, “Your grade will be solely determined by neatness and attentiveness to detail.” She gave a quiz the next day to test those qualities in her students, but was disappointed when not a single student answered “Please draw a perfect circle freehand (no partial credit will be given)” correctly.

After two months of the Thorough or Rigorous Testing

Holiday Decorations By The Photo Department

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 22

Sports 2014: A Sports Odyssey

Justin Strauss / The Spectator

who has played pickup basketball since those five days in June has tried to emulate what the Spurs did in The Finals. How San Antonio played basketball was like a great work of art — the more you looked at it and analyzed it, the more you appreciated it. Long live the 2014 Spurs!

By LEV AKABAS As the year comes to a close, let’s take a look back at some of the most compelling sports events and storylines that occurred in 2014.

#ThingsTimHowardCouldSave Highlighting the United States soccer team’s solid performance at the 2014 World Cup was goalie Tim Howard, who saved 16 shots on goal against Belgium in the knockout stage. Howard’s performance, which included a plethora of impressive diving stops,

That Odell Beckham Jr. Catch, Though Sports plays that trend on Facebook, get turned into GIFs, and make Twitter explode are usually incredibly overrated, but Beckham’s now-famous catch wasn’t. While being dragged to the ground by a defender, he tracked down a ball thrown more than 50 yards, snagged it with three fingers, and never touched it with his other hand. If only the catch hadn’t come in a relatively meaningless regular-season New York Giants game, Beckham might have been the star of the 2014 football season. That title, however, goes to either Houston Texans’ defensive end J.J. Watt or New England Patriots’ tight end Rob Gronkowski, both of whom have redefined their respective positions and are making a strong case to win the NFL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award, which has been given to a quarterback or running-back in all but three of the past fifty years.

Alisa Su / The Spectator

The Spurs Make Teamwork Cool Again After half a decade of selfcentered superstars like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James hoisting the NBA championship trophy, it was refreshing to see a true team effort capture the title. The San Antonio Spurs obliterated James’ Miami Heat in the NBA Finals with some of the best ballmovement the league has seen since the 1980s Boston Celtics.

The team that passed the ball like a hot potato garnered the respect of anyone who remotely enjoys watching five grown men try to throw a ball into a net. Everyone

More than Just O-Kei In a year of tennis craziness, Kei Nishikori of Japan stole the spotlight in this year’s U.S. Open by becoming the first Asian man to reach a major final. His run started with a five-set victory over fifth-seeded Milos Raonic that lasted over four hours and ended at 2:26 a.m. Despite exhaustion from that marathon, two days later, in the quarterfinals, Nishikori defeated third-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka in another five-setter lasting more than four hours. And in the semifinals, he upset the top player in the world, Novak Djokovic. Nishikori’s smooth strokes and defensive hustle despite his relatively small stature allowed him to win over the New York City fans, and, much like Jeremy Lin two years ago, Nishikori may turn into a role model for an Asian population that is largely underrepresented in sports, particularly tennis.

prompted someone to create an internet meme depicting Howard diving to save the meteor from wiping out the dinosaurs. Still, Howard might not have been the biggest American sports hero of the year. After 20 seasons with the New York Yankees, beloved shortstop Derek Jeter retired, and, in his last home game at Yankee Stadium, he hit a walk-off single to win the game. It couldn’t have been scripted any better. Basically every single other thing that happened to New York sports teams in 2014 couldn’t have been scripted any worse.

ADVERTISEMENT “Colette helped guide me through the admissions process while also advising me on what would help and hurt my chances.

As a first-generation Asian-American I was at an extreme disadvantage during the college application process.

Neither of my parents attended college so everything I learned came from school.

In the end, her advice and aid helped me attain a full scholarship, something I wouldn’t have dreamed possible.”

Stanley Chen, Class of 2013

Colette Brown taught in the English Department of Stuyvesant High School for over a decade and in that time she advised thousands of her Stuyvesant students through the college admissions process. She recently left Stuyvesant to begin independently advising students full time.

Call or email Colette Brown for an appointment to begin personalized individual college admissions advisement. Her strong belief is that it is not enough to get it into the right school, but also fit into the right school for you.

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Wait, that happened?

Because the story has completely dissipated, you may not remember it, but 2014 marked the first year in which an openly gay man played for a major professional sports team. Jason Collins was signed by the Brooklyn Nets to a brief contract several months after he come out publically in Sports Illustrated. The only really significant aspect of the story was its utter insignificance. Collins went out on the court, scored a few points, grabbed a few rebounds, and was eventually cut by the team because he didn’t perform well enough. And that was it. Everyone realized that Collins’ being gay simply didn’t matter all that much. Collins had been playing in the NBA for thirteen years already, and there were probably several other privately gay players out there as well, considering the percentage of the general population that is gay.

But a gay man being drafted into the NFL was slightly more noteworthy, taking into account the ultra-masculine stereotype surrounding football. When Michael Sam was selected by the St. Louis Rams, he kissed his boyfriend on the lips on national television. The kiss forced people to realize that gay men kiss just like everyone else and that they have the same emotions that anyone else would after being drafted. There wasn’t any positive or negative stance to take on the issue, because it wasn’t an issue at all. In fact, the media circus surrounding Sam wherever he went was the only “bad guy” in the sto-

ry. After EPSN released an inaccurate report suggesting a controversy regarding the Rams’ team showering due to Sam’s presence in the locker room, Sam’s teammate Chris Long tweeted, “Dear ESPN, Everyone but you is over it.” Although Sam, just like Collins, got cut from his team, I have enough faith in people to think that it’s because he’s a mediocre football player, and not because he’s gay.

The public reaction (or lack thereof ) to two major sport athletes coming out over the past year is, hopefully, indicative of a larger societal shift towards acceptance. However, where sports told us about a positive trend in our culture, it also helped uncover the enormous problem in our country that is domestic violence. The suspension of Baltimore Ravens’ running-back Ray Rice for abusing his wife in a casino elevator, as well as the NFL completely looking the other way until the media brought the case to national attention, got people talking about what steps need to be taken to eradicate the abuse prevalent among athletes. Sports also overlapped with national issues, as they should, when a group of NBA players, including LeBron James and Derrick Rose, wore warm-up shirts with “I Can’t Breathe” written on them prior to a game. Athletes are among the most respected celebrities and have a great opportunity to make a difference in the world through their activism for various issues.

In 2014, we did see sports made a difference in the world. Hopefully we can say the same next year.

The Spectator ● December 23, 2014

Page 23

Sports Boys’ Swimming

Harder Practices Lead to Great Results for Pirates

By Sabrina Huang Many swimmers on the Pirates have been feeling a lack of energy recently due to hard, exhausting practices. But many swimmers achieved personal best times on Tuesday, December 16, proving that the hard work they put in during practice is starting to pay off.

The Pirates defeated Evander Childs Campus 48-26 in their third meet of the regular season.

Evander Childs Campus proved to be no match for the Pirates, although this was not surprising after the Pirates’ 51-30 landslide victory last year. The Pirates placed first and second in every event, with the exception of the 200-yard medley relay and the 200-yard free relay, in which they were disqualified.

Evander Childs lagged significantly behind the Pirates in every

event. This was most evidently shown in the 500-yard freestyle, in which Evander Childs’ swimmer placed third with a time that was more than five minutes behind junior Aaron Glas’s first place time of 5:06.08. Although the Pirates knew that Evander Childs would not be one of their better competitors, this meet was no different from any other—the swimmers continued to focus on improving their times, not just winning.

The meet began with a disqualification in the first event, the 200-yard medley relay, when sophomore Lawrence Kwong, anticipating junior Brandon Frank’s backstroke finish, dove in early.

Kwong, however, would have swum a personal best time of 28.94 in the 50-yard breaststroke leg of the relay. Similarly, later on, sophomore Kevin Zheng dove early in the 200-yard freestyle relay, resulting in a disqualification.

Following the first event, senior Justin Choi swam a personal best in the 200-yard freestyle with a time of 2:02.63 that currently places him as one of the top fifteen swimmers in the city. “Although I felt a lack of energy during the race, I tried to pace with [senior and co-captain] Andrew [Guo] and swam a negative split on my last 50,” Choi said, meaning that he swam faster in the latter portion of his race.

The diving blocks at the Evander Childs Campus pool were one obstacle for the Pirates.

The big, clunky, plastic blocks had small indentations for handles and the grip was slippery. “The blocks definitely affected my swim, especially for an event like the 50-yard freestyle. I got a bad start and my time went up a full second,” said senior Kevin Kan, who swam a 25.56 in the 50-yard freestyle.

In addition, the flags, which are necessary for swimmers to correctly time their swims, were placed at a greater distance away from the wall than the standard five meters. Consequently, there was a different number of arm strokes required to swim from the flags to the end of the pool than usual. “During the race, I was more focused on turning at the right time, rather than swimming harder. I flipped over a bit too soon and ended up slowing down,” junior Peter Strbik said.

This, however, was something the Pirates could endure. Guo and senior and co-captain Edison Shi swam personal best times in the 50-yard freestyle relay, with 23.41 and 23.94, respectively. Their times are among the top ten fastest times in the city, even though Shi thought he didn’t swim to the best of his abilities. “I didn’t feel that great in the water when I

jumped in, ended up missing my turn, and broke out of the water much slower than I felt I could have. I thought [I] did terribly,” Shi said.

Shi accredits his improvement to effective practices. “The hard work I put in [during] practice is giving me the results I want, and it’s a great way to get myself motivated to swim even better,” Shi said.

After several weeks of practicing in the newly renovated Stuyvesant swimming pool, the Pirates have been swimming personal bests at every meet and are currently undefeated. They have been practicing more than last year, including a combination of swimming and dry-land workouts every day. “Practices have been tougher this year and even though they are tired, they are getting great results,” coach Peter Bologna said.

Boys’ Junior Varsity Basketball

Scrimmage Provides Peek into What’s in Store for JV Rebels

By Joshua Zhu With under a minute left, the junior varsity Runnin’ Rebels were down 56-52 in their first scrimmage of the season against the Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) Cougars on Tuesday, December 16.

Sophomore Angelo Yu dribbled up the court in front of a packed third floor gym. But the Rebels turned the ball over, and the Cougars took off on a fast-break. To prevent an easy layup, Yu raced down the court and fouled his opponent, fueling a dramatic scuffle between the two teams. Coaches and referees quelled the fight, which was representative of the hard-fought contest.

But the Rebels, who had struggled to score throughout the final period, were unable to reverse that trend. Neither team scored for the rest of the game, and the Rebels lost by four.

“We put a lot of effort on the

defensive end, but it still ended up being a close game,” said freshman Nikola Manfredi, who finished the game with 12 points and five steals. “I felt that the game changer was during the last few minutes.”

While the Rebels went into an offensive stupor in the fourth quarter, they thrived in the first three. The team attacked the paint and passed the ball out to shooters for uncontested jump-shots. This impressive ball movement led to many high-percentage looks at the basket.

Yu was the main orchestrator on offense, balancing scoring with distributing, and finished with 10 points and seven assists.

Coach Howard Barbin was extremely pleased with sophomore and co-captain Jackie Huang, who scored 14 points. Time and time again, Huang frustrated FDR’s defense with his ability to get into the paint. Huang also made four

straight free throws early in the fourth quarter after two technical fouls were charged against FDR players for arguing with the referees.

The Rebels were aggressive and drew several fouls early in the game. However, other than Huang, they struggled at the free throw line, making six for 15.

Manfredi drew three fouls within the opening minutes, but missed five of six shots from the line.

“We missed a lot of foul shots, but that’s an old story with the Stuyvesant team. We don’t really realize the importance of these foul shots. Nine out of 10 times, it can cost you a game,” Barbin said.

The Rebels’ defensive performance was mixed. They put pressure on the Cougars, forcing 27 turnovers, but struggled to rebound against their bigger opponents.

“We’re smaller than most of

the teams in the league, and it’s going to be a problem all season,” Huang said. “Our size should not affect the effort that we put into rebounding, and if we show effort, our size should not be a huge disadvantage.”

That effort was not present during the game, as the Rebels failed to box out their opponents, which led to numerous second chance baskets. Cougar Mohamed Nureldin was the main beneficiary, as the majority of his 20 points came from offensive rebounds.

Despite the struggle with rebounding, the game was tied 3636 in the third quarter. When FDR seemed to be pulling away, leading 47-41, sophomore and cocaptain George Kalantzopoulous brought the Rebels back in the game, scoring six of his 11 points on two three-pointers. This was not enough, however, as the Rebels slumped at an inopportune time. After the Cougars led 53-48

just over halfway into the fourth quarter, the Rebels did not score a field goal for the remainder of the game. “[Offensively], we were great in the first three quarters. We moved without the ball really well,” Barbin said. “[However], defensively, because of the size difference, I feel that we got tired.

We’re smaller than them, so we have to give more effort [when rebounding], and eventually that wears you down.”

Fortunately for the Rebels, the scrimmage will have no impact on their overall record, and they will be able to learn from the experience. The team also identified that it must improve rebounding and free throw shooting. The Rebels must have addressed these shortcomings to some extent, at least, when they won their first league game at home against Beacon three days later.

A Different Dimension for Zovinar Khrimian

By Annique Wong “What are five adjectives you would use to describe yourself?”

“Five? Um […] I’m not sure if I can do that.”

“How about three?”

“Okay. Devoted, creative, and a perfectionist.”

I was instantly surprised by her answer. Most athletes would use adjectives closely linked to their sports—wrestlers will say “strong,” swimmers will say “lean,” and basketball players will say “agile.” But sophomore running extraordinaire Zovinar Khrimian (Zovi for short) is different, from her unique Armenian name to the mismatched socks she wore when I interviewed her—one speckled with blue, white, and black dots and the other designed with striped candy canes.

Khrimian’s devotion is clearly displayed through her short, yet very successful, running career, which started in the fall of 2013, when she joined the girls’ indoor track team. At her first track meet ever, the Jim McKay Games, Khrimian placed second with a time of 3:41.89 in the 1000-meter race. Khrimian was so impressive that she was recruited by boys’ cross country and track coach Mark Mendes to run with some of the freshman boys on his team.

Under Mendes’ guidance, Khrimian became the fastest freshman female 1000-meter runner in the

city in the 2013 indoor season (3:17.14), and the second fastest freshman female 800-meter runner in the City in the 2014 outdoor season (2:28.36).

During her freshman year, Khrimian stuck to running middistance events, particularly the 1000-meter, 800-meter, and 4x800-meter relay. She had never thought of running long distance events in the cross country season because she thought “she wasn’t fast enough.” But Khrimian is more than fast enough.

During the 2014 cross country season, Khrimian trained intensely with sophomore John Park, sophomore David Merlinsky, and freshman Matthew Fairbanks, and ran an average of 10 miles a week, at least five days a week. Mondays were long runs, Tuesdays were fast tempo runs, and Thursdays were hill workouts on different trails in Central Park.

Wednesdays and Fridays were short runs at school on the pavement along the West Side Highway. Khrimian believes that training with the boys has “pushed her to run faster, as boys are typically built to be quicker and stronger than girls.” However, Khrimian’s personal record of 19:20.70 for five kilometers (5K) is faster than those of Park, Merlinsky, and Fairbanks.

But they are not the only people Khrimian can outrun. At the New York Federation Championships held on Saturday, November

15, the highest point in the 2014 season, Khrimian was the fastest female runner representing New York City. With a hint of pride in her voice, Khrimian explained, “I was really excited to beat [Laguardia senior Erika Yamazaki],” because, at the PSAL Manhattan Borough Championships on October 25, Yamazaki (19:48.90) outran Khrimian (20:16.80) by 28 seconds, leaving Khrimian in second place in the 5K. Khrimian also beat out Dewitt Clinton junior Aaliyah Regg Wajid at States, a surprise to everyone, even Khrimian’s biggest fan: her father, Kevork Khrimian. “Although our expectations were high […] Wajid had beaten Zov at the PSAL [City] Championships a week earlier,” he said.

Even with her stellar cross country season, Khrimian is still striving to improve on and off the course, which is where her desire to be “a perfectionist” comes through. Khrimian doesn’t have a specific time she’s aiming to run, but she wants to run smarter races. At the Van Cortlandt 5K (where the majority of her races take place), the first quarter of the race involves a stretch of grass before crossing a bridge in the woods. Khrimian would like to tackle the early grassy parts of the race better, because sometimes in her efforts to race to the front of the pack, she will get “blocked” by girls who run together. Describing the stampede of girls

who sprint as soon as the race starts as “something in the Hunger Games,” Khrimian is planning on starting faster to get ahead in the race. She stressed that “even if you are talented, to run a good race you need to think and have a strategy.”

Besides having a better running strategy, Khrimian wants to be a bigger part of the competitive running community. Although she is one of the fastest long distance runners in the city, Khrimian is not that well known to many other female runners.

At States, Khrimian warmed up with runners from other specialized high schools and Benjamin Cardozo High School. Khrimian was excited to be with the Cardozo girls, as “they are the best in mid-distance cross country. They didn’t know who I was, despite me doing so well at Cities, and had to ask me my name,” she said.

When I asked her to elaborate more, Khrimian bit her lip, and picked at her chipped, sparkly blue nail polish. “It’s perfectly fine,” she said. “I don’t care about being known for my speed. It’s just weird.” Pausing for a few seconds, she continued, “I want to establish myself and be competitive with them. I want to make my name known in the competitive community.” Despite Khrimian’s modesty, her ambitiousness made me confident that in the future, every female runner in the city will know her name.

From our conversation about her running, it was clear that Khrimian was devoted and strove for perfection, but it was still unclear to me how her creativity showed while running a 5K. When Khrimian “came to Stuyvesant, [her] intention was to first do artsy stuff like painting and drawing for Spectator art,” she said. Although she draws for “Stuyvesant in Pencil,” as well as The Spectator’s Art Department, she is glad that she chose to participate in a sport. “I love to run.

It makes me feel free, and it’s a definite stress reliever. Some kids do debate, and that’s their thing, and running is my thing. It adds another, a different, dimension to me,” she said.

Besides her art, Khrimian’s creativity comes through in the way she presents herself. “I’m the kind of person who makes my Halloween costumes, and I am really into art and even fashion design.” Inside of school, in fact, Khrimian is known less for her running and more for her hip and eccentric outfits that often include vibrant colors, stripes, and interesting combinations of fabrics.

As Khrimian continues her running career, I am excited to see how she will establish herself as a runner and continue to add different dimensions to her character. Her stellar track record (no pun intended) is enough proof that she will.

December 23, 2014

Page 24

The Spectator SpoRts The Gyms are Too Damn Hot

SPORTS CALENDAR Sunday, December 28

Boys’ and Girls’ Indoor Track The PSAL Holiday Games @ Armory Track

Monday, January 5

Tuesday, January 6

Boys’ Basketball vs. Norman Thomas

Girls’ Basketball vs. HS Environmental Studies

@ Stuyvesant

@ Stuyvesant

Wednesday, January 7

Yujie Fu / The Spectator

Boys’ Table Tennis vs. Franklin D. Roosevelt @ Stuyvesant

Friday, January 9 Girls’ Basketball vs. Lab Museum United

Monday, January 12

@ Stuyvesant

By Lev Akabas and Jeffrey Zheng

Boys’ Wrestling vs. Murry Bergtraum @ Stuyvesant

Girls’ Table Tennis vs. James Madison

Boys’ JV Basketball vs. Bayard Rustin Educational Complex @ Stuyvesant

@ Stuyvesant

Boys’ Basketball

Tanumaya Bhowmik / The Spectator

A Victory at Last

By Eric Morgenstern The Runnin’ Rebels ran up and down the court at a blazing speed against the winless Murry Bergtraum Blazers in their 68-55 victory. The Rebels secured their first win on Tuesday, December 16, a confidence booster for a team that had lost its previous three games by single-digit margins. With a combination of fast-break layups and three-pointers, the team pulled away in the fourth quarter to win by double-digits.

A recurring theme for the team so far this season has been getting off to slow starts, which happened for the third straight game. The Runnin’ Rebels gave up two quick baskets off of turnovers to start the game, forcing coach Philip Fisher to call a timeout with just over a minute gone by.

The team came back to tie the score 11-11 at the end of the quarter thanks to a buzzerbeating 15-foot jump shot by senior Henry Luo, but the slow start was problematic. “If we can get into our offense earlier

in the game, perform better at the beginning of the game, and get off to a better start, we will be set,” sophomore Michael Feinberg said.

The second quarter highlighted both the team’s bright spots and struggles. Feinberg entered the game, and, although only a sophomore, immediately made his impact felt, making multiple three-pointers in the second quarter and accumulating 19 points in the game. “I feel really good, especially as a sophomore, coming off the bench and being able to provide for the team like that,” Feinberg said.

Also in the second quarter, the team’s big man, senior Konrad Krasucki, entered a league game for the first time since tearing his ACL last season. Krasucki was clearly rusty, missing a few easy shots at the rim.

“He’s obviously not in shape yet. Although he really wants to contribute, he can’t yet. But if I don’t play him at all, I won’t get him in shape,” Fisher said. The team went into halftime with a narrow 24-23 lead.

The third quarter was not much different than the second, with the Rebels garnering more fast-break points and outside shots from Feinberg, while the Blazers dominated the offensive glass and scored secondchance points off of those rebounds. The Rebels scored yet another buzzer-beater to end the quarter, this time a threepointer by Feinberg, who gave the team a 39-37 lead.

In both of their previous games, the Rebels had outscored their opponents by slim margins in the fourth quarter, and that differential was amplified against Bergtraum. In addition to cashing in on several

fast-breaks, the Rebels, for the first time all afternoon, dominated the defensive boards.

They outscored the other team 29-18 in the final eight minutes to win by thirteen points. “We made it count when the game was on the line, and we blew them out by a good amount,” senior and co-captain Noah Brook said, who contributed six points and three rebounds coming off the bench.

The team was led by numerous seniors who stepped up their games. Senior point guard Arlex Gole scored 16 points and dished out four assists, senior Roman Szul added another 16 points, and senior and co-captain Lev Akabas had six points and four assists. Those were all solid performances, but the star of the game was Feinberg, with 19 points, five three-pointers, and four rebounds. “It feels great to get our first win. It was a real team game, and scoring was distributed pretty evenly,” Szul said.

Avoiding slow starts, however, will be key going forward.

“We’ve got to do it the way we do in practice: 100 percent the whole time,” Brook said. Fisher is still experimenting with different lineups early in the season, so once the rotation is settled, the players will become more comfortable playing in sync with each other.

According to Fisher, the team has been improving day by day, but they need to maintain that growth if they want to make the playoffs. “The kids are working very hard, and they’re all new, so the fact that they are playing at this level right now— I’m content, but will only be content for a little while,” Fisher said.

Since every student in the school takes physical education, everyone knows how hot the gymnasiums have been over the past several years. The unreasonable heat not only causes minor discomfort and means that students regularly leave physical education class drenched in sweat, but also impairs students’ ability to exercise. They have less energy to participate fully in physical education class. The numerous sports teams that use the space are forced to take more water breaks and, therefore, have less productive practices.

“It’s very frustrating. We try to run a quality program for physical education, and we’re appreciative of everything we get, but it would be wonderful if they could get control of this already because this has gone on for too long, and there’s a point where it becomes morale-defeating,” boys’ basketball coach and physical education teacher Philip Fisher said.

In addition to being a hindrance for teachers trying to teach classes and coaches trying to run practices, excessive heat in the gymnasiums is unsafe. There is a greater risk of students and players becoming dehydrated, especially since the water coming from the fountains in the gym is abnormally hot as well. Furthermore, dehydration, which is unhealthy anyway, often leads to cramping. Earlier this season, senior Roman Szul suf-

fered a cramp towards the end of a boys’ basketball game in the sweltering third floor gym.

“This is not healthy. We have to play in it. We get the doors open, we do the best we can, but after a day of teaching, you’re run down from being in and out of the heat all the time,” Fisher said.

Temperature is not the only issue plaguing our gymnasiums—it is emblematic of the school not prioritizing the condition of its athletic facilities. For many years now, a recurring leak in the sixth floor gym has forced teams to cancel practices and even reschedule games. Every time it is supposedly fixed, water begins to drip from the leak a month or two later when it rains outside.

Along with this nuisance, there are also several dead spots on the court where balls don’t bounce.

Several custodians claim that they were never taught how to adjust the heat in the gymnasiums. Whether resolving the issue would require simply teaching someone to flip a switch or the installation of temperature control system during a school break, the school administration, custodial staff, and Athletic Director should do what is necessary.

We acknowledge that we’re extremely lucky to have two fullsized gyms, one of which recently had its floor redone, but this should not be justification for ignoring the fact that the gyms are simply too hot to play sports.

Sports Wrap-Up •

Stuyvesant’s boys’ basketball team, the Runnin’ Rebels, lost to Seward Park Campus 60-48 on Thursday, December 18.

The Runnin’ Rebels, who have lost a number of very close games, are 1-3, second to last in their division.

•

Stuyvesant’s girls’ varsity basketball team, the Phoenix, beat High School of Fashion Industries 41-24 on Wednesday, December 17. Senior Sophie Gershon led the team with 23 points and 26 rebounds. They are first in their division with a 4-0 record.

•

Stuyvesant’s girls’ gymnastics team, the Felines, is second in their division behind undefeated Bronx Science.

•

Stuyvesant’s boys’ table tennis team has swept all of its five games so far this season. They hold the top seed in their division.