Volume 104, issue 13

The Spectator The Stuyvesant High School Newspaper

Volume CIV No. 13

April 25, 2014

Opinions

stuyspec.com

By Julia Ingram and Joanne Ha

The discussions of many Stuyvesant students on Friday, March 28 gravitated less toward the topics of tests and sleep deprivation and more toward political matters and other controversial issues you normally wouldn’t see average high school students casually discussing. Throughout the week, an awareness campaign called “Fight Apathy” was taking place across the nation.

The “Fight Apathy” campaign, led by the Junior Statesmen of America (JSA), was introduced this year and strives to raise awareness of political and ethical issues around the world.

“Our generation doesn’t really have concern for a lot of things, so ‘Fight Apathy’ is a way for us to show more concern in our own lives and in the world,” junior and Stuyvesant JSA Chapter Vice President Melissa Ye said.

Stuyvesant JSA sparked this awareness campaign by handing out stickers to students as they came through the bridge entrance to the Stuyvesant building. “At this Fight Apathy event, students could pick up stickers that say ‘I believe in …’, and they would write a cause they were passionate about, and the sticker was to serve as a catalyst to spark a discussion about a political issue,”

freshman and JSA member Aronno Shafi said. The stickers were funded by the national JSA organization and were mailed to participating schools’ JSA leaders for distribution.

An enormous effort was put into organizing the campaign.

“The kids put it together with the support of national JSA in perhaps a month,” history teacher and JSA faculty advisor Lisa Shuman said. Over 2,000 stickers were given to students and teachers at Stuyvesant, and JSA ran out of stickers to distribute before second period.

The campaign was done in conjunction with a fundraiser for Ethiopia, which raised $300. “As faculty advisor, it was really nice to see JSA have such successful and charitable programs go on simultaneously,” Shuman said.

Students of all grades participated and took a sticker to fill in with a cause they were passionate about. “I saw tons of kids and teachers wearing stickers. It became the cool thing to do,” said senior and JSA Northeast State Lieutenant Governor Austin Ostro, who is second-in-command in the northeast region in the broader JSA organization. Ostro’s responsibilities include organizing the JSA conventions, which consist of students from dozens of schools, and helping the organization fund-

Asian-American SHSAT Conference Held

By Rebecca Chang The Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY) hosted its first community discussion in the Flushing branch of the Queens Public Library on Sunday, March 30, regarding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense Fund’s complaint that challenged the admissions process to specialized high schools.

“One of the main reasons why we thought this was an important event to hold was because, given all the publicity around it, there seems to be a lack of space for the AsianAmerican perspective on this issue,” co-organizer and Bronx High School of Science alumnus Nelson Mar (’91) said. “We talk a lot about the perspective from the Latino community and the African-American community, but there didn’t seem to be a sufficient voice to what the Asian American community felt about it.”

Mar, along with co-organizer and Stuyvesant alumnus Chris Kwok (’92), was in charge of preparations for the event and invited various speakers from around the city who both challenged and supported the

Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT). After doing so, they created two panels, the “Advocates” and the “Community.” The Advocates panel was made up of many who were involved in the education field and used research in order to back up their arguments supporting or opposing the SHSAT. In contrast, the Community panel was made up of students, parents, and alumni of various specialized high schools.

When Kwok and Mar planned the event, they made sure to have a balanced number of speakers who supported and opposed the SHSAT. “There were advocates on both sides of the issue, [and] we made sure they were knowledgeable about the issue and the core of the complaints,” Mar said.

One participant was sophomore Kathy Wang. She first learned about AABANY through English teacher and debate coach Julie Sheinman and parent coordinator Harvey Blumm, who were looking for an Asian debater from Queens to participate in the event.

Blumm had been contacted by the organizers of the event.

Article on page 14.

Letter to the Editor SING! Judge Stella Binkevich (‘04) offers her opinion on why the Junior SING! show was offensive, and multiple students who attended SING! share their thoughts on the subject of race at Stuyvesant.

continued on page 2

Philip Shin / The Spectator

Stuyvesant Participates in “Fight Apathy” Awareness Campaign

Newsbeat • Junior Stephanie Lin was awarded $3,000 for winning the first place prize in the Japan Center Essay Competition.

• Columbia University invited Social Studies teacher Michael Waxman to attend the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous Teacher Seminar.

• 17 Stuyvesant students competed as a part of the two New York City Math Teams in the New York State Math League (NYSML) state championship last week, winning first and second place in Division A of the competition. Sophomore Max Fishelson finished first in the state and senior Andrew Puopolo finished second in the state.

• Five gold, five silver, and five bronze medals were won by the 15 Stuyvesant sophomores who competed at the Greater Metropolitan Math Fair for their research projects.

• A group of seniors, including Tahmid Ali, David Cahn, Jack Cahn, and Tiffany Tsai, won first place in the New York State championship round of the National Council for Economics and will be moving on to the national level of the contest.

• 135 students participated in the National Latin Examination. 111 won prizes, 36 of which were gold medals.

• The Speech and Debate Team won the sweepstakes during the New York State Forensics League championship competition in Oneonta. Sophomore Philip Chun won the Declamation category, freshman Kate Johnston won the Junior Varsity Oral Interpretation category, and senior Tahia Islam won the Varsity Oral Interpretation category.

• Junior Mika Jain won first place in the Integrated Digital Media category of the NYU Engineering School’s Department of Technology, Culture, and Society Competition. Juniors Sanam Bhatia, Rebecca Chang, and Teresa Chen won second place in the Science and Technology Studies category.

• Senior James Reina received $1,500 and a chance for his painting “Reflections” to be exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art after winning the P.S. Art Award for high school students.

• Senior Waqarul Islam is a regional finalist in the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium competition and will be moving on to the national competition.

“The Pulse of the Student Body”

Organizers hand out stickers prompting students to fill in the blank: “I believe in...”

raise for its summer programs.

Other students agreed that the campaign was successful.

“I ended up being able to discuss [my beliefs] with a lot of people,” said freshman Yassmin Elbanna, who had written “no death sentences” on her sticker.

However, since the stickers were open-ended, many did not take the event as seriously as others. “Some were serious about good causes, but then there were people who put ‘I believe in Illuminati,’ or random ideas like that,” freshman Gabriella Birzh said.

Although some students didn’t take it as seriously, many JSA members still believe that

the campaign achieved its goal of making people more aware about events taking place in the world, for that Friday and in the future. “Our goal was to make sure that people fight apathy every day in their daily lives, not just for one day,” Shafi said. “It’s more about the long term, the bigger picture of how things are going to turn out.”

Students believe JSA will attempt a similar campaign in coming years, after reaching over 75,000 students in 21 different states with the campaign. “It was a pretty big success across the country,” Ostro said. “I think something like it will definitely be tried again in the future.”

Pygmalion Overcomes Its Obstacles

By Frances Dodin, with additional reporting by Emma McIntosh Despite suffering the harshest of circumstances, including scheduling issues, recasting, and a meager two weeks to put on the show, the cast and crew of this year’s comedy, Pygmalion, certainly rose to the occasion and produced a show that was, in a few ways, better than expected.

From the opening of the curtains and early in the first act, the comedy was immediately set; when an audience member was invited to go on stage with one of the actors, the audience roared with laughter.

The characterization of the actors’ roles was greatly heightened by the costume design. The 19th century dresses were accurate and, considering the short span of time given to make them, were at the top of their game.

Though the costuming was fairly strong, the lighting and the set downgraded the technical aspect. The lighting was inconsistent throughout the play, and the stage even went dark for a few minutes at the start. The downstage part of the set, consisting of couches, benches, and chairs, was a good representation of the

Article on page 19.

inside of a home, but the set pieces in the back were not painted well, with each in a different pattern that contrasted with adjacent ones.

The characterization of the actors’ roles was greatly heightened by the costume design. The 19th century dresses were accurate and, considering the short span of time given to make them, were at the top of their game.

Though the costuming was fairly strong, the lighting and the set downgraded the technical aspect. The lighting was inconsistent throughout the play, and the stage even went dark for a few minutes at the start. The downstage part of the set, consisting of couches, benches, and chairs, was a good representation of the inside of a home, but the set pieces in the back were not painted well, with each in a different pattern that contrasted with adjacent ones.

The technical flaws, however, did not impact the actors’ performances. Senior Nick Kaidoo played the arrogant Henry Higgins, who is confronted with the task of transforming the ill-mannered Eliza into a gracious Englishwoman. continued on page 19

Arts & Entertainment Shattered SHIELD

Find out why “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is on par with previous Marvel blockbusters such as “The Avengers” and “Iron Man.”

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 2

News MOSL’s Second Examination Raises Frustration

By Jennifer Lee and Whitney Tam Imagine taking an exam in which students disregard the instructions and do whatever they want to pass the time. The MOSL exam, administered on Wednesday, April 2, was the second section of a two-part evaluation, the first of which was administered on Wednesday, October 30. Sophomore Alan Chen was one of the many who neglected the prompt given in the exam. “I wrote about my baby cousin,” Chen said. “I wrote about how he’s really cute.”

There was a lack of rigidness and security during the exam.

Chen, although instructed not to take out anything other than a pen or pencil, took out his lunch. “I ate a bagel. I thought we weren’t allowed to eat but I took the risk and took [it] out. My proctor just asked if there were answers inside my bagel. I said no and finished eating,” Chen said.

In order to create a complex and accurate evaluation, the Department of Education (DOE) implemented a new teacher evaluation system called Advanced.

Advanced utilizes student performance, such as the English Language Arts (ELA) essay,

whereas the old system primarily used in-class observation and evaluation of teacher material.

Advanced is composed of two parts: Measure of Student Learning (MOSL) and Measure of Teacher Practice (MOTP). The MOSL examination, constituting 40 percent of teachers’ grades, is a value-added model that assesses a teacher’s contribution in a given year by comparing students’ most recent test scores to their previous ones.

The MOTP, comprising 60 percent of teachers’ grades, consists of in-class observation, student surveys, and evaluation of teaching material. Principal Jie Zhang and the Assistant Principal of each department will enter classrooms and observe teachers’ abilities and certain aspects, such as their instruction, preparation, and interaction with the students.

In opposition to the newly established teacher evaluation system, seniors David and Jack Cahn formed a Facebook group titled “Don’t Take the MOSL/ELA.” “The MOSL is an unfair exam, which penalizes teachers for something they can’t control, i.e., students’ abilities to write English,” Jack Cahn said. “That’s why I recommended students opt out

of the exam in order to oppose an unjust system and hopefully discontinue the system.” The primary goal of this page was to spread information regarding the MOSL assessment and encourage students not to take it.

Though the message reached many seniors, it was not very successful in swaying underclassmen. Many seniors chose to opt out of the exam, while most of the underclassmen attended the assessment even if there were no repercussions for refusing to take it.

During the first MOSL exam administered in October, the Cahn brothers also asked students to opt out of the exam by creating a Facebook group. In addition, they printed an article in The Spectator titled “Don’t Take the ELA,” in which they explained why Advanced is unjust. Many students who chose to opt out of either MOSL exam felt justified in their decision when informed by the Cahns’ Facebook group or article.

In comparison, more students, particularly seniors, opted out the second time due to scheduling. The first exam was administered in the morning, whereas the second MOSL was arranged for the afternoon. As a result, seniors skipped the second

Speech and Debate Payment Policy Change

By Sharon Lee and Jenny Yang This year, members of Stuyvesant’s Speech and Debate team faced changes in the team’s payment policy. In past years, team members had the choice of either paying $900 upfront, or paying $250 per tournament. It was discovered in September 2012, however, that it was against school policy for students to pay the $900 to cover all costs. This was because fractions of the amount given by a student would sometimes contribute towards other purposes besides the cost of that student’s tournaments, such as coaches’ salaries and other administrative costs. Additionally, fees given by underclassmen would occasionally be used for sending upperclassmen to tournaments a farther distance away.

“I was new, and general policy is we need to make sure students are accountable for what they’re actually paying for,” Zhang said In order to resolve this problem, the Speech and Debate team initiated a new method of payment for students. Members would be required to pay a preliminary fee of $250, which would cover any administrative charges.

A member would then pay accordingly for all tournaments in

which he or she participates. The maximum amount of fees a student could be held responsible for is $900, regardless of the number of competitions attended.

With a large team of 243 members, problems occasionally arise after tournaments when some members fail to pay the necessary fees. “We generally lose money after each major tournament, but in the weeks following we collect most of what people still owe. The money that we do not manage to collect adds up, creating the team’s debt,” senior and Speech and Debate Manager Zachary Lemonides said.

The fees for tournaments vary, but some of the most expensive ones cost more than $400.

Though the exact amount of the debt is undetermined, the unpaid dues are currently estimated to add up to roughly $2,000. Sophomore and Speech and Debate member Danielle Segall recognizes the issue that Speech and Debate team faces. “I think that they implemented the new system this year, and within its first year of implementation, it is off to a rocky start,” Segall said.

Along with costly tournament fees, there are additional expenses to cover the participants’ stays at nearby hotels. Due to the team’s success, many of its mem-

bers often qualify for a variety of tournaments across the country.

The cost of sending students to various destinations as well as securing a place for students to stay overnight adds to the accumulating pile of debt. “In some ways, I think it’s our fault because we go to hotels like the Charles Hotel instead of less expensive ones,” an anonymous sophomore and Speech and Debate member said.

The Speech and Debate team has been initiating fundraising efforts in an attempt to alleviate the debt. Many of the tactics being employed have been used in past years as well. “We ask for donations from prominent alumni and run fundraising campaigns where members ask family members and community leaders for donations,” Speech and Debate President Jack Cahn said.

If the debt continues to increase, members who qualified for Nationals, the prestigious nationwide tournament, may have to provide the money for the travel to Chicago. Still, the team plans to support its members as much as it can. “Nobody will ever be prevented from competing out of an inability to pay. The team will continue to do everything in its power to support our speakers and debaters,” Lemonides said.

Asian-American SHSAT Conference Held continued from page 1

“I didn’t know of any other Stuyvesant input into the panel, and I thought that it was pretty important since they were talking about whether they should change the admissions into Stuyvesant,” Wang said. “The voices within Stuyvesant weren’t well represented, because if you look at it, it’s just a bunch of adults arguing on the news and nobody really asking the students [what they think].”

As a member of the Community panel, Wang had five minutes to convey her points to the other participants as well as the audience. “It actually took a lot of preparation. There were a lot of articles to read and charts to

look at,” Wang said. “It was actually really intimidating, because there were a bunch of people I both knew and didn’t know.”

Her points focused on the preparation that many middle school students have prior to taking the SHSAT, and especially that extra tutoring classes do not necessarily help a student, contrary to what many in the media, as well as the NAACP, have said.

“There are some people who make it into Stuyvesant without taking prep classes, but there are also people who take prep classes, and fool around and don’t get anything done,” Wang said. “So it shows it’s more about hard work than about [preparation] or luck.”

Despite her initial nervousness, Wang considered her experience extremely valuable, and

she enjoyed the discussion. “It was nice hearing a bunch of different views on [the SHSAT],” she said. “It wasn’t just us arguing; it was us having a discussion. We weren’t leaping at each other’s throats, and I thought that was ultimately really valuable at a discussion like this with so many different complex opinions.”

Kwok agreed, and thought that the conference was a success, especially due to the numerous audience members who attended the discussion. “We want to have more forums in the future because there is a lot of interest in the Asian-American community about education,” he said. “We hope for it to be only the beginning as we continue this dialogue with our community members.”

MOSL in order to enjoy a half day.

In addition, many students chose to skip the second part of the test after thinking poorly of the first MOSL. “I’ve taken the test last time, the first one, and I felt like it was a waste of time because it was the type of essay we used to do in elementary and middle school,” senior Katherine Oh said.

Even the students who decided not to opt out of the exam did not take it seriously. Senior William Aung was one of the few seniors who were present during the exam. “I, quote unquote, ‘took’ the test, but I just sat there and caught up on some reading […] I know one guy who wrote an essay on which college to go to, someone else wrote an essay on ‘Finding Nemo,’ [and] someone else I know wrote math equations,” Aung said.

“Honestly, I tried to put some effort into it, but after half an hour, I was really tired and didn’t see the point in it. I kind of went off on a tangent somehow and started writing random things about bio[logy],” sophomore Aritri Dutta said.

Some teachers understand the students’ frustration and decision to not take the MOSL seriously. “It seems an inevitable

by-product of requiring students to take an exam that cannot in any way affect them [...] whose outcome can be of no consequence to you whatsoever, so of course some students are not going to take it seriously. Why should they?” Assistant Principal of English Eric Grossman said.

Many teachers from other departments were also unhappy with the newly implemented Advanced because the English exam is used to evaluate all teachers in the school, not just English teachers. “There are factors outside of the classroom that affect students’ performances that I cannot change […] there are no measures in place for computer science, so I would be rated based on subjects that I do not teach,” computer science teacher Samuel Konstantinovich said.

Though the MOSL assessment has garnered a lot of negative feedback from both students and faculty members, Principal Jie Zhang urges students to take the exams when they are administered. “I just hope all students will cooperate. Everyone knows this system is coming from up above. I think we should cope with it,” Zhang said.

Stuyvesant Remembers Richard Geller

By Ariel Levy When math teacher Richard Geller was selected to deliver the commencement address at Stuyvesant’s 2011 graduation ceremony, he spoke about his teaching career, the successes of the senior class, and his love for his students from behind the wooden podium. “I have loved being a part of your four years at Stuyvesant. I have enjoyed watching you grow, physically, mentally and mathematically. I leave you with the following words,” he said.

Then, stepping across the stage and thrusting his fist into the air, Geller ended his speech with his famous and often used catchphrase, “Math is number one!”

At the time of the speech, Geller was battling an advanced stage of cancer. He passed away on November 1, 2011, due to melanoma complications, yet he remains a deeply respected and admired influence on the students and faculty of Stuyvesant High School. Geller taught math at Stuyvesant for 29 years, and ran the math team for more than 20 years. “He was an institution at the school,” math teacher Ashvin Jaishankar said.

Scattered around the hallways

“He was an institution at the school.” —Ashvin Jaishankar, math team head of Stuyvesant are posters stating, “Mr. Geller, Math is #1.” Seniors Jack Cahn and David Cahn, two former students of Geller, put up the posters. They both stressed the importance of acknowledging Geller’s impact on Stuyvesant. “On the first and second anniversaries of Mr. Geller’s death, his memory went largely unrecognized at Stuyvesant. On both occasions, I was appalled at how quickly our community seemed to forget a man who dedicated

his life to us,” Jack Cahn said.

“Jack and I put up the signs all around Stuyvesant because we didn’t want Mr. Geller’s legacy to be forgotten,” David Cahn said. They chose March 28, Open School Day and the day of Parent Teacher Conferences, to display the posters, as they believed it would have the greatest impact on the whole Stuyvesant community.

Many students credit Geller’s teaching as a lasting influence.

“Math team was always the first period of the day so students were always tired, but when class started with Mr. Geller, everyone was attentive. I remember how he always wore a button down shirt to school, but on Valentine’s Day, he wore a bright pink T-shirt with I love math on it and that was the type of love for math that caused students to always love learning in his class,” senior Edmond Miu said.

“He loved teaching kids; he was the very definition of an old-school teacher,” Jaishankar said. He fondly recalls Geller’s enthusiasm for teaching all students, both inside the school and outside. “When we both lived on the Upper West Side, I would see him on the subway in the morning. He would actually go up to a kid and start helping him with [his] math homework,” he said.

Geller contributed much to the development of the Stuyvesant math team in particular. “I don’t think we would be able to [meet five days a week for first period] without his steadfast loyalty to the math team and his making sure people knew about how good it was,” Jaishankar said.

“He had such passion for it, and it rubbed off on the rest of us.”

Next year’s graduating class of 2015 will be the last to have experienced Geller’s teaching. However, his impact will be remembered.

“I ended up in Mr. Geller’s class due to programming changes and it was one of those rash decisions I thought I would regret but it ended up being one of my best decisions. He died that year in the middle of the semester and it was surreal. I will never forget that math class the day we learned he died,” senior Ranzib Razzaki said.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 3

News Stuyvesant Social Science Researchers Excel at New York History Day

Hot Topic: Stuyvesant Speaker Warns Manhattan is Not the Place to Chill

Eva I / The Spectator

By Sonia Epstein

The winners of the 2014 New York City History Day (left to right) are Labiba Chowdhury, Sabrina Bari, Armani Kahn (not pictured), Afshin Kahn, and David Bang.

By Sonia Epstein Members of Stuyvesant’s Social Science Research class proved that they could also excel in a different field of research on Sunday, March 23, at the Museum of the City of New York. There, 16 Stuyvesant students presented historical research projects to the judges of the New York City History Day competition.

The contest is a year-long program, consisting of a series of local competitions, like the New York City event, that culminate in the National History Day competition. Students research and analyze a historical time period or an event that relates to an annual theme.

The competition is open to a wide range of students, from “Juniors,” students in grades six to eight, to “Seniors,” students in grades nine to 12. Students can work individually or in a group, and may present their work in the form of a paper, documentary, performance, exhibit, or website.

The Stuyvesant students who competed in the local New York City History Day competition were from Ellen Schweitzer’s Social Science Research class. This is the second year in which Schweitzer’s class has participated, though last year no students advanced to the New York State competition, the next round after the New York City event. “[Assistant Principal of Social Studies Jennifer] Suri really wanted more students to be involved, but a lot of the history classes feel like […] it’s hard to get through the curriculum as well as participate in [New York City History Day],” Schweitzer said.

“So she asked if the Social Science Research students would participate, and I said yes.”

Each team of students researched a unique topic, relating to this year’s broad theme of “rights and responsibilities.”

At the New York City competition, two of the teams from Stuyvesant were chosen to move on to the regional New York State competition, which will take place on April 28, 2014.

The team of juniors Afshin Kahn and David Bang won second place in the category of Senior Group Documentary for their project titled, “Andrew Carnegie: Robber Baron or Captain of Industry?” Their research centered on Andrew Carnegie, who was at the helm of the expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century. “The premise of the documentary was to see if Andrew Carnegie had the right and re-

sponsibility to help America economically, politically, and socially, and to see if Andrew Carnegie had the right to sacrifice his recognition of his workers’ rights,” Afshin Kahn said.

The documentary was an extensive project for Bang and Afshin Kahn, taking about three months to complete. In addition to writing the script, filming, and putting together the documentary, they interviewed author and historian David Nasaw.

“I have enjoyed the project because it made me take on a responsibility I’ve never quite had before,” Afshin Kahn said.

“I’m very excited about competing in [the New York State competition] mainly because I really want to see other students’ projects. They’ve all worked hard to get to this point and they all deserve the recognition.”

Juniors Armani Khan, Sabrina Bari, and Labiba Chowdhury earned third place in the category for Senior Group Exhibit for their work, titled, “Why Were Voting Rates So High in Antebellum America?”

In the exhibit, a poster board with powerful visual images, supported by text, displays the research. Through the layout of the project, the authors guide the viewer to their conclusions.

“When we heard the theme, rights and responsibilities, the first idea that came to mind was voting,” Armani Kahn said.

Their group researched voter turnouts during the Antebellum period, the period before the American Civil War, and today. “Voting is a very important right, but not many people choose to exercise this right anymore,” she said.

Whereas in other categories only the top two projects proceed to the New York State competition, in the Exhibition category, the third place piece also advances. Armani Khan, Bari, and Chowdhury are excited to join Afshin Khan and Bang at the New York State competition.

Another notable project, “Conflicted Rights, Conflicted Responsibilities, the Controversial Reconstruction Era,” was made by juniors Razwan Miah, Rayyan Jokhai, Moaz Khan, and Frankie Li. After having to switch their project from an exhibition to a performance two weeks before the competition (only a limited number of groups from the same school may compete in the same category) the team still claimed third place for Senior Group Performance.

“Our main point was that during the Reconstruction Era, the government passed the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to ensure the rights of freed-

men,” Miah said. Their group reenacted the major legislation during this period, bringing the audience back to the time period and leading them to their conclusion. “The government failed in its responsibility to protect the rights of these new freed men,” Miah said.

In noting the difficulties the group faced in their project, Jokhai said, “What happened was that Frankie actually missed the performance, so we had to do a four-man event with three men. Also, we didn’t have any props, and that really hit us. So next time, if we prepare more, we should be able to make states, and that’s something I’d really like to do.”

Schweitzer said she will continue to conduct the project in coming years. “Unless Ms. Suri finds a way to fit it into the history classes, I expect to keep doing it.”

“History is not really a social science and they […] suspended what they were doing on their own research projects to do this competition.”

—Ellen Schweitzer, Social Science Research teacher Despite the difficulties involved in participating in the competition, it proved to be a positive experience. “History is not really a social science and they […] suspended what they were doing on their own research projects to do this competition,” Schweitzer said.

“On the other hand, it’s always good to have an opportunity to formulate and present your ideas […] they will also have to do this for their own work in the social sciences. It was a great experience for the students to learn all different types of research in different subjects.”

The projector screen of Lecture Hall A lit up to show Manhattan, located on the center of the map, crowded with masses of little red dots, while green and blue dots speckled the surrounding area.

“As you can see, Manhattan is an urban heat island. It’s significantly hotter than the surrounding countryside,” research meteorologist Dr. Brian Vant-Hull said.

Dr. Vant-Hull, who came to speak at Stuyvesant on Monday, March 31, is a research meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Cooperative Remote Sensing in Science and Technology Center (NOAA-CREST) at the City College of New York.

Junior and President of the Stuyvesant Environmental Club (SEC) Sidney Lok coordinated the lecture at Stuyvesant. This is the first year Dr. Vant-Hull has spoken at Stuyvesant. The club was exposed to Dr. Vant-Hull at an event it had attended earlier in the year.

“We went to the Nature Conservancy Green College and Career Fair,” said Marissa Maggio, faculty advisor of the SEC. “It’s a yearly event for LEAF [Leaders in Environmental Actions for the Future] schools, and Stuyvesant is a LEAF school.”

“Through connections I made at the event, I became acquainted with Dr. Vant-Hull,” Lok said. “So, I invited him to speak at [Stuyvesant].”

Dr. Vant-Hull began his lecture by explaining the significance of temperature change. “Small changes in temperature can make a big difference once you arrive at higher temperatures,” he said.

“During a heat wave, the elderly and sick are at risk.”

Through his research, Dr. VantHull aims to understand and predict the changes in temperature in Manhattan, an urban heat island.

He explained that the looming skyscrapers of New York City have a high heat capacity, while vegetation of a rural area has a low heat capacity. This explanation contributes to the growing knowledge

of why cities are hotter than rural areas.

To illustrate this idea, Dr. VantHull interrupted his lecture to play a game. Each of the students attending the presentation received five pennies. Students approached one another and combined their pennies and shuffled them. One student then took all the pennies that had landed on “heads,” and the other took those with “tails.”

The goal of the game was to gather eight pennies, at which point the player, along with his pennies, “evaporated.” The remaining players continued the game.

“As more students ‘evaporated’ and there were fewer pennies available, it became harder to ‘evaporate,’” Vant-Hull said. “So too, the rise of temperature in a rural area of low heat capacity allows for more evaporation, and cools [those areas] off.”

To accurately measure and predict the changes in temperature, Dr. Vant-Hull’s research team deployed sensors throughout Manhattan during the summer months of 2012 and 2013. The data collected identifies areas with lower buildings as warmer, while areas of higher elevation or with vegetation were cooler. The research is ongoing, and more data will continue to be collected and analyzed.

In Vant-Hull’s mind, the event proved to be a success. “It’s always a pleasure to speak to a group of intelligent and motivated teenagers,” Vant-Hull said in an e-mail interview. “We had a perfectly sized group, and I was very happy that so many would come on short notice. I’d definitely be happy to come back.”

Students enjoyed the lecture as well. “It was a really interesting talk,” said freshman Courtney Chui. “It gave me insight into a relevant issue we face today and an area of science I had never really learned about before.”

“I’m always trying to get my peers to be more aware of the impact we have on the environment,” Lok said. “I think Dr. Vant-Hull’s lecture was a great way to encourage this awareness.”

Professor Leigh Benin Speaks About Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By Rebecca Chang

On the 103rd anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City, Tuesday, March 25, 2014, Professor Leigh Benin visited Stuyvesant to give a lecture about the fire to the AP United States History (APUSH) classes of social studies teachers David Hanna and Victor Greez. In addition to being an American History professor at New York University and an education teacher at Adelphi University, Dr. Benin also had a relative, his cousin, who died in the fire.

Hanna first met Dr. Benin at the 54th Annual Greater Metropolitan Social Studies Conference hosted by the United Federation of Teachers on March 2. “I went to a workshop that [Dr. Benin] did on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and I thought it was really interesting, and also I thought his personal connection to what had happened was also very fascinating,” Hanna said. “I could also tell that it moved him, so it wasn’t just his perspective as a historian, but it was more of the personal connection as well.”

The two stayed in touch after the conference, and Hanna was interested in having Dr. Benin come to Stuyvesant to speak about his relationship to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

“What was really great was that he was coincidentally able to come on the 103rd anniversary of the fire,” Hanna said.

During Dr. Benin’s presentation, which lasted through periods four and five, he started with an introduction of himself and then showed a documentary from Home Box Office, Triangle: Remembering the Fire, in which he

was featured. This film, produced in 2011, commemorated the 100th anniversary of the fire by having relatives of those who had died in or escaped from the fire to speak about the event. These relatives spoke of the impact of the fire, and how it resulted in many reforms in American factories, especially in the garment industry.

The film closed with the relatives laying flowers during a memorial ceremony for the 146 victims of the fire.

“The film itself was really engaging, and it really related the experiences of the fire,” junior Sadie Solomon said. “[It] was great because we had watched in my first period history class a more historical and more objective film about the fire, so this was a nice contrast.”

“I really enjoyed it,” junior Isaac Gluck said. “I thought it was well presented information-wise, and he did a good job connecting it personally in a way that helped all of us understand [the fire] better.”

Afterwards, Dr. Benin answered student questions, addressing many different aspects of the fire, such as fire safety laws, who should be blamed for the incident, and how it is still applicable today in other countries.

“I thought the [questions and answers] were really good and I wish we had more time. I think it was just that, for his answers, he tended to really develop his responses, which took time,” Hanna said.

Benin was glad he has the opportunity to present at Stuyvesant. “It was a great honor for me to present at Stuyvesant. The students were wonderful to speak to,” he said.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 4

News

ISEF winners (from left to right) Soham Daga, Lily Lee, and Waqarul Islam.

By Vanna Mavromatis and Jenny Yang with additional reporting by Caleb Sooknanan Of the 60 Stuyvesant students who entered the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), five students—junior Mika Jain, and seniors Libby Ho, Lily Lee, Waqarul Islam, and Soham Daga—will participate and showcase their projects in the final international round of the ISEF in Los Angeles in May. Each of their five presentations is detailed below.

The Effects of Novel Substrates on Morphology and Protein Expression in Podocytes – Mika Jain Jain’s project involves developing medical applications for 3-D printing, more specifically the 3-D printing of human

kidneys. One problem with 3-D printing of kidneys involves podocytes, which are the main functional cells of the kidney.

When podocytes are taken from the kidney and cultured outside the body, they do not exhibit the characteristics that allow them to function properly. Jain’s research involves inducing the characteristics in the podocytes in order to develop artificial kidneys such as 3-D printed kidneys and kidney-on-a-chip, and make drug testing more feasible. “I tackled this problem from an engineer instead of a biologist’s perspective,” Jain said.

Mycobacteriophage TM4 TapeMeasure Protein Blocks Entry into Stationary Phase of Tuberculosis – Libby Ho Ho’s project focuses on eliminating multi-drug resistance to tuberculosis, other-

wise known as persistence. Persistence bacteria are bacteria that should have been killed by drugs because they don’t have mutations that make them resistant, but are in a dormant state, which allows them to be temporarily more resistant to strenuous environments, like drug treatment. Ho hypothesized that TMP (tape-measure protein) could be used by phages (viruses) to wake up the bacteria and the “woken up” bacteria would be killed by the drugs.

Throughout her research, she charted the death curve of tuberculosis with TMP and found out that the tuberculosis with the TMP grew back after some time of the drug exposure. This means that the bacteria hadn’t necessarily been woken up and killed off by the drugs. Ho, however, remains optimistic. “I am planning on continuing this experiment and doing more assays to determine how and where exactly TMP works when inside the bacteria to get a better sense of what it does,” she said.

Thirdhand Exposure to Nicotine from Electronic Cigarettes – Lily Lee Lee researched electronic cigarettes, claiming that they aren’t safer than regular cigarettes when it comes to harm done to the surrounding people. She states that this is because of third hand exposure.

“Third hand exposure is when nicotine sticks to your floors, walls, and whatnot,” Lee said.

Because electronic cigarettes are relatively new, people are

Stephanie Chen / The Spectator

Stephanie Chen / The Spectator

Five Students Gearing Up For Intel ISEF in Los Angeles

ISEF winners (from left to right) Mika Jain and Libby Ho.

unsure whether they should be used indoors. Lee’s project shows that third hand exposure is still an issue when using electronic cigarettes, as the nicotine builds up and exposes others to carcinogens and cancer.

Characterizing NbSe2 through Soft Micro-Stencil Lithography and Atomic Force Microscopy – Waqarul Islam Islam is working on nano material lithography. In his project, he fabricated electrodes onto a nano material called NbSe2 to test its electrical resistance. While NbSe2 has no usage now, Islam believes that the nano material could be used in future technology such as computer chips. “For the first time, I am electrically testing it to see if it has that potential.

This testing was never done before,” he said. He explains that the testing procedure, the SMS

lithography, didn’t exist previously in older models. Much of his work involved developing the procedure that uses polymer instead of hard stencil that older models use.

Using Google Trends to Enhance Predictive Models of Mortgage Delinquency to Mitigate Risk in the Loan Lending Process – Soham Daga Daga incorporated data from Google Trends into current models, along with Citibank models, to create his own models to determine possible mortgage trends. He has been presenting his research to Citibank in addition to the Intel ISEF. “In my project, I only focus on the mortgage industry.

Now, I want to try and expand it to other financial markets and types of loans like credit loans and student loans,” Daga said.

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The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 5

Features

Paul Kondratyev / The Spectator

Trainor-ing Future Spies

Social studies teacher Kerry Trainor gives his CIA class a presentation on domestic surveillance.

By Michelle Chan and Erica Chio Who killed JFK? Was Lee Harvey Oswald just a lone gunman, or is there a secret truth behind this murder? What defines a conspiracy theory? And who doesn’t love conspiracy theories?

These are just a few of the questions explored in the Intelligence and Security Studies class, commonly known as the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) class. The CIA class, taught by history teacher Kerry Trainor, is a new elective that focuses on the role of intelligence agencies in American history. The curriculum begins with the activity of secret organizations during the time of George Washington, and continues through the time of Franklin Roosevelt and World War II. It examines the facets of intelligence during the Cold War, and finishes the year studying the role of the United States Intelligence Community (IC) in 9/11 and how the IC changed in the post-9/11 era.

Throughout the course, the class looks into how intelligence agencies have affected the decisions of policy makers and how tensions between the government and the IC have affected history. “The key question I want to look into the whole course is ‘How can we maintain a secret structure like this in an open democracy?

What are the contradictions?’”

Trainor said.

Compared to other history classes, the CIA class is narrower in scope because it focuses on just one aspect of history and is connected to the present in a way that other history

classes are not. Because Trainor came up with the entire curriculum, he has a lot of freedom in deciding what material he should teach, and how he wants to teach it.

Trainor has made good use of this freedom by utilizing a wide range of teaching devices. The class recently finished watching “The Good Shepherd,” a movie starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. The movie explores the history of the CIA through the perspective of a man who is invited to join a secret society, which ultimately morphs into the American intelligence agency. Films are a big part of the CIA class as they help the students learn the material in a way that preserves the dramatic and exciting spirit of the CIA. “Mr. Trainor does a really good job with capturing your attention via provocative aims and using a lot of multimedia. It’s a really interesting way of looking at history and current events,” senior Mandy Wong said.

Trainor has had a longstanding interest in the CIA, and always dreamt of teaching a class about intelligence agencies. “In grad school, I wrote my master’s thesis on congressional oversight of the CIA,” Trainor said. This “opened [his] eyes to a category of history that [he] felt wasn’t getting attention at all at the high school level….” “When I came to Stuyvesant, I saw an opportunity to finally sorta realize a dream that I have, which was teaching a class just on the history of American Intelligence Agency,” Trainor said.

Trainor was resolute in making his dream come true, and spent time trying to put togeth-

er the perfect class. “Last summer, I wrote the curriculum. I spent the summer nose deep in books and putting together a curriculum that was Common Core-aligned,” Trainor explained. He asked for advice from historians and his old college professors, who are experts in foreign and diplomatic history. Trainor even used the curriculum of one of his old college professors’ month-long course as a template for his own. Next, he introduced the idea to Assistant Principal of Social Studies Jennifer Suri, who approved it.

“I’m really thankful to the administration, to Ms. Suri and Ms. Zhang. And thankful to the students who signed up sort of on mass. I think like 350 kids signed up for, you know, 68 spots or whatever. I’m just really thankful for all of them because, you know, the administration, approved it, but the demand was so high that it validated, at least, my desire to create the class,” Trainor said.

This mass sign-up was largely due to Trainor telling his students about the CIA class the previous semester. “I had Mr. Trainor for Gov. and his class was one of my favorites. I knew he was really enthusiastic about this topic and it sounded really interesting,” senior Jeremy Karson said.

As interesting as it is, the CIA class has not been an easy one to teach. Because this is the first time Trainor is teaching a course on the CIA, he has to spend a long time every night reading through the textbook and preparing himself for class the next day. Furthermore, the major problem with teaching the class is that many documents are classified. Out of the many classified documents, only some have been declassified, which makes it difficult for Trainor to show his class primary sources. However, Trainor makes up for this by assigning reading not only from the two textbooks his students use, but also from a variety of sources, including Buzzfeed articles, podcasts, and book reviews.

The existence of so many classified documents also makes for interesting class discussions, as it raises questions about our government. What are the presidents doing that needs to be kept secret from society?

Questions like these often emphasize Trainor’s passion for this subject, as he often brings them up in class or as essay

prompts. Trainor’s lively character energizes the room as he leads class discussions and flips through his Powerpoint presentations. “Mr. Trainor is intensely passionate about the subject and that really translate to how he teaches it—his history lessons are never boring,” senior Israt Hossain said.

Although there are no tests, Trainor assigns essays and various fun projects. “I definitely enjoyed doing the group project we were assigned for the first marking period—we had to come up with a plan to install pro-U.S. governments in Ukraine and Crimea. Though it was kind of difficult because we still had a fairly limited scope of how intelligence really worked, coming up with a solid plan was satisfying work,” senior Thomas Bajko said.

Aside from projects, homework is assigned every night. In one night, the class may have to read 27 pages about President Gerald R. Ford and answer three questions about the CIA’s role in the Ford Administration.

“I guess the one qualm I have with the class is workload. The consistent daily homework can feel more like a grind [than] a compelling learning experience, what with the textbook having in-depth, long chapter that can be hard to digest in one sitting,” said a student who wished to remain anonymous.

Trainor admits that the

homework is on the heavy side, but says that he designed this class as a college course. “You get out of it what you put in. You can read every single word I assign and you are going to learn so much in the class, just about a variety of subjects,” Trainor said.

For Trainor, this class is his pride and has completely fulfilled his expectations. During Parent Teacher Conferences, parents came up to him and told him that their kids thought the CIA class was the best class ever. Although he has received compliments like that from his students in his other two AP classes, he feels especially proud of this one because he created the class himself.

Even though the class was greatly successful this year, it still needs to go through the approval process to continue next year. There needs to be a high demand for it again, and it will only be offered in the Spring semester because of the lack of space in the building. Trainor thinks that teaching the CIA class next year would be easier for him because he would have a template for the curriculum and all of his documents and presentations ready. “My goal eventually is to get it on websites that history teachers go to around the country and try to get it in other high schools,” Trainor said.

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The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Features

By Kachun Leung With the spotlight focused on her, a young girl steps onto a twofoot tall globe that is perched on one end of a seesaw. Without losing her balance, she picks up three bowling pins and begins to juggle them as the whimsical colors of the circus illuminate around her. She then maneuvers her way onto the other side of the seesaw, effortlessly balancing on the globe while keeping her eyes glued to the bowling pins.

This globe trick, along with countless others, is commonplace for senior Elizabeth Reznik, who began performing in the circus when she was four years old.

Reznik, however, is not the only Stuyvesant student familiar with the circus arts; sophomore Yakira Kellman also executes stunning feats while being suspended from aerial silks every summer.

Aerial silks involve a large piece of fabric which performers hang on while twirling and manipulating the fabric around them with their arms and legs.

One can strike upside-down poses, climb up and down the silk, or hang from one’s feet. “There’s no harness, because you use the silks to stay up. It’s like flying,” Kellman explained.

Kellman goes on aerial silks every summer at a dance camp she has attended for the past four years. “It looked really fun and graceful, and I found that the basics just came easily,” she said.

In fact, Kellman learned how to climb onto the fabric and lock her feet in on her first try. Though learning how to manipulate the silks was straightforward, it was scary. “I felt like my feet would collapse and I would plummet to the ground. There’s a knot you have to make while you’re in the air to anchor your feet, and after I made it, I felt like my foot would rip off,” Kellman explained.

However, Kellman continued with the silks and proceeded to learn more difficult stunts. “I progressed to learn what’s sometimes called the Ship’s Lady, in which one foot is locked in the silks and you hold onto them with

each hand, and hang forward into the air,” Kellman explained.

Kellman learned other tricks, including one called the Back Walkover, where she would hang backwards in the air. In another trick, she would hang backwards and hold onto the fabric without tying her feet into the silks.

Though Kellman can only go on aerial silks at dance camp every summer, this helps keep the experience special. “Only going on [aerial silks] once or twice a year keeps the magic though, because I look forward to them far more than I would if I did them every week,” she explained.

While Kellman has only gone on silks a few times, Reznik has been performing in the circus since she was four. While meeting a four year-old circus performer is quite rare, Reznik, like most young girls, started off with ballet classes. “When I was three [years old] my parents enrolled me in dance [classes], which went horribly wrong because I didn’t listen to anyone,” she said.

“Then one of my parents’ friend told them, ‘hey there’s an advertisement for a Russian circus,’ and so since nothing else was working for [me], why not put me in there?” Reznik’s parents agreed to send their daughter to the Russian American Kids’ Circus, and Reznik began to travel around the United States with eleven other children, performing circus acts, such as riding a unicycle and juggling.

As one might expect, Reznik’s transition from dance classes to circus school was not an easy one.

She recalls how bizarre it was for her on the first day at the circus.

“I was in a dance tutu and I guess I didn’t know what the dress code was,” she said, adding that “[the instructor] put me on this two foot tall globe and that was one of the scariest moments of my life.”

Reznik was also unaccustomed to the strict behavior of her circus instructors. “The director was this really stern man, while my dance instructor was this really chill old lady,” she recalled.

Reznik began her circus career by learning simple skills, and

then progressed to more difficult ones. “I really wanted to learn how to unicycle,” Reznik said.

“After about a week I could finally ride around in a circle. Then the tricks got harder, riding backwards, doing turns and pirouettes, riding with a partner hand in hand, juggling on it. The next level was a 6 feet tall unicycle which I had to wait to ride until I was tall enough.”

Reznik also recalled having to go to practices during the evening for about three hours.

She would spend the first half hour warming up and the rest of the session would be devoted to practicing a certain trick. “If it was juggling day that would be all we would do for two and a half hours,” Reznik said.

Once Reznik was good enough, she began to travel.

Traveling with the circus posed problems for Reznik, as during a five-day week Reznik would have spent three days performing in places like Florida. “A lot of the kids stop[ped] inviting me to birthdays because I was never there during the weekends,” she said. Yet, the friendships she made with her circus friends compensated for social dilemmas at school. Though she does not meet with her old circus friends as often as she used to because many of them have gone to college, Reznik said that they still wish each other happy birthday and meet up occasionally.

These friendships, coupled with Reznik’s natural talent, contributed to her feeling of comfort on the stage. “The stage felt like home, and it still does, but it felt absolutely natural. There was no stage fright at all. There was just eagerness to go out there and do my best,” she said.

Reznik also remembers being featured on a segment of the Public Broadcasting Service’s children show “Cyberchase.” “‘Cyberchase’ was doing a circus themed episode because [Harry Wilson] was really good at juggling and they wanted it to appeal to the younger audience, so they wanted a kid to do the tricks, too,” she explained. “They asked

Vahn Williams / The Spectator

COMIC

Stephanie Chan / The Spectator

Under Stuyvesant’s Big Top

Senior Elizabeth Reznik is recognized for her participation in the Russian American Kids Circus, a circus full of talented performers.

me to read some of the lines and do the tricks, and I guess I fit what they had in mind.” She ended up spending an entire weekend at the studio filming what turned out to be a four minute long video.

Reznik’s life with the circus ended when she started to focus on her academics more. Her frequent absences from school were not conducive to a good education, and Reznik was determined to get into Stuyvesant. Though she no longer performs, Reznik still loves to watch the circus, especially the Cirque du Soleil. “As a former member of the Russian American Kids Circus, the effortlessness with which the performers execute their stunts and acrobatics is awe-inspiring,” she said. Her own experience with the circus has given her a better understanding of the amount of effort and training needed to perform these acts.

However, watching circus performers live is a completely different feeling, and her childhood experience might contribute to this. “On DVD, there is a conscious awareness that no one will get hurt doing the dangerous feats, but watching them live, there is no guarantee that everyone will finish in one piece,”

she said. “[Watching performers live is] exhilarating and nervewracking at the same time, an involuntary adrenaline rush. My palms get sweaty, my legs shake nervously, and my breathing stops for the several seconds the trapeze artist is in the air.”

The circus still plays an influential role in her life.. Last year, Reznik and two of her friends created the club Cirque du Stuy, where ten members met every week and used various equipment that Reznik purchased through websites that sold equipment to the circus she was in.

“Anyone could come and pick up any of the equipment (scarves, balls, rings, or juggling clubs) and I would teach them how to juggle,” she said.

Though Reznik does not plan to have a circus-centered career, this was not always the case. “I guess when I was little I kind of imagined going into doing more circus related activities,” she said.

However, Reznik will always keep a little bit of the circus within her. When speaking of the future, Reznik said jokingly: “Of course nowadays, I don’t mind being a juggling doctor and entertaining children!”

The Spectator â—? April 25, 2014

Industrialism vs. Nature

By The Photo Department

Page 7

Page 8

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

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The Spectator ● March 18, 2014

Editorials Staff Editorial

Defining the Lines of Parenthood and Selfhood What do Batman, Harry Potter, Cinderella, and Luke Skywalker have in common? Along with many other heroic fictional characters, they are all orphans. Deprived of parents and snug homes, each protagonist elegantly overcomes humble beginnings and strives for greatness. Their tales almost convince the reader that one can lead successful life without parents.

Despite this optimistic depiction, the Editorial Board believes that parents play integral roles in our lives. Whether it be shaping our ideals, monitoring our work habits, or even setting a curfew, each of our parents has had a large impact on our lifestyles. To further explore how our parents have influenced our lives, the Editorial Board answered this prompt: Describe your relationship with your parents and its effects on the social, academic and ethical parts of your life.

My friends call my mom the “tiger mom.” She signs me up for prep classes to supplement what I’m learning in school and constantly reminds me that the deadlines of summer programs or internships are approaching. My dad doesn’t have a big role in her parenting style except for being the source of financial support. I can say pretty confidently that these prep classes are not helpful and are rather harmful if the kid herself does not have the motivation. What I can do in school is not in their control, and I feel like these prep classes made me depend on others to guide me through my high school years, which is very poisonous in the long-term. However, we still have a good relationship because I understand that this is all for my good in the end. The things she does like preparing delicious dinner, packing me tasty snacks, staying up all night with me, helping me with an art project, or being my personal driver, are part of my driving force and I’ve come to appreciate the sacrifices she makes for me. Now, I consider her to be more of a friend on this road to college.

She doesn’t care who I hang out with and what I do with them if she knows my whereabouts; she trusts me enough not to get involved in my social life. My mom knows that I will not abandon my academic life for my social life, and I know that my mom will objectively advise me in all my pursuits.

For as long as I can remember, I felt like my parents and I were never on the same page. A lot of people say that parents are supposed to motivate you. Push you to do your best. Reach your fullest potential. All the cliches in the book.

My parents did that, or at least tried to. But in my opinion, they never did it the right way. Growing up, my parents didn’t see how crucial relationships are in a kid’s life, and how, even though education is of utmost importance, relationships are important too. They were always tough when it came to school, and remain that way to this day.

I remember a handful of instances surrounding my parents and this overbearing nature.

When I wanted to hang out with a friend, it was the same story every time: “Is it a girl or a boy?

What do their parents do? Do they have an older brother? I need to meet with their parents first.

You can’t sleep over, understood?” It was tiring, and the disposition carried over into high school too.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my parents— they’re great people. I’ve lived a family-centered life because I was raised that way. Sometimes, however, I wish I would’ve had a say in some of the things I’ve done. And sometimes, I wish I could’ve heard an “I’m proud of you,” or “You did the best that you could.” Still, I know they only want what’s best for me, and that’s all I ask for.

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A lot of kids at Stuy use “white” as a euphemism for “overly relaxed” or “negligent” when describing parental behavior. I sincerely wish I could empathize with this stereotype, but having been raised by a mother who is the principal of a Parochial school I am afforded no such luck. In my life I have always had an earlier curfew than that of my close friends whose parents are more obedient to the prerequisites of being “white parents.” I always envied the way many of my peers do not fear the consequences of coming home at night visibly drunk or high the way that I always have. I even have to admit that I do not feel comfortable using foul language around my parents despite the attitude most families have towards such language nowadays.

Ethical, healthy, and safe behavior has always been my parents’ top priority when raising me or my brothers. Academics are certainly important to them, but mean nothing if moral character is not up to scratch. In my freshman year I got incredibly low marks in math my first semester because I wasn’t used to the high standard of comprehension expected in this school. However, my parents never punished me for this because I had been going to a math tutor and was consistently doing my homework. Yet the same semester, I was missing a few assignments in my biology class, while doing much better overall. This warranted the ire of my parents who were disappointed to see me squandering my talents in a class that suited me. My parents value honesty and effort, and they would much rather I get a 65 in a class where I worked hard than an 80 where I did not.

I believe that these values have rubbed off on me and affected my behavior and decisions in life. Despite being irritated by their strictness I am grateful that my parents raised me to be empathetic and sensitive towards others and instilled a logical sense of priorities in me, valuing health and a sense of personal fulfillment over other perceived notions of academic success.

My parents show strong concern about my academics and my social life--when they come home from work at 5 p.m., the first thing that tumbles out of their mouths is that classic elementary school question: “What’d you do at school today?,” and they still check every test grade I come home with. I remember when I “failed” my Physics test, and my mom’s immediate reaction was to send me to tutoring, pulling up a frantic Google search for the best service in the neighborhood. I take comfort in the fact that my parents care about my education, that I’m not alone in my high school journey whenever the times are tough--in a way, my parents’ involvement with my academics is the reason why, I think, I’m doing so well in school.

And whenever I do poorly, it’s motivation to do better on the next test However, this doesn’t mean that the end goal for my parents is an Ivy League acceptance.

They’re very open-minded with my future, and they want to make sure that happiness is the ultimate path that I take. If that lies with a major in the humanities and a career in journalism or publishing, so be it. There was never pressure for me to choose between the narrow paths of medicine or law.

There’s no pressure over my social life as well. I don’t have a curfew, as long as I inform them where I’m going and when I’ll be back. My house is frequently the go-to hangout spot for my friends, and my parents know my friends pretty well as a result. There was never any influence from my parents telling me which crowd to hang out with, and I think that I stayed clear of drugs and alcohol on my own accord.

My parents trust me enough to make my own decisions, and I really believe that they’ve created a strong foundation of ethics and morals within me that I will continue to develop by myself.

My parents are immigrants who came to New York under the impression that America’s education system would provide their children with the lives they’ve always wanted. As a result, I find my parents constantly involved in my academics. They bother me about studying, doing homework, and reading. A few days ago, I borrowed my brother’s 3DS to play some games and every time my parents passed me, they made some remark about how I’ve become lazy without school or how I should be studying. My parents are rarely, if ever, encouraging. Their methods of getting me to do what they want include guilt-tripping me (“I didn’t give birth to you and feed you only to have you play games all day”) and just being persistent (“Get off your computer and do your homework”). It’s never positive encouragement; I’m never praised for my work.

My parents haven’t influenced my morals as strongly as my teachers have. Because I spent more time at school when I was younger, involving myself in after-school homework programs or music classes, my teachers have had a larger impact on my ethics than my parents. In a way, it’s also my parents doing for signing me up for those programs. My parents are conservative, opposed to gay marriage and, having come from a mostly homogeneous society, somewhat racist. My teachers raised me more liberally so I don’t share their beliefs.

My main values have come from the little things my parents have said or done that I really took to heart. For instance, my dad once said to me “never go to sleep angry... You never know what will happen overnight.” To this day, I won’t go to sleep unless I’ve settled the day and said “I love you” to my parents and the people who are important to me. Additionally, my parents never tolerated any rudeness or acting up as a child. They often included me in their get-togethers, which made me very comfortable with adults. Coming from a family with 28 cousins on my mom’s side, I learned to value family and togetherness, but from my father, an only child, I learned to work hard, network and meet people, and make your own success. I would describe my parents as lenient but involved. I think that the biggest thing they’ve done for me through this day is teach me the consequences of things, whether it be academic failure, being mean, using illegal substances, or staying out too late. From there they have set reasonable limits and let me learn from my own mistakes.

I was raised on soy lattes and anatomy coloring books.

My mother was an art teacher for my elementary school, and my father a medical physicist.

In my mother’s classroom, I learned art history through boxes of pencils and pastels. We traced movements from symbolic African patterns to European impressionism on canvas, learning with my mother, I was playing games.

My father’s preferred workspace was the nearby coffee house. With my father, I solved problems. I learned to love mathematics and science. He never allowed for any excuse that explained why I couldn’t do something. Many of these moments will be engrained in my memory forever; the frustration that came with solving my first quadratic system and the amazement I felt when I understood the structure of the genome.

My father taught me to approach math and science with an open mind and creativity. I was encouraged to ask questions about whatever we were discussing, which contributed to my interest in scientific research today. Nevertheless, the most important thing my father taught me was to have a strong work ethic.

I’m most thankful for my parents’ attitude when it comes to my academic decisions, which is simply doing what makes me happy. In that way, they have encouraged my random and disconnected interests ranging from pure mathematics to fashion to embryology. It probably seems disorganized from the outside, but my parents’ constant encouragement gave me the courage to pursue what I love. That’s probably the largest influence they’ve had on me – I think for myself.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 11

Opinions

By Daniel Kodsi Day in and day out, we slog through eight hours of school and then piles of homework. Some of us are on sports teams, others play music at a concert level, and yet more are on the Speech and Debate team, write for The Spectator, or participate in Model United Nations (or do all three). While I am by no means in a position to know the mind of every single one of my peers, I do know my own and those of a few friends. Somewhere rooted in our consciousness during all those hours of work, whether they’re engaging or just menial, lies one focus: university.

Now, I don’t mean to imply that we’re all rats running a four-year marathon, but one thing is undeniable: I would not sacrifice sleep every day for homework if not to earn higher grades, and I would care little about my GPA if it didn’t directly impact my chances of getting into a “reach” college. But in the end, why? Why does going to college—and more importantly for Stuyvesant students, going to a good college—matter?

This is the question addressed in Harvard University Professor of English Louis Menand’s famous “Live and Learn,” an essay published in the New Yorker on June 6, 2011.* To briefly summarize, Professor Menand posits three theories for the purpose of higher education. First, a college degree separates the smart from the rest, clearly distinguishing the elite from the crowd; second, college is a form of cultural socialization, creating a society of informed citi-

zens; and third, its purpose is vocational, serving to teach the necessary skills for specific careers.

Throughout the article, Menand epitomizes his inquiry with the question, “Why did we have to buy this book?,” an explicit reference to the monetary value of getting a bachelor’s degree. However, since none of us are in college quite yet, that’s not quite relevant; more pertinently, I wonder instead, “Why do we stay up past midnight to finish calculating percent errors on science labs?”

The answer, I believe, lies in a reason not directly touched upon

by Menand: parental and, even more crucially, societal pressure.

For the overwhelming majority of us here at Stuyvesant, if we were to not go to college, our families and acquaintances would be absolutely shocked. It is the universal assumption that high achievers go on to earn a degree in some field, regardless of their desired career path; this explains why Stuyvesant’s college attendance rate is 99 percent. And attending college has become the norm for the rest of the nation as well; Bureau of Labor statistics from April 2013 show that 66.2 percent of 2012 high school graduates enrolled in tertiary education. However, this high percentage flies in the face of devastating data from the College Board: for the Class of 2013, the majority (57 percent) did not meet the SAT benchmark for college readiness, a number which has remained roughly constant over the last five years. So, unless my math is wrong, about 23 percent of graduating seniors are enrolling to earn a degree despite being unprepared.

The reason for this enormous gap, as I see it, ties in closely with Menand’s first theory and with an argument partially posed by the pseudonymous Professor X (author of the 2011 book “In the Basement of the Ivory Tower”), whom Menand references in his piece.

We have collectively recognized the supposed worth of a bachelor’s degree (college graduates remain better paid and are less likely to be unemployed) and instead of the obtainment of a college degree distinguishing those at the top, the absence thereof marks those at the bottom of the pack. In effect, because the majority of students are now attending college, so must everyone else, creating a self-feeding

frenzy. Taking this one step further, it is also the reason why students like us want to go to superior universities—since a normal degree is no longer anything special to differentiate ourselves, it’s (to exaggerate) Ivy or bust. Whether the effects of this societal trend are positive or negative is debatable. On one hand, for instance, it has caused the price of earning a four-year degree to skyrocket and has saddled millions with debt.

However, on the other, regardless of whether any individual went to college with Theory 2 (cultural socialization) in mind, Menand’s dream of a society of informed citizens has been achieved.

Personally, I believe that the trend of blindly pursuing higher education is one that must be stopped. I find that attending university to merely have a degree, rather than in order to learn or to pursue a path of interest partially, defeats the purpose of education. It creates a culture where the process of bettering your mind is industrialized and institutionalized and where the value of learning, both in high school and college, is expressed as a number on your transcript and a diploma. This branding and the ensuant competition are deleterious upon the ethos of our era; to make an analogy, it is similar to the pursuit of money for money’s sake. Certainly, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be rich (and who doesn’t want to be?), but in the blind pursuit of wealth, the chaser risks losing out on opportunities for greater happiness that might otherwise have been found. However, it’s also a trend I just don’t know how to change. I could suggest something utopian or unrealistic or utterly unfeasible, but in the end, it is beyond me to see how to combat the declension of the entire educational system. What I do know, however, is Stuyvesant.

Former principal Stanley Teitel was infamous for his saying: “Grades, sleep or friends: choose two.” I think there is one more option he left out, which is by far the most important but also the most difficult to strive for: passion. My personal theory of higher education, Theory 4 if you will, is this: we attend college and work hard in high school in order to either develop that passion further or even find it in the first place. Even more

simply, I think that the purpose of higher education is self-fulfillment. Upsettingly, what I think our school cultivates least of all is exactly that. Somewhere along the line, in the pursuit of excellence, both the administrators and the student body have forgotten that greater rigor does not directly equate with better learning. What we’ve ended up with is a meatgrinder of an institution. Yes, there are some great classes and teachers, but those gems are lost in the piles of homework, the mandatory four years of every discipline and the fierce competitiveness over grades. What I’ve learnt so far at Stuyvesant, and this is a skill for which I’ll be eternally grateful, is how to manage my time. I still procrastinate of course, but I do so less because I know that when I do, not only will my grades take a hit, but I also have less time for the things I actually enjoy.

So, why menially calculate percent error lab after lab? At the moment, because everyone else is doing it, doing it to get a good grade in order to go to a good college. But

that logic borders on the absurd.

Instead, let’s look at our situation with just a touch of optimism: we should do the menial work so that we can move on to what we love—for me, writing and certain concentrations of applied math; for many of my friends, history and computer science; for you, the reader, maybe neurobiology or dance, music or learning new languages. Mentality matters. By operating outside the system, hopefully we can force it to adjust—to accommodate student interests and dreams; the shift will be gradual, but it starts at the individual level. So here’s my challenge: in the upcoming week, find one day to finish your homework without dallying and then do whatever it is that you love for the rest of the night. Let your higher education start now. *Assistant Principal Eric Grossman’s first essay assignment was on Menand’s article; though my essay served as inspiration for this piece, its contents are dissimilar.

Alisa Su / The Spectator

Anne Duncan / The Spectator

The Kodsi Column: Exploring Education, Inside and Outside Stuyvesant’s Walls

Philip Shin / The Spectator

Ivy Day is Asian Discrimination Day

By David Cahn At 5PM on Thursday, March 27, my Facebook newsfeed exploded. It was Ivy Day and America’s top universities had released their longawaited decisions. Within minutes, my screen sparkled with fancy college names, gleeful classmates, and hundreds of hearty congratulations to each accepted student. I joined in, ecstatic at my friends’ accomplishments, and cheering them on just as they had supported me when I received my early acceptance in December.

But soon an eerie pattern emerged in the college acceptance statuses. Whites were being accepted in disproportionate numbers compared to their Asian peers.

I decided to conduct an empirical analysis to assess whether or not this observation could be statistically confirmed. I relied on data collected by The Spectator, to measure race. To determine Ivy League admittance rates, I used Stuyclodpedia, a webpage on which Stuyvesant students post their college decisions. This was the best metric available because it is almost universally used and official statistics are not yet available. The numbers tell a disturbing story.

Though 67% of students identified as East/Southeast Asian, these students represented only 48% of students admitted to the Ivy League. By contrast, the 20% of seniors who identified as Caucasian/ Middle Eastern represented 32% of admitted students. East Asians were 19% under-represented, compared with a 12% over-representation of Caucasians. This difference in admission was not merit-based – The Spectator’s survey found no statistical relationship between race and GPA or extra-curricular participation. [*For in-depth discussion of statistical robustness and possible confounds, please see my note at the end of this article].

These findings are consistent with national trends. Thomas J. Espenshade, a sociologist at Princeton and the author of “No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life,” has found that, all else being equal, Asians must score 140 points high on the SAT to get into elite schools. The explicit Ivy League quota for Asian students is usually approximated at around 17%. Admissions officers routinely deny the existence of these quotas despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, though they justify race-based admission on the grounds that it allows them to create diverse classes.

Disadvantaging students on the basis of their race (rather than evaluating the content of their character, as Martin Luther King Jr. famously said) is antithetical to the basic American principle of equal opportunity. It denies Asian American students access to the same education as whites and devalues merit in favor of superficiality. Asian students are not faceless.

They are the hardworking and ambitious students who I have spent the past four years going to school with – and they deserve fair treatment.

Moreover, the Asian quota does not promote diversity when wouldbe Asian seats are simply taken by

Caucasians. Over the past 20 years, the number of Asian Americans earning Presidential Scholarships and National Merit Awards have skyrocketed, but their admission rates to Ivy League colleges has fallen. White students continue to be admitted at historic levels.

If colleges can tolerate huge white populations (45% of Harvard undergraduates were white in 2011), then they should also feel comfortable with large Asian ones. The case for diversity has legitimate role to play in the affirmative action debate, but cannot justify restricting Asian admission.

The college process reeks of racism. Discrimination against Asians is used to maintain college campuses that are plurality white, not to advantage minorities. Colleges may preach the virtues of “diversity,” “equality,” and “human rights.” But they are not innocent.

Their Gentleman’s Agreement is a subtle method of entrenching racial and cultural norms and it pervades every high school in America. Ivy Day should be re-named Asian Discrimination Day – a day to remember that the fight for civil rights has not yet been won and that we must continue striving for racial equality in America. *Notes on Statistical Analysis:

Three alternate explanations may confound my calculations.

First, Stuyclodpedia is not the ultimate authority on college decisions. The students who have posted their decisions on the page may not be a representative sample. Second, I do not control for the number of students who apply to Ivy League institutions. Caucasian students may apply to the Ivy League in greater numbers than their Asian peers, perhaps for financial reasons. Finally, legacy is a known factor in the college admissions process, which should naturally disadvantage immigrants.

Having acknowledged the possible errors in this statistical analysis, I still believe the finding to be conclusive. This is for three reasons. First, it is unlikely that any of these factors could have skewed the data to such an extent as to create a 19% under-representation of East Asians – the magnitude of the finding should make it robust to even the most egregious statistical confounds. Second, this finding is supported by anecdotal experience – the racial divide in college decisions this year and in the past in widely acknowledged and the “Asian penalty” is frequently discussed. Finally, these findings are consistent with national trends.

Page 12

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Opinions

By Alex Hirsch “Out of work? Nowhere to live? Nowhere to go? Nothing to eat? Come to Fukushima.” This is the wording of a new online Japanese ad, looking for workers to help in the cleanup of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.

Since the March 2011 earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan caused a triple-meltdown at the plant, Japan has been left with the task of cleaning up the mess, but it hasn’t been easy. Japan, tasked with containing the radioactivity and cleaning up the wreckage of the plant, has passed on these initiatives to a company, Tokyo Electric Power Company, Incorporated (TEPCO). But due to a slow and ineffective cleanup effort, water pouring into the plant from the Pacific Ocean is being contaminated with radioactivity from spent nuclear fuel every day. In fact, 330 tons of the ocean’s water is being contaminated every day, and a total of over 260,000 tons have been contaminated since the 2011 incident. What’s worse, radioactivity is dangerously beginning to wash ashore in California and Canada, and concerns are arising over the safety of Pacific seafood. Scariest of all is that rain containing radiation from Fukushima has recently poured down on the east coast in Toronto, just 400 miles from New York City. It’s only a matter of time before the US population is affected by this spread of radiation.

Needless to say, the cleanup won’t be easy. But so far, TEPCO’s attempts to clean up the area following the meltdown have been absolutely disastrous—even causing damage beyond that of the initial meltdowns. TEPCO’s attempts to decommission the plant while preventing the spread of radioactivity have been marred by frequent spills of radioactive water within the cleanup facility, as well as a prolonged failure to

prevent more ocean water from being contaminated. Perhaps even more concerning is that the Japanese government has merely stood by and watched as TEPCO struggles in its efforts. After three years of cleanup, little progress has been made, radioactivity has spread more than it has been contained, and our knowledge of the damage is limited. The Japanese government needs to take the issue far more seriously, and take a proactive and definitive role in the cleanup while allowing in outside help to expedite the process.

Decommissioning the nuclear plant requires significant manpower, but when unqualified TEPCO employees are hired to clean up a nuclear disaster, mistakes are bound to happen.

And so, because workers are periodically replaced once they have been exposed to the safe radiation limit, a worrisome shortage of workers has come about. As a result, TEPCO has resorted to hiring ordinary people to help clean up the plant, producing embarrassing and worrisome mistakes that have delayed the cleanup and caused further issues. A lack of knowledge regarding the control panels, for one, has led to accidental shutdowns of power and cooling systems, creating chaos and delaying the cleanup.

Neglect for caution and precision led to the overfilling of water storage tanks, creating further leaks within the facility. Clearly, the staff lacks the proper knowledge and skill to perform its duties.

In fact, The New York Times recently found that the majority of the plant’s workers lack fundamental knowledge of both nuclear materials and the cleanup tasks they are performing.

They receive briefings as short as 20 minutes, with minimal explanation followed by inadequate supervision. This lack of proper coordination wasn’t without consequence, as on March

16, minimal explanation led to workers removing a wrong pipe, which then splashed radioactive water all over them. Among the most severe incidents was a huge leak in February which released 200,000 tons of radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean—simply because a group of workers left a valve open without realizing it— and failed to catch the mistake for over a week. Overflow alarms, including one that caught this error, are routinely ignored as well, because nearly all of their storage tanks are filled to capacity.

The issue extends far beyond an uniformed staff, also to a lack of solutions. Workers actually have no way of permanently storing or cleaning the contaminated water. Thus, they continue to keep them in temporary storage tanks, which are already starting to break. Yet again, inadequate planning led to this dilemma, as TEPCO initially used tanks designed to withstand only a couple years of radioactive water within them. This means even more leakage will soon occur, and the problem is mounting because water continues to be contaminated by the spent fuel.

What’s worse is that the unpredictability of each new batch of unskilled workers leaves us anxiously concerned over what the next failure will be. Through all these problems, however, Japan continues to play a passive role, by funding reparations to these tanks while failing to supervise this task. Essentially, Japan has mistakenly left its faith in TEPCO, despite the major misdirection the cleanup has taken. It has, so far, ignored the major signs that it might be too big a task for TEPCO to handle. Japan needs to step up and provide direct assistance in the cleanup. Namely, Japan must create a water-treatment facility, determine containment options, and train their workers. Moreover, Japan should ensure that the workforce is qualified. If there

aren’t enough workers in Japan, then it is its responsibility to call upon the global community for assistance. It’s obvious that TEPCO can’t handle the task alone, which is why Japan needs to get help before even further contamination to our oceans occur.

Until Japan properly responds to its cleanup obligations, however, the global community has an obligation to take notice of these issues. Considering the potential for radiation to permanently poison the Pacific Ocean, people across the globe should be concerned for the environmental consequences. It’s possible that an accumulation of radiation could harm the Pacific ecosystems, creating a crisis that could affect the food supply of the entire world. Helping out will require sending in nuclear specialists, providing funding to their government, and conducting research on radiation in the area. One way or another, the cleanup has to be done right. As of yet, TEPCO has focused solely on decommissioning the plant, with no regard for long-term containment. The International Atomic Energy Agency found in its December 2013 report that Japan has “yet to develop waste management solutions.” Yet, the longer Japan waits to determine the effects of the radiation, the less time it’ll have to create a solution. Before too long, it will be too late to stop the flow of radiation throughout the environment, putting more people in danger.

Ideally, world powers should aim to supply TEPCO and Japan with a plan and its necessary resources to finally send the cleanup on the right track.

Amazingly, few seem to realize that these concerns exist. The reason why lies, too, with Japan.

Recently, the Japan Times found that TEPCO concealed knowledge that “massively high amounts of radiation in the groundwater” were hidden since July of 2013. At

Nicole Rosengurt / The Spectator

Clean Up Your Act, Japan!

a time when such knowledge is crucial to concluding the necessary cleanup steps, this concealment is utterly shameful. TEPCO’s incompetence and failure to perform damage-control has to stop. What’s scarier is the possibility that other leaks and vital information are being hidden, meaning things could be worse than we think.

Clearly, Japan had a tough task in cleaning up one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

But once the ensuing cleanup turned into a jumbled mess with no discernible progress, Japan had the burden to take corrective action—but it didn’t. Now, the world has to take notice. Allowing Japan and TEPCO to conceal information that provides insight to the proper solutions hurts the entire world. Already, Fukushima’s radiation is spreading uncontrollably. And yet, no one knows when the daily radioactive leaks into the Pacific Ocean will stop—if they ever will. At this point, Japan’s failures have to be taken as a cry for help. Enough is enough; we have to intervene before it’s too late.

Justin Kong / The Spectator

Spare Me a Dime?

By Brian Dong Let’s go to a beach in the Netherlands. You expect to see a tranquil stretch of white sand gently merging into the sparkling, azure water. The reality, however, is that there’s a 40-foot whale stranded and a team of rescue workers desperately trying to get the animal back into the water. After a failed rescue attempt, the mighty beast perishes. Its cause of death? A huge wad of plastic in its stomach.

Unfortunately, scenarios like this are all too common. Plastic bags are an environmental hazard—they can take several decades to fully decompose.

The one trillion we use per year turn beautiful, white beaches into ugly dumps, deplete our limited supply of oil, and are

responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of animals per year. And they don’t just affect the environment; they plague us too. Flooding in Bangladesh and China can, to an extent, be attributed to plastic bags clogging storm drains.

It’s clear that we must devote our energies into reducing the impact of these polyethylene hazards, and the most effective way is to start at the source— the market.

In an effort to cut back on the 5.2 billion plastic bags we New Yorkers use per year, on March 26, 2014, the City Council proposed to charge a 10-cent fee per disposable bag, with the money going to store owners.

This fee would apply to grocery and retail stores, with restaurants, food pantries, and street

stands that sell prepared food as exemptions. Given the ubiquity of these items, any fee associated with them may seem unreasonable, but in the name of preserving our environment, it is a price well worth paying.

People do not like to pay more than they have to, so the fee will make them take only as many bags as they need, rather than as many as they want.

Subsequently, more will take the cheaper route and start using reusable bags. These handy bags can be used for years and are very accessible. They often cost no more than a few dollars and are even handed out for free during events. They can also be used in place of plastic bags for relatively sanitary items. You don’t need a plastic bag for instance, when you’re buying Grand Theft Auto V at GameStop or getting a book at Barnes and Noble; you can easily put it in a reusable one.

In addition to reducing the environmental impact, this fee is economically feasible and will actually save the city money.

Ten cents, while inconvenient, is absolutely affordable and is far too low to make or break a family’s financial situation.

Other places have taken a similar course of action, and the effects are substantial. Many cities, such as Seattle, have even banned the use of plastic bags. A survey conducted by

the Environment Washington Research and Policy Center reveals that 76 percent of Seattle businesses saw an increase in reusable bags after the ban. In Washington D.C., the number of disposable bags dropped from 270 million in 2009 to a mere 55 million in 2010 after a five-cent fee per disposable bag was established. Other countries have implemented similar policies with success as well.

According to a study by Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, the number of plastic bags used

“By being forced to pay for an everyday item many take for granted, people will start taking fewer bags.” in China halved after it started charging a few cents per bag.

The statistics speak for themselves; putting a price tag on plastic bags works.

The situation could be further amended if a portion of the 10 cents went toward environmental sanitation and protection causes rather than the store owners. In Washington D.C., only one cent goes to store owners, and the other four are directed to a river cleanup fund.

In fact, in a span of a mere two and a half years, $5 million was raised for the Anacostia River Cleanup and Protection Fund.

We could adopt the same model by making this fee a tax and allotting eight cents to cleaning up both the East and Hudson Rivers. Redirecting the majority of this fee to an environmental cause would both make the world a cleaner place and give people a visual as to how their money is being spent.

It is time that we as a city take initiative to reduce our environmental impact. Our convenience makes the environment suffer. Because we want to carry our books in a plastic bag when we shop at Barnes and Noble, our oceans and beaches are littered with our plastic waste. Because we don’t feel like bringing our own bags to stores, hundreds of thousands of animals die slow, painful deaths from suffocating on plastic bags. The damage plastic bags can do is disastrous, but the solution is small enough to fit in the palm of our hands.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 13

Opinions

By David hanna In 2008, I accepted a position as Head of History at KIPP New York City College Preparatory School. I was then teaching at the American School of São Paulo in Brazil. I was in my ninth year living abroad. I had left the U.S. when Bill Clinton was president, and would be returning to an America that had recently elected Barack Obama. During those years away from home, I always made a point of stopping in New York when I was visiting the U.S., and catching up with old friends.

One of them worked for KIPP. We had taught together in the late 1990s at the High School for Environmental Studies on West 56th Street. He had left the school a year or two after I had to go work at KIPP Academy Middle School in the Bronx. His old classmate at Riverdale had opened the school in 1995, and he was drawn to its mission and impressed with its results. He gave up teaching and worked full-time as a guidance counselor, helping to place the school’s graduates in elite private schools in New England and the greater metropolitan area, and then mentoring the students’ progress throughout high school.

He found this to be very fulfilling work, and he’d share this with me when we met during my visits to the city. In 2007, he mentioned that KIPP was thinking of starting a high school for its middle schools to feed into (the program had expanded to Harlem and Brooklyn). He asked if I’d be interested in coming home and helping to start the school. The pay was significantly higher than that of public school teachers, and the media was pushing charter schools as the progressive future of education in the U.S. Personally, I loved the idea of founding a history department with high academic standards and expectations for black and Latino in-

ner city youth. So in June 2009, I came home.

Within a very short period of time, I recognized that the vision I had for KIPP NYC’s history department was not shared by the administration. Partly because of the benchmarks they had to meet to maintain their charter and partly because of their own orthodoxy, the administration was fixated on test prep for the Regents exams. Their approach was a lock-step regimen centered on rote learning. The class period was strictly broken down into specific blocks of time for certain activities—none of which fostered critical thinking and most of which sucked any joy in learning the material that students may have had outside of the classroom. What struck me most was the absolute certainty with which the administration, and a core group of faculty members, wielded this orthodoxy like missionaries with Bibles. There was the KIPP way and that was it.

I was fortunate in that my friend was the dean of academics by this time, which shielded me to a certain extent from the worst of it.

The principal of the high school was not yet 30 years old, and had taught middle school English for a handful of years. How this qualified her to lead a high school is a question that any reasonable person would ask. My students were shocked when they learned that I was over 40 years old and a father. They had never been taught by experienced teachers.

With its ranks primarily filled by well-meaning but underqualified Teach for America cadres handing out graphic organizers, KIPP touted its students’ test scores as a measure of their academic success. Whether they were actually getting a first-rate education or not is another matter. I left the school in June of 2010. Little did I realize then that my odyssey was just beginning.

Because I had left KIPP with no position waiting for me elsewhere, I had to really scramble.

There was a hiring freeze at that point in the city’s public schools, so only schools that were considered to be the most distressed were eligible for waivers to get around the freeze. In the end (over Labor Day weekend, no less), University Neighborhood High School on the Lower East Side informed me that they had received a waiver to offer me a position. I was thrilled. It felt so good to be back in the New York City public school system where I had started my career. The school was located in a beautiful, if worn, old Beaux-Arts-style building built in 1903. Originally, it housed P.S. 31,

which had educated the neighborhood’s elementary-age children for decades. In the 1960s, the nearby Seward Park High School annexed the building to house its overflow student population.

This was the school that author Frank McCourt had taught at for a number of years before coming to teach at Stuyvesant. As it was in his day, UNHS (the successor school to Seward Park Annex) was a very diverse, low-performing school. Fights were common— between both male and female students—and there were days when I spent the entire class period just trying to get students to behave and be respectful of each other. There were other days when great things were happening in the classroom. In fact, one of my best memories as a teacher was an Athens/Sparta debate I held with a class full of students who had failed the Global History Regents exam and were preparing to take it again. The analytical thinking, the quick thinking, and the sheer joy of learning that were evident throughout the classroom made all the tough times worth it.

The administration, headed by a veteran math teacher, was very supportive, and I was more than happy to help in any way I could.

But slowly things changed. The external pressures placed on the school, because it was labelled “SINI” by the state, meant that the administration was running scared trying to stay one step ahead of ex-Mayor Bloomberg’s school closure “chopping block.”

The same oppressive orthodoxy that had permeated KIPP began to be felt at UNHS. It was sad because even though it was a tough school, there was some good teaching going on there. By my second year, room for any kind of individuality or differences in approach to teaching was discouraged. My classroom was the last one to be altered, but altered it was. Based on my conception of what teaching is, by the end, I was actually teaching in only one of my classes (a single section of AP). In my other four classes, anyone could have handed out the worksheets that I was handing out and taken attendance. I had become superfluous. Maybe that was the intention of the “reformers.”

There’s one interesting anecdote that is worth reciting here, because I feel it sheds a clarifying light on what is wrong with the charter school model (whether it’s actual brick & mortar charter schools like KIPP or simply the charter approach that has been forced on low-performing public schools). In 2011, when I realized how UNHS was going to change,

I interviewed for a position at the Dwight Englewood School in New Jersey. Dwight Englewood is an elite private school just across the George Washington Bridge from New York. Its student body is drawn from well-to-do families on either side of the Hudson River. It was clear at the end of my interview that I was close to being offered a position. And then they asked me about KIPP. I told them that I hadn’t been enamored with many of the ways that the school was operated or funded , but most importantly that the students were not encouraged to think critically, that this had been the deal-breaker for me. To my relief at the time, the high school principal said that this was exactly Dwight Englewood’s take on KIPP. Over the years, KIPP had tried to place its middle school graduates at the school, and they had all been turned down because in interviews, there was clearly something missing in their make up as students. He offered me the position. Ultimately, I turned it down because I felt that I was in the front line trenches of the new school wars in the city and that this was a chance to be part of history (maybe I should have had my head examined). So I stayed at UNHS. Interestingly, during the interview process, I was informed that Dwight Englewood was considering doing away with having their students take standardized exams altogether, that the courses they had were superior to any external curriculum and that the exams had a distorting effect. And parents were lining up to get their children into this school! What is it exactly that schools like Dwight Englewood know that charter school advocates don’t know?

This is an important question.

How does the odyssey end?

Well, Ms. Dunkel had a baby. A position opened here at Stuyve-

sant, and I jumped at the chance to come back to where it all started for me back in 1995. Teachers and students at this school are lucky. Real teaching and learning goes on in classrooms here.

This isn’t the case in most charter schools and low-performing public schools, with their emphasis on test prep. I’m grateful every day I walk across the footbridge and through the doors of Stuyvesant. I have to admit though, that I wish all teachers teaching in the city’s public schools felt this way. They should. That so many don’t is a damning indictment of the obsession with test prep, “accountability,” and data that has permeated the system. It’s also an indictment of the demoralizing effect placing responsibility for larger societal ills on the shoulders of veteran teachers has had.

NYU education historian, Diane Ravitch—once a supporter, and now a fierce opponent, of charter schools—quoted W.E.B. Du Bois in her latest book, “Reign of Error,” regarding this issue: “No school, as such, can organize industry, or settle the matter of wage and income, can found homes or furnish parents, can establish justice or make a civilized world.” *“Knowledge is Power Program.” Founded in Houston, Texas in 1994 by two Teach for America alumni. *“School in need of improvement.” *KIPP receives generous financial assistance from the Walton Foundation (the Wal-mart fortune), the Gates Foundation, and the Broad Foundation: all of which use their great wealth to shape policy. In accepting funding from such institutions, KIPP is in no way out of the ordinary for charter schools.

Alisa Su / The Spectator

Sam Kim / The Spectator

My Odyssey Teaching in New York City Schools, and What I’ve Learned From It.

By David and Jack Cahn

The following letter was sent to the New York Post on March 24, 2014, to correct the false claim that drug use was soaring at Stuyvesant. It was unpublished—in fact, it was not even dignified with a response. Unfortunately, The New York Post writes for impact, irrespective of ethics. We are sharing our letter with the Stuyvesant community in order to correct the factual errors promulgated by the Post’s story.

In your March 23rd article, “Drug abuse soaring at Stuyvesant High: insiders,” you rely on a number of anonymous sources and tenuous extrapolations from suspension/911 data to make the bold claim that drug use is pervasive at Stuyvesant.

You further insinuate that the school administration is to blame for its inadequate response to drug use. The facts on the ground tell a very different story.

This fall, The Spectator, Stuyvesant’s official school newspaper, conducted a comprehensive analysis of drug use at Stuyvesant. It found that 6% of freshmen and 21% of seniors had tried marijuana at least once. Nationally, 40% of high school students have tried the drug, according to The New York Times. Frequent drug use is even less prevalent.

8% of students reported having smoked marijuana on a monthly basis. By contrast, 22.5% of high school students nationally

smoke marijuana monthly and 6.5 percent use it daily.

Next, you criticize the Stuyvesant administration for its handling of drug use, citing increased suspensions and 911 calls. Even had this increase been drug-related, as you claim it was, that would indicate that the Stuyvesant administration is cracking down on drug use—a move that it should be commended for. In addition, Jie Zhang is no “tiger mom who disdains therapy.” In fact, just last month in coordination with the school’s new Assistant Principal for Guidance, Casey Pedrick, she launched a campaign to help students receive support from their school counselors. The school is head-

Sam Kim/ The Spectator

Philip Shin / The Spectator

Letter to the NY Post: Data Shows Minimal Drug Use at Stuyvesant

ed in the right direction.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 14

Opinions

In light of the controversy surrounding this year’s SING! production, judge Stella Binkevich explains her view of the show in the following Letter to the Editor. And in response, three editors—sophomores Emma Bernstein and Dan Kodsi, and junior Shahruz Ghaemi—provide their own perspectives of the show based on ideas sparked by Binkevich’s letter.

Letter to the Editor

By Stella Binkevich To whom it may concern: I am a 2004 Stuyvesant High School alumna. Until recently, I had nothing but positive associations with my experiences at Stuyvesant. Though academically challenging and demanding, I forged lasting friendships that have endured the tests of time and distance.

Of the most amazing extracurricular activities, none held a higher place of reverence than SING! SING! is our annual student-run production in which the freshmen and sophomores (Soph-Frosh) team up to compete against the Juniors and against the Seniors.

This production is a beautiful mix of art, music, and drama.

Each team’s production is ranked based on criteria that include creativity of the plot and screenplay, quality of the set and costumes, and other metrics. This year I decided to apply to be a SING! 2014 judge. When I was chosen by the SING! Coordinators, I felt proud and excited about coming home to Stuyvesant.

My feelings of pride were justified until Junior SING! opened its performance with offensive and highly unacceptable content. In Junior SING!, a white, wealthy male character, replete with condescending attitude and numerous references to money, was threatening to take over “Singling Circus.” In every scene that I watched, this white male character was trailed by a Caribbean American boy. Not only was he a Caribbean American, but in the first fifteen minutes of the show that I watched

(note: I walked out after fifteen minutes because the content was disturbing), he did not have a speaking part. Instead, he trailed the white male elitist in a hunched over position mimicking the shuffling and stooped posture common to minstrel performances, while fanning the white male with dollar bills. Further, this character wore a sequined top hat and would hurriedly rush to “rain” money down over the white male at every reference to money. Otherwise, the Caribbean American boy did nothing but purposelessly poke at random objects on the stage. For me, these scenes were painfully reminiscent of the controversial character of Stepin Fetchit (see here for more information: http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepin_ Fetchit), which was illustrative of some of the most negative stereotypes of people of color.

As I cringed watching these scenes unfold, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How could I be witnessing this in 2014, at one of America’s flagship public high schools?” It is conceivable that the kids were not fully aware of the cultural references embedded in the aforementioned characters.

But how could the adults that supervised SING! unequivocally fail the students that worked so hard? As I walked to get my belongings from the principal’s office, I asked a Stuyvesant administrator how such an abysmal scene was allowed on stage. The administrator’s answer was, arguably, more ignorant than the performance itself. She suggested that I should stay and watch the entire performance because the Caribbean Ameri-

Systematic Stereotyping

By Emma Bernstein This year’s SING! performances forced the Stuyvesant community to reevaluate our relations with minorities.

I believe whole-heartedly that in no way, shape, or form, did the writers or producers actively attempt to subjugate minorities in the shows that they created.

However, intent and execution are two completely different things.

Within Stella Binkevich’s letter (’04), she is only able to address about 15 minutes of one show, but in reality, both Junior SING! and Senior SING! were riddled with discriminatory content. This has been justified, in my own experiences, with ‘it was just a joke.’ However, in that none of the shows presented that night were attempting political or social satire, we need to acknowledge their power beyond a few giggles.

At Stuyvesant around 3% of our population is Black or Hispanic, and the numbers are shrinking each year. In addition, we see a significant gender gap within our student body (around 60% of the student body is male.) These imbalances leave the Stuyvesant community with a responsibility to be mindful of our representation of these minorities, especially in instances like SING! where our portrayal comes entirely from fellow students.

The issue lies within the commonplace SING! script, which lends it towards exploiting stereotypes as a basis for jokes and plot. We saw this mainly within Junior and Senior SING! this year, which both looked to racial and gender stereotypes for comic relief. Racial stereotypes

were evident in Junior SING!, as discussed thoroughly by Binkevich, but they were also found in Senior SING! with the Chief’s Haitian accent. Gender stereotypes were evident in characters from Senior SING!, such as Chief’s wife, who, although having a significant amount of stage time, is never named. In addition, it’s important to note that the stronger village was the patriarchal one. In Junior SING!, a trophy wife and her sister struggled to deal with a failing circus and emotional issues, defaulting to exploiting their own sexuality and deceitful tactics. All the while, the men held the real power, (usually) making rational decisions, and being free from monetary burdens.

However, worse than any discriminatory content was our response, as a student body, to accusations of racism that we faced in the weeks following SING!.

The immediate response from SING! writers and cast was defensive, and focused solely on the intent of the show; when in reality, what we need to open-mindedly evaluate is our execution.

Moving forward, in regards to both writing and casting, we must be mindful of the implications of which we depict minorities. The solution for us is simple.

We can’t stop institutional discrimination, but we can keep it out of SING! with open minds and a little creativity.

can character “beautifully” saves the entire circus. This was, in her mind, justification for what transpired on Junior SING!’s stage.

If the Caribbean American boy’s parents were in the audience, I urge you to consider what they must have been feeling. Why has Stuyvesant High School created a community of students and parents who did not walk out of that performance like me? Was the offense not recognized? If so, that is a problem. Why is a public high school that is already struggling with its racial make-up clearly not teaching the next generation of leaders the dynamics of race and power that govern our nation and this world? As a Jewish immigrant that fled to this nation for a better life, the pain of what I saw was amplified by the fact that I had a guest with me. As one of the few male adults of color in the building watching this Caribbean American male on stage, his attempt to hide his pain was futile.

In conclusion, I would request very specific things of Stuyvesant High School’s administration: Number one: Issue a public apology that is mailed to the household of every student currently attending the school and emailed to the alumni base. Number two: Make sure that racial/cultural sensitivity training for current students AND staff occurs before this school year ends.

Number three: Make this training a mandatory aspect of New Student Orientation for each incoming class going forward.

We have to do better and it is never too late to do the right thing.

If Only the Whole World Were Blind

By Daniel kodsi

I sat through two performances of Junior SING! without noticing a thing.

Sure, maybe that’s because I’m a privileged white boy, living in a generation far removed from slavery or Jim Crow laws, but I like to think my obliviousness was more than just a product of ignorance. I firmly believe that the casting of Darien Cox as Dumbo in the juniors’ production was not intended as racist and should not be interpreted through the lens of race.

In fact, the lack of recognition given to his race in the casting process should be noted with pride; it is a sign that racism is on the ebb, at least within the walls of Stuyvesant High.

To elucidate what I mean, let me draw your eyes to the fact that throughout her entire, more than 700-word letter, Ms. Stella Binkevich (’04) did not once use the word “black” in describing Cox’s skin color. The sole explanation I can give is that, in the eyes of Ms. Binkevich, referring to someone as “black” is inappropriate, perhaps even insulting, a strange double standard given that if I were to be identified as white, no one would bat an eye. So instead, in a piece about race, Ms. Binkevich tiptoes around a key word, opting for the stranger sounding “Caribbean American,” which—if we weren’t all familiar with the issue at hand—could easily be misinterpreted to mean that Cox was Hispanic, not black. The significance here is the hypersensitivity Ms. Binkevich demonstrates towards race—sensitivity, she argues, that was inexcusably lacking

in the juniors’ casting decisions.

However, this keen focus upon race— even if the focus is benign in intent, as Ms. Binkevich’s surely is—should not be viewed as a positive. The fact that there was none is not emblematic of an endemic issue of racism at Stuyvesant, but instead of an atmosphere in which everyone is accepted, regardless of skin color.

All of this harkens to the concept of “Otherization,” or the process of making a person or social group feel alien or different.

A common example of its occurrence is as a byproduct of affirmative action. That is, minorities accepted to top tier universities are often “otherized,” as they are viewed as only having been accepted on account of their skin color.

By implementing the policies that Ms. Binkevich urges, such as sensitivity training, we wouldn’t fix racism, but rather encourage Otherization of minorities at Stuyvesant. We would create a culture in which the word “black” is taboo when describing individuals and students would feel the need to step on eggshells when in conversation about race or when talking to black or Hispanic students. I agree, of course, that mandatory training has a time and place: when there has been observed maliciousness toward a certain ethnic, religious or social group. There was none in Junior SING!, and in my experience, there is very little at Stuyvesant as a whole. For a society to truly be free of racism, it must be entirely race-blind; Stuyvesant is by no means even close thereto, but please don’t critique us for the instances in which we are.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 15

Opinions A Minority of One

By Shahruz Ghaemi The recent discussion about the issue of race in SING! has prompted me to seriously consider the issue of race within Stuyvesant at large. In attempting to approach this difficult issue, I have considered my own experience as a minority student.

I should say first of all that I am Iranian-Chinese-American, that I identify strongly with my Iranian heritage, and that I look like neither of my parents. I would be considered part of a very small minority both inside of Stuyvesant, because of my identification as Iranian, and outside, because of my combined Iranian-Chinese heritage. What difference does being a minority make in my daily life at Stuyvesant?

First it is necessary to examine the demographics at our school. Stuyvesant is unquestionably diverse; we have students from Bengali, AngloGerman, Korean, and Jewish backgrounds in the same classrooms. Furthermore, 40% of the student population benefits from free or reduced-price lunch, demonstrating that students come from every manner of income backgrounds. What Stuyvesant is not, regrettably, is representative of the city as a whole. The underrepresentation of AfricanAmerican and Hispanic students at Stuyvesant is well-known and

marks a significant gap in the student body. Here, however, I am concerned with my experience with Stuyvesant as it is, not with how it might be if the admissions process was changed.

Still, the cultural diversity makes the minority label far less exclusive than it seems.

Even Asians are not a monolithic cultural group at Stuyvesant, because that group is a fictitious construct. It is exasperating that the blanket term “Asian” captures so much variety in culture and ethnicity. Even I am completely caught up in that net, since Iranians and Chinese are both considered Asian, although I consider them to be entirely different.

Similarly, other groups, when broken down, are just collections of highly diverse individuals.

One would assume that being part of a minority can be lonely. But socially, I find your culture or skin color does not matter; your individual traits and interests affect your friends and associates. If you define your social status or relationships to others purely on racial grounds, then, yes, being part of a minority will be detrimental. If I decided to form a Persian Heritage Club and make it the center of my life, then the likely low attendance would definitely be discouraging.

During relatively short four years of high school, people tend to form friendships based on

their shared interests and how well they like each other. A primary avenue for making friends and social connections is to join clubs or teams. Choices in extracurriculars and electives reflect personal interests, which lead to interactions with like-minded people, which, in turn, lead to personal bonds. Most of my close friendships have begun and been sustained through participation in shared activities such as Model United Nations. It also gives friends a chance to see each other that their schedules do not.

Some may question the impartiality of these personal choices and their potential for unconscious discrimination, particularly detrimental to minority students. After all, there exists the perception that the Key Club, a volunteer-service organization, is the “Asian club,” regardless of what its actual membership is.

This might fuel a cycle of “Asian” membership. However, the problem there lies in people’s personal perception of the organization, not in it as an institution.

The very second regulation under DOE rules is the right of any student to join an organization “regardless of race, color, creed, religion, age, national origin, disability, citizenship status, marital status, gender, or sexual orientation.” This extends to sports teams where no separatesex team exists; for instance, fe-

male students interested in wrestling can join the boy’s wrestling team. Students who are especially interested in joining a club completely have the ability to do so, and if there’s one thing that Stuyvesant students can be, it’s determined.

In addition, I find that Stuyvesant can be fertile ground for those who want to change attitudes. As in society at large, student’s views are shaped by larger trends and also as in society at large, there are students and faculty committed to countering negative trends. I have a lot of respect for events like JSA’s recent Fight Apathy event or GLASS’ annual Day of Silence for LGBTQA people being forced to remain in the closet.

I don’t mean to say that Stuyvesant students as a whole demonstrate a Freedom Ridelike dedication to these causes, nor do I reasonably expect this.

Rather, students generally give awareness events like these a lot of respect, due to the reputation for positive initiatives that groups like GLASS or people like SPARK counselor Angel Colon have.

Stuyvesant is also not a hostile place for those who truly want to embrace their cultural heritage or that of others. Diversity clubs exist for those of Jewish, Greek, and Black descent which are, again, open to all. In a similar vein, the teacher of the senior elective Jew-

ish History regularly pitches it as a class with only four Jewish students. His point is that “you don’t have to be Jewish to be interested in Jewish history.” Once again, common interests trump purely racial considerations.

But as a minority student, I don’t even feel the need to express my heritage through participation in yet another club.

My personal pride in being Iranian-Chinese is well-known to those who know me, although most of my friends do not share my background. In fact, most of my friends are Jewish, and are as respectful of my personal representation of my heritage as I am of theirs. They appreciate the dumplings they can eat at my house, and I appreciate the sukkot they build in their backyards.

In the end, I feel that Stuyvesant has never hampered my ability to connect with my heritage, and my heritage has never interfered with my ability to connect with other Stuyvesant students. While my environment does lack in others just like me, I am fully capable of personally expressing my heritage to my satisfaction. Moreover, I have been able to make friends with shared interests that are much more important that whether we both observe Jewish Yom Kippur or Persian Nohrooz. As an individual, I will always be a minority of one, and I find nothing wrong in that.

In 1955, Jonas Salk was hailed as one of the greatest men of the 20th century for discovering the vaccine for the vicious polio virus. During the polio epidemic of 1952, more than 3,000 people died, while more than 21,000 were left miserable and paralyzed. After Salk’s vaccination was introduced, the number of cases was reduced from 58,000 to 161. Since the introduction of the vaccine, the once ravaging polio virus has been quieted, and polio is now 99 percent eliminated. Yet, this suddenly changed on the battleground of war-torn Syria. The horrendous lack of resources in obliterated cities has prevented citizens from getting basic immunizations, and for the first time in 14 years, a case of polio has been reported. Polio is highly contagious, but with Salk’s simple vaccine, it was easily contained. Although the situation in Syria is extreme, it is an eye-opener to the horrors that could occur if people do not receive basic vaccines.

According to UNICEF, vaccinations save 2.5 million children every year. However, ever since a 1998 paper linked vaccinations to autism, many people have questioned the safety of vaccines.

This blatantly false accusation, which is not supported by any medical proof, whipped many American parents into a frenzy, and a disturbingly large number of parents began exempting their children from basic vaccinations required to go to school.

These decisions, made solely out of a selfish and illogical fear, put thousands of people at great risk of contracting dangerous, yet easily preventable, diseases.

A somewhat recent example of the dangers of avoiding vaccination occurred in 1991 in Philadelphia. In this city, measles became prevalent in unvaccinated children, and thus spread quite fiercely. Although measles is a

treatable disease, it is dangerous in children, sometimes even producing blindness. Because of this outbreak in Philadelphia, seven children died due to the illogical fears of a few. Since this outbreak, measles has remained relatively quiet, with fewer than 60 cases a year in this country.

However, in 2013, this number tripled, with 189 reported cases.

Of these cases, 28 percent were brought back from other countries. Measles would never have been able to spread so rapidly and viciously from these foreign carriers if citizens had gotten their proper vaccinations. Because of the opinions of a few, entire communities are put in jeopardy. Vaccinations must be mandated for the sole reason that all citizens of the United States should not suffer merely because of the fears of a selfish and illogical minority.

Furthermore, a majority of arguments presented against vaccination are either not prevalent, or simply illogical and unproven. One of the popular arguments against this practice is that there is a possibility of the subject having an adverse reaction to the vaccine and thus going into anaphylactic shock or immediate death. Many even argue that very serious diseases can evolve from the injection of a vaccine, but these statements are simply not valid. The truth is that although there have been rare cases in which adverse reactions have occurred, the risks of not being vaccinated greatly outweigh the incredibly small possibility of risks surrounding vaccination. By avoiding vaccination, one is exposing oneself to an otherwise easily preventable, potentially life-threatening disease, while by getting vaccinated, one protects oneself (while gambling with the minute possibility of a side-effect). The CDC and FDA established the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) to keep track of all adverse reactions to vaccinations. Each year,

the VAERS reports around 30,000 cases of adverse reactions, with only 10 to 15 percent of those cases considered serious and requiring hospitalization. However, each year, vaccinations prevent 10.5 million infections and 33,000 deaths. There are rare, sometimes serious, side effects associated with vaccines, however the probability of these side effects are dwarfed compared to the 99 percent effectiveness rate of vaccines.

One of the truthful arguments about why vaccines are, in fact, detrimental to one’s body is that artificial immunity somewhat suppresses the human immune system. It is much more effective to be exposed to the true pathogen and contract the disease than to be exposed to a benign version. However, the sole reason why vaccines exist is to avoid the symptoms associated with many diseases.

By avoiding vaccines in order to receive true exposure, you are subjecting yourself to very dangerous symptoms of diseases with serious consequences. With a benign pathogen, immunity is achieved almost as successfully without these consequences.

Vaccines are only truly effective when a large majority of the population is vaccinated.

This is called herd immunity, which means that when 75 to 94 percent of the population is vaccinated, the spread of a disease can be stopped. The refusal of many to have their children vaccinated undermines herd immunity, and therefore keeps the pathogen alive, swimming within our midst. When people refuse to be vaccinated, they not only put themselves at risk, but also those around them.

Thus, the key in this battle is to present immunization as the vital survival technique it is.

Many of those opposed to immunization are simply ignorant to its immense contributions to society. If one were able to show the true benefits of immuniza-

Jessica Wu / The Spectator

By Nadia Filanovsky and Evan Lieberman

Jessica Wu / The Spectator

To Save the Lives of Thousands

tion to the general public and help them understand the medicine behind it, perhaps the enthusiasm for mandated vaccines would rise. Vaccine exemptions should not exist, especially in a school environment where disease is easily spread. The fact that many children are allowed to enter a school building with exemptions from mandated vaccinations is not only disturbing, but also very threatening to other children. Because of these few exemptions, a disease can now thrive in the school environment, thus putting many children in danger. Not only should vaccine exemptions be discontinued, but all FDA approved vaccines should also slowly become promoted to dissolve any ignorant fears and to

eventually become mandated in schools. When vaccine exemptions are truly abolished, no longer will life-threatening diseases such as measles and whooping cough arise in communities. No longer will the lives of countless children be threatened because of the illogical fears and beliefs of selfish others. Once this has been accomplished, America can strive towards a future in which, due to vaccination, these few diseases may be eradicated.

“It is unreasonable to expect the risk factor in vaccines to be 0,” said Dr. Edward Telzak, Chief of Medicine of St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx. “However in the risk-benefit analysis, there is no doubt that vaccines win by a long shot.”

Page 16

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Opinions Fixing Our News Channels

By Lucas Weiner With the disappearance of Malaysian flight MH370 a whole month ago (it feels like less, doesn’t it?), the Cable News Network, along with most news stations, decided it would broadcast constant coverage of the search. This meant that they would go in depth into theories, inviting so called “experts” (such as Bill Nye the Science Guy) to discuss what might have happened, stating the obvious in numerous ways.

In what felt like 24/7 coverage of one incident, viewers were enlightened with facts akin to “if an object is heavier than water, it will sink” or “a jet plane without fuel will struggle to maintain altitude” This highlights a deeper issue in our news stations, one in which we are given speculation, not news.

You might call me a purist, but I believe that a television channel that calls itself a news provider has a responsibility to its viewers, whether or not it is a corporation. News channels are unique in their position.

They need people to watch their show in order to charge the most for their advertisements. CNN is an independent corporation, meaning that its ratings are crucial to its success. CNN’s ratings have only risen during their coverage of flight MH370. However, they also have a responsibility as a “news” channel to provide new

and insightful information. I understand that having 24/7 news programs may sometimes leave them with less news to report than they would like. Does this mean they are allowed to draw in viewers by claiming to provide evidence of the possibility of a “zombie plane”? Everyone would want to watch a show about a “zombie plane,” but it doesn’t mean that’s what our news channels should be showing.

According to Google’s definition, news is “newly received or noteworthy information, [especially] about recent or important events.” The flight disappeared on March 8, and yet CNN is still discussing the disappearance, despite the fact that it is no longer “new,” and no new information has been revealed. Not to mention the fact that we as viewers gain nothing from speculation about the disappearance of a plane, other than maybe some flawed science (no matter how it is stated, we should never even consider that the plane disappeared into a black hole).

While CNN is a culprit of flawed journalism, we should hold all news channels to a standard of providing actual news.

There is by no means a lack of current news. News agencies have a tendency to follow stories when they’re bright and shiny. But just because something happens in a third world country, or is unchanged but

important, doesn’t mean the news agencies shouldn’t report on it. I hesitate to call it lazy journalism, but in a way it is.

Why dig into the truth about the disasters in the Democratic Republic of Congo when you could merely speculate that flight MH370 disappeared into a small black hole? Anyone could come up with and dis-

“Who wouldn’t want to watch a television show about a ‘zombie plane’?

But it doesn’t mean that’s what our news channels should be showing.” miss the idea of a secret black hole on their own, but most people are unaware of the daily horrors in places such as the Congo. If news about these

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atrocities was periodically displayed, we would be able to make more informed decisions about our foreign and domestic policy. One stereotype of Americans is that we are ignorant, but maybe we just know a lot about entirely unimportant stories. At its core, the primary responsibility of a news station is to keep us, as voters and members of society, informed.

And if you don’t believe that there are stories that could be discussed in depth, here is a list of topics the New York Times reported on while CNN was doing its constant “coverage” of flight MH370: North Korea had an “election” (this would be almost as funny as CNN’s coverage, if it weren’t so sad), El Salvador finished its elections , the US and Russia were forced to delay their discussions over the Ukraine incident, Libya’s Prime Minister was ousted, Sudanese police fired tear gas after a funeral, Venezuela faced more protests and deaths, many were killed in the Nigerian land conflict, Crimea had a referendum, there was a report released about the stark dangers of climate change, Governor Chris Christie concluded his investigation of himself, and Obama added new sanctions to Russia. All of these could have been discussed in depth (although the New York Times had its own share of coverage of the flight), and there was information that could have been reported—if

the journalism had been done.

Again, this by no means applies to CNN alone. All news corporations try to get as many viewers as possible. As anyone who has watched HBO’s “The Newsroom” can attest, ratings shouldn’t be everything. For those of you who haven’t seen the show, the plot is driven by the protagonist’s determination to provide real news without losing his job as a news anchor (I recommend the show).

Now this doesn’t mean that we have to kill the news industry.

The corporations want ratings, and they get that from viewers.

However the corporations control what news is discussed. If the viewers don’t know about the existence of an issue, they can’t be expected to protest and demand to be informed about it. That’s why we should protest even if we don’t know. If we turn on the TV and see speculation, we should stop watching.

And we should keep doing that until we get real news. Even if there isn’t any legitimate news (which is unlikely), then the corporations should have the decency to tell their viewers. If CNN wants to provide coverage of random speculation that makes Jon Stewart’s audiences go hysterical, then it should by all means do so. But it should have to change its name to CN: Cable Network. It is no longer providing news.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 17

Arts and Entertainment Calendar

Looking Forward: April-May SUNDAY

MONDAY

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY 23 Film: Do The Math (climate change documentary, free) North Presbyterian Church, Flushing, 7 p.m.

Museum: Connecting Cultures: A World in Brooklyn Brooklyn Museum, continuing

27 Basketball: 2014 NBA Playoffs — Nets v Raptors — Game 4 Barclays Center

28 Concert: New York Pops 31st Birthday Gala Carnegie Hall, 7 p.m.

Parks: Sakura Matsuri (Spring Festival) Brooklyn Botanic Garden, $20 for students

Museum: Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris Met, through May 4

29 Theatre: The Complete & Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill, Volume 2 Theater for the New City, through May 11

30 Comedy: IRL Club: An Evening With the Internet The Bell House, 7:30 p.m.

6 Album: “Sheezus” Lily Allen

7 Museum: Hannah Satwell: Accumulator New Museum, through June 22

THURSDAY

24 Opera: Richard Strauss’s “Arabella” Metropolitan Opera, 7:30 p.m.

Comedy: Get It Out There: Comedy by BAM & IFC BAM, 9 p.m., free

1 Film: National Theater Live’s King Lear In cinemas from May 1

FRIDAY

SATURDAY

25 Basketball: 2014 NBA Playoffs — Nets v Raptors — Game 3 Barclays Center

26 Concert: Open Jam Session Smalls Jazz Club, 4 p.m., $10

Concert: Cecilia Chorus of New York with Orchestra Carnegie Hall, 8 p.m.

Parks: Sakura Matsuri (Spring Festival) Brooklyn Botanic Garden, $20 for students

2 Movie: The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Action/Superhero) Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone

3 Event: Disrupt NY Hackathon Manhattan Center, 12:30 p.m.

Concert: CHVRCHES Terminal 5, 7 p.m.

Festival: Holi (Festival of Colors) The Yard @ CPAC, 2:00 p.m., $25

Tribeca Film Festival Ends 4 Event: Disrupt NY Hackathon Presentations Manhattan Center, 11:00 a.m.

5 Concert: Coldplay Beacon Theatre, 7 p.m.

Parks: TD Five Boro Bike Tour Battery Park, 7:45 a.m.

8 Art: Outsider Art Fair begins Center 548, Chelsea, through May 11 Bronx Week Begins Events TBA

9 Concert: Maria Schneider Orchestra Birdland Jazz Club, 8:30 p.m., $45

10 Parks: Greenmarket Grand Army Plaza, morning-noon

Playlist

April Showers Spring has come, but it seems as though Mother Nature still hasn’t realized it. For those days when the sky is a blanket of gray and the rain never ceases, and for those days when the sun finally begins to peek out through the clouds, the Arts and Entertainment department has created two playlists: “Rainy Skies” and “The Calm After the Storm.”

RAINY SKIES Song: “November” Artist: Gabrielle Aplin Genre: Indie Rock Song: “Wherever You Are” Artist: ONE OK ROCK Genre: J-Rock Song: “New York I Love You, But You’re Bringing Me Down” Artist: LCD Soundsystem Genre: Alternative Song: “Goshen” Artist: Beirut Genre: Indie

THE CALM AFTER THE STORM

Song: “Sylvia” Artist: The Antlers Genre: Dream Pop/ Indie Folk

Song: “She Moves In Her Own Way” Artist: The Kooks Genre: Indie Pop

Song: “Helplessly Hoping” Artist: Crosby, Stills, & Nash Genre: Folk

Song: “Dancing Song” Artist: Little Comets Genre: Indie Rock

Song: “200%” Artist: Akdong Musician Genre: K-Pop

Song: “Ocean of Light” Artist: Nell Genre: K-Pop

Song: “High and Dry” Artist : Radiohead Genre: Alternative rock

Song: “We are Broken” Artist: This, the Silent War Genre: Alternative Rock

Song: “Chicago” Artist: Sufjan Stevens Album: Illinois Genre: Baroque Pop

Song: “Rain” Artist: Lim Kim Genre: Ballad

Page 18

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Arts and Entertainment Theater

By Shahruz Ghaemi Two bums, a shared dream, and three cans of beans to their name: John Steinbeck’s classic 1937 novel “Of Mice and Men” tells the story of farm workers in California’s Salinas Valley during the Great Depression, looking for their next job and a shot at the good life. Now director Anna Shapiro has brought an adaptation of this tragic tale of friendship back to Broadway for the first time since 1974.

George Milton (James Franco) and Lennie Small (Chris O’Dowd) are childhood friends and migrant farm workers. George is a sly, thinking fellow, well used to bumming around and living by his wits. Lennie is incredibly strong but also mentally handicapped. Lennie’s simplemindedness and obsession with touching soft things often gets the two into trouble. As the play begins, they’re headed to a new ranch because Lennie freaked out an innocent woman by feeling her dress, leading to a mob almost lynching them for accused rape.

Tired of being bindlestiffs, George and Lennie have a dream of saving up to one day buy their own farm, where Lennie can tend his own rabbits and they will live “off the fatta the land.” This dream keeps their spirits up even through tough times. It’s Lennie’s favorite story and he begs George to tell it again and again. Even the

practical George gets lost in the imaginary paradise, embellishing it more and more with each telling.

First-billed star Franco is notorious for his roles in such less-than-thoughtful movies as “This Is The End” and “Spring Breakers,” but he is also a serious actor, as evidenced by his award-nominated performance in “127 Hours.” As George, he is an understated man with his own dreams and ambitions, just trying to keep his head down and stay out of trouble until he can realize them. Even as he idly shuffles cards in the farmhands’ bunkroom, it is obvious that he is much more at home around Lennie. The way Franco lights up when he talks about the promised farm and how Lennie will be able to pet the rabbits makes it obvious that he truly cares about his giant friend, despite his complaints that he could live a much easier life without him.

O’Dowd steals the show, though, bringing his comedic background (“The IT Crowd,” “Bridesmaids”) to his loveable interpretation of Lennie. When George grouses about being run out of town yet again, O’Dowd points over the audience’s head and says, all too seriously, “If you really don’t want me no more, I could just go up and live in one of those caves up in them hills. I’ll do it, I will.” The crowd laughs: they don’t really want him to leave, and neither does George.

O’Dowd’s towering 6’3’’ figure combined with his faltering, uncertain hand movements and gait make him both sympathetic and threatening. That’s an unsettling combination which comes to the fore when he holds Curley’s Wife’s head in his hands while stroking her hair.

Dreams and aspirations are the focus of Steinbeck’s novel and the play. Candy (Jim Norton) and Crooks (Ron Cephas Jones) join George and Lennie’s homesteading dream, seeking a sense of community and security. Candy pledges his life’s savings because he knows he’s too old to be of much use on a commercial farm, and Crooks because he’s black and ostracized by the white farmhands. Curley’s Wife (Leighton Meester), married to the insecure son of the farm’s boss, dreams of making it in Hollywood and of escaping her disappointing marriage.

Typically no more than a catalyst for the events of the play (the character doesn’t even have a name), Curley’s Wife is brought to life as another one of the human characters. When Meester channels her fury into lashing out at the men for calling her a tramp, it is clear that she doesn’t “flirt” to make Curley jealous; she desires friendship and an escape from domestication. The happy smile on Meester’s face when she finds in Lennie someone who actually talks to her marks her character’s sentimental high point.

Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter

You Can Tend The Rabbits

Costume designer Suttirat Larlarb and stage designer Todd Rosenthal truly bring Depression-era California to life. The sets are incredibly detailed but simplistic; given a lifetime, even simple people can decorate their humble surroundings. The farmhands’ bunkroom is made of corrugated tin and rusted metal, but the walls are adorned with a myriad of touches, like pinup calendars or posters for New Deal programs. Reminiscent of the space-western “Firefly,” everything is infused with a dirtbrown or rust-red tinge, conveying a deep sense of working-class weariness.

During scene changes, bluegrass instrumental music plays while characters move about as if

at work on the farm. Meanwhile, the set pieces move around (sometimes rising up into the ceiling) and new ones slide into place. The scene changes lend a sense of continuity to the story, since we get to see some of what goes on when characters aren’t talking to each other.

The famous final scene has Franco and O’Dowd bring the full force of their relationship to bear in a tear-jerking test. When the lights go down on that scene by the riverside, it is only the culmination of an entire play’s worth of excellent acting and beautiful sets. Although the actors are Broadway newcomers, director Shapiro has crafted something truly worthy of Steinbeck’s classic story of love and friendship.

Pygmalion Overcomes Its Obstacles Kaidoo’s performance was strong and very funny, but suffered from an inconsistent British accent that took away from his character’s authenticity. Yet, senior Irene Elias’ portrayal of Eliza Dolittle was spectacular. Her impressive British and Cockney accents brought light to the changes in Dolittle throughout her transformation.

Junior Coby Goldberg, who was the hilariously smitten Freddy Eynsford-Hill, ceaselessly kissed Elias’ hand, causing her to yelp with disgust while bringing the audience to laughter.

Even director Thomas Perskin stepped in to play the disappointingly uncaring father of Eliza. His Cockney accent and his portrayal of such an irritating character were spot on. Considering the time the actors had

to memorize their lines, they managed to be off-book for the most part. Directed by juniors Harmehar Kohli and Thomas Perskin and sophomore Nicole Rosengurt, the cast was much stronger than expected in their abilities to become their respective roles.

Unfortunately, the second act did not live up to expectations. Though the actors were off-book, it became noticeable

that they were improvising many of their lines. The actors themselves also became increasingly tired and began to lose their accents, if not forgetting them entirely. The last scene of the show also ended somewhat abruptly.

While most of the audience thought there was another scene to come after the curtains closed, they were perplexed to see all the actors come out for their final bow, because the

ending failed to tie up many of the storylines that evolved during the play. Considering that a finale should typically leave the entirety of the show positively memorable, this one left more confusion than satisfaction.

All in all, the performance, however, was quite impressive.

Despite shortcomings in the second act and the technical aspects, the majority of the show was still enjoyable.

Jin Hee Yoo / The Spectator

continued from page 1

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 19

Arts and Entertainment

Maybe you took some time over Spring Break to experience some culture, New York-style. But here are three things we guarantee you haven’t heard of:

• NY Film Forum—Godzilla: The Japanese Original This 1956 monster classic about the anxieties of the nuclear age was first released in America as an atrociously cut and dubbed version, but the original is being shown at the NY Film Forum April 18-24. The screenings are a reminder of the Irosho Honda’s original brooding brilliance, especially as another American Godzilla remake debuts this month.

• Jazz Standard—The Bad Plus The Bad Plus, which has earned high praise for its audacious recasting of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” takes the concept of band unity to an extreme rarely encountered in jazz; its lineup can deliver a vicious gut punch in one moment and turn delicate as a snowflake in the next, always with a spirit of brave expedition.

Plays until April 27 for $30.

—Nate Chinen, NYT

Zovinar Khrimian / The Spectator

• God’s Pocket Late actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a Philadelphia working-class man who gets caught up in first the cover-up of his mentally disabled stepson’s death, and then a journalist’s investigation. The movie premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and has a limited theatre release May 9.

A New Style

By Anne Duncan Foster The People quickly rose to fame in 2011 with their debut album, “Torches.” The album included the popular “Helena Beat” and “Pumped Up Kicks,” both featuring guitar, keyboard, drums, and vocals. Part of what made Foster The People special as an indie pop band was their use of heavy processing and synthesizers to distort their songs into psychedelic dance tracks. Whatever they did obviously worked: “Pumped Up Kicks” soared to the top of the charts and became a radio hit. Now, three years after the release of “Torches,” Foster The People presents their surprisingly less electric new album, “Supermodel.”

When presented with “Supermodel,” you can probably tell that it’s the same band. There are some songs that do sound like they came off “Torches”, such as “Are You What You Want to Be?” It has a fast beat, processed vocals, and chorus-style background vocals—all aspects that were very prominent on “Torches.” Yet the song never climaxes as intensely as the band’s older songs, like “Pumped Up Kicks,” do. It is missing the same energy and life that the band became famous for. Despite being somewhat similar to debut hits, songs like “Ask Yourself” and “Coming of Age” are disengaging without the same level of processing. They seem like they have the potential to be as exciting as “Torches,” but let down any listener searching for that rush. If you are looking for simply more of the same songs, “Supermodel” is a disappointment.

Instead of popping, bright songs, the new album is filled with darker, duller tracks. “Pseudologia Fantastica,” for example, is composed of slow, swirling guitars, piano, and synthesizers with echoing layered vocals. As a whole, it feels like a rubber band being slowly stretched out.

“Supermodel” represents a potential new side to Foster The

People. One of the most interesting aspects of the entire album is indeed its lack of processing. “Goats in Trees” is one of the most stripped-down tracks on the album. It is a sad song with unprocessed vocals and an acoustic guitar. Lead vocalist Mark Foster recognizes the evolution of his music when he sings, “I feel the change in the rising tide.” The only parts of the song that sound at all processed are the backup vocals, hovering in the background and creating a misty atmosphere.

It is clear that the three years between the release of their first and second albums brought change for Foster and Mark Pontius, the other front man. “The last record was really synthetic,” said Foster in a video on the band’s YouTube channel. “My idea of what was beautiful changed, I think, between ‘Torches’ and ‘Supermodel’ […] imperfections to me over the last few years have become more beautiful.” Citing his travels as the cause for his changed perspective, he said that “Supermodel” is “kind of about the gray area between the black and the white extremes of Los Angeles.”

“‘Supermodel’ often fails to use the band’s old styles to try to move in a new direction, but it could still be the stylistic steppingstone to a new Foster The People.”

“Supermodel” does, in some ways, capture the hazy urban rush. The album closes with “Fire Escape,” an acoustic song in which Foster describes himself as a fire escape, and sings to Los Angeles: “The city you’ve made, this ocean and sand, is founded on liars and self-made men.” It narrates the everyday lives of dreamers, pimps, prostitutes, and, in the end, begs, “Save yourself.” Foster’s love/hate relationship with his home makes the song’s tone unclear. This captures his idea of “the gray area,” which doesn’t really make sense, but is compelling all the same. This is part of the appeal of living in a city: it rushes by you before you can really understand all the details. That compelling gray area is the same appeal that the album as a whole has, despite its shortcomings; it straddles the line between two artistic styles.

Foster the People’s new album fails to replicate the style that the band became famous for. And yet, the band’s new face is the one I want to see more of.

Without their old adrenalinefilled excitement, their best option is to develop their sentimental side. Even “The Truth,” which includes processed synthesizers, is appealing because it is not trying to be thrilling. It moves slowly and gets its dramatic message across: “I have tried so hard to not be like them.” “Supermodel” fails to use the band’s old style to try to move in a new direction, but it could still be the stylistic stepping stone to a new Foster The People.

Movie Shattered SHIELD

Courtney Chiu / The Spectator

Culture Beat: Music April – May Foster The People Foster

By Geoffrey Luu Since the release of “Iron Man” in 2008, Marvel Studios has been churning out blockbuster films like clockwork as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). These films are wellknown for solid writing, strong casting, and general faithfulness to their source material. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, is the latest in this line of films and is no exception. It is arguably the best Marvel solo film since the original “Iron Man,” and is on par with 2012’s “The Avengers” as one of the best entries in the series. “The Winter Soldier” works as both an action film and a political thriller, and serves as a natural extension to the stories of Captain America and the rest of the MCU. Set approximately two years after “The Avengers,” Steve Rogers—Captain America (Chris Evans)—is living in Washington, D.C. under the employment of SHIELD, America’s intelligence and defense agency in the Marvel storyline. Rogers and SHIELD’s director, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), discover early in the film that SHIELD has been infiltrated and compromised at its highest levels by an unknown enemy. Fury’s suspicions of SHIELD make him a target of the organization; Rogers is branded a fugitive from SHIELD due to his unwillingness to disclose information given to him by Fury. Embarking on a mission to learn the identity of the hidden enemy and wipe out the corruption in SHIELD, Rogers is aided by fellow soldier Sam Wilson (the Falcon, played by Anthony Mackie), and they come into direct conflict with the full might of SHIELD and a mysterious assassin known only as The Winter Soldier.

Part of what makes the film so effective is the extent to which it is connected to its predecessor, “Captain America: The First Avenger,” as well as other MCU films. In spite of the fact that “The Winter Soldier” takes place about 70 years after “The First Avenger,” the film finds surprising ways to link the two, including the resurgence of HYDRA, the Nazi-era organization that Rogers seemingly dismantled in the first film. Smaller appearances from Howard Stark, featured in “The First Avenger,” and characters from “Iron Man 2” and “Thor” keep the film closely connected to the rest of the Marvel Universe and give the impression that the events of the film will affect it on a massive scale. Unlike its predecessor, however, “The Winter Soldier” plays out less like a war movie and more like a political thriller, dealing less with war and patriotism than with corruption, conspiracy, and idealism.

The first film, set during World War II, more closely resembled a standard superhero/action film with a single arch-nemesis: the Red Skull. “The Winter Solder”

abandons that approach, instead turning nearly every member of SHIELD into a potential enemy and giving less attention to its namesake than one might expect.

The film is named after the Winter Soldier, but this character actually makes surprisingly few appearances in it; most of the film is focused on Rogers’ efforts to fight SHIELD and HYDRA. While this may be disappointing to some, the Soldier’s limited screen time allows him to remain mysterious and, as he is described in the film, ghost-like.

His origins stray slightly from his comic counterpart’s in order to better suit the film’s theme of corruption and conspiracy. In his first comic book appearance, the Winter Soldier, like Captain America, was found frozen in ice by the Soviets at the end of World War II, and was then revived and trained to be a Soviet assassin. In the film, the Soldier operates under the employ of HYDRA, rather than the Russians, though his looks and function remain faithful to the comic.

The film’s main, albeit relatively minor, flaw is its lack of character development. The last scene of “The First Avenger” and several scenes in “The Avengers” serve as Rogers’ transition from the 1940s into the modern world, so he requires no introduction.

However, the origins of new characters, like the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, are not explored deeply. This is not a big issue for the Soldier, whose identity is meant to be hidden for much of the film, though we learn of his origin later on.

However, it is an issue for Falcon, who comes off as a likable ally to Rogers. Our introduction to Falcon comes in the opening scene of the film, in which he and Rogers go running and discuss their wartime experiences and pop culture. Still, it is somewhat difficult to relate to Falcon because little of his past is known, and what does become known is only revealed in short conversations between him and Rogers.

Fortunately, this flaw is made up for by the film’s excellent action scenes. From an early car chase with Nick Fury to Rogers’ final battle with the Winter Soldier and the film’s explosive climax, the film is not short on fastpaced and well-choreographed action.

“Captain America: The Winter Soldier” throws away the traditional approach to superhero films in favor of a plot full of conspiracy and mystery. In spite of a slight lack of character development, the film succeeds through strong action scenes, a fresh and original premise, and a strong connection to its predecessor and to the rest of the Marvel Universe.

There is no doubt that the events of “The Winter Soldier” will heavily impact the futures of SHIELD, Captain America, and the rest of the Avengers.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 20

Arts and Entertainment Crossword

Springtime

By ANNE DUNCAN

If you can solve the puzzle, send a photograph to SpecCrosswords@gmail.com to pick the next theme!

1

2

3

4

5 6 7

8

9

10

11 12

R 14

13

I

T

O

R

15 16 17

18

A

19

20

21 22

23 25

24

26 27 28

DOWN

ACROSS 1. Colorful flying insect 5. Greek Goddess 6. Reddening from sun 7. Unopened flower 10. Warm Precipitation 11. Beginning of this sports season 12. Slow-moving mollusk 14. Environmental holiday

17. Frog larva 19. Baby goat 20. “____ over a new leaf” 21. Baby deer 25. Baby bird 26. Able to produce life 27. Frog’s noise 28. 22 Down ____ bring May 21 Down

1. Underground plant organ 2. Given new life 3. Also this season 4. ____ Equinox starts spring 8. Border between ocean and land 9. An opening flower 11. Easter ____ leaves eggs 12. To emerge from the ground 13. Protection from 10 Across

15. Hypersensitive immune response 17. Alternative to 6 Across 16. Outside meal 18. Golden fluted flower 21. 22 Down 28 Across bring May ____ 22. Rainy month 23. Natural pollinator 24. Flown paper on a string

KenKen 12 +

14 +

6×

12 ×

28 +

2

By Lev Akabas Fill in the grid with numbers 1 through 7. 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. This puzzle has several correct solutions.

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.

6+

3

60 ×

9+

48 ×

2÷

35 ×

28 +

6+

1-

14 +

5+

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 21

Arts and Entertainment Television

The Last Goodbye The final episode of “How I Met Your Mother” immediately split its audience in two: those who thought the finale was a slap in the face to anyone who watched the show religiously, and those who felt that the ending only satisfied how messy life itself can be. We tuned in on March 31 to listen to Ted Mosby’s (Josh Radnor) final installment of how he met the mother of his children, only to be disappointed by an anticipated twist we hoped wouldn’t turn out to be the truth.

The episode began with a flashback to the year 2005, when the gang had just accepted Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders) into their group.

Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan) states that no one can hook up with Robin unless he agrees to marry her. Flash forward to the year 2013 and Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) has done just that. However, after an entire season spent on just the weekend of Robin and Barney’s wedding, their marriage crumbles 20 minutes into the final episode. Episode after episode displayed the happy couple victorious as they endured all the possible bumps in their relationship, yet they couldn’t

settle the issue of Robin’s frequent traveling for her career.

Their relationship hastily wraps up, and the two lead their own separate lives. Their ending was an easy route to the producers’ desired cliché ending.

“It failed to fulfill its romanticism of the past, instead clinging on to it with both hands to thrust up that blue French horn.”

The real travesty here occurred in the final two minutes of the episode, which leads things back to the beginning.

Ted performs the ultimate callback of the show: bringing Robin the iconic blue French horn he gave to her in the very first episode, and lifting it up

as Robin leans out her window.

This is the producers’ ending they’ve wanted from the beginning to the series, as it was shot in season one. Although the rest of the series traveled a different path, everything bent over backwards to make this ending come true. Not only did the premise of the entire ninth season fall apart, but the characters went on improbable journeys, contradicting the progress they had made in the whole series. After his divorce and learning to commit to one woman, Barney returns to his womanizing ways (and a new playbook), continuously sleeping around until he knocks a girl up on the last day of his perfect month. Additionally, although the whole series was based on one special, eponymous woman, the Mother (Cristin Milioti) was only introduced in the last few episodes, and her death was covered in a matter of seconds without explanation. She was the perfect woman for Ted, the one who accepted all his quirks and made him happy enough to forget about Robin. There had been speculation about the Mother’s death, but the audience did not expect Ted running back to the woman who the writers spent nine seasons proving wasn’t right for Ted. To many fans, the show suf-

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focated any of the cleverness it once had with that final blow of a horn. From Ted being egged on by his own kids to the regression of many characters and the introductions of multiple plot points that never are resolved, and never seemed to really matter, the finale was a disaster.

In fact, it resembled the junking of Marshall’s (Jason Segel) old Fiero; everyone had memories connected to it, whether it was hatred or love, but it met its end loudly and unsatisfyingly.

However, “How I Met Your

Mother” is a show of nostalgia and life’s bumps. While The Mother’s death may have been saddening, the return to Robin did little for these reviewers. A rehash of a relationship that never worked out, especially after marriage, neither reflected reality nor provided a joyful, romantic ending to what was essentially a nine-season-long romantic comedy. The finale failed to fulfill its romanticism of the past, instead clinging onto it with both hands to thrust up that blue French horn.

Lydia Wu / The Spectator

By Emily Lee and Eda Tse

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 22

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

By Sumaita Mahmood and Winton Yee

In an effort to educate those closely connected to the Stuyvesant community about its many complexities, the administration has recently distributed informational brochures and packets to students on how to deal with their parents. The packets contained a wealth of information on how to keep tabs on parents’ emotional and sexual well-being.

“There’s a real disconnect between the kids and adults nowadays, which is why we wanted to get this information out,” said principal Jie Zhang. “Sometimes, the kids are just too busy with their Walkmans, Tamagotchis, beepers, cassette tapes, and all those other techno-doohickeys to bother learning about their parents’ past struggles as a child

in some random village or suburb.”

Many teachers were also supportive of the administration’s steps, and applauded its actions.

“At least we had something to do in homeroom that day we handed out the brochures. This hasn’t happened since the grading system malfunction of 1963,” reminisced computer science teacher Richard Platek.

“None of this even applies to my parents,” junior Lauren Michaels said. “They don’t need my support and understanding that they’re humans too. They just need to fuel my popcorn chicken addiction.”

However, the program did not go without its bumps. More than 68.8900 percent of brochures ended up in terracycling trash cans, while another 31.5322 percent were destined to wipe up

pee from toilet seats. Forty-two percent of students said, on a helpfulness scale from a security guard to the cashier at Ferry’s, the brochure was “about an escalator repairman.” Some members of the administration, though, believe the fault lies partly with the students.

“Some kids just don’t reach out,” Assistant Principal of Organization Saida Rodriguez-Tabonne said. “They’re like those silent, slightly cross-eyed kids in the corner of your English class.”

The administration believes, though, that, with time, students will eventually learn about the struggles of their parents. “One day, they’ll learn to accept both their parents and their parents’ ignorance, caused by non-Ivy League educations,” Zhang said.

hibit “rational thinking.”

Many of the older teachers struggled to get with the pace of the conferences. “When Kevin Chen’s mother asked me for the test average of her son, I had to rush through my Delaney book looking for which Kevin Chen she was referring to,” math teacher Debbie Goldberg said.

“How am I supposed to explain that Kevin doesn’t understand the simple axiom of number completeness in regard to the integral test in just 30 seconds?”

Goldberg added.

While the conferences were a failure in their execution, many of the students loved the new policy. “My mom didn’t even find out that my test average dropped .076 points in history,” said freshman Emily Ma, who was ecstatic because her mom “wouldn’t unleash the wrath of a thousand suns” on her. The overall happiness of the Stuyvesant student body increased by 27 percent, to reach a historical high of 28 percent overall happiness.

Other students were disappointed that their teachers were

not able to brag about them.

“Because of these short conferences, Mr. Ferencz wasn’t able to tell my mom how well I’ve been fighting apathy,” nerd, loser, and general overachiever Derrick Lui said. The small percentage of students who created a protest against these short conferences were made fun of and were forced to carry around rolling backpacks.

The shorter conferences, however, did not make the PTC night any shorter, as the parents continued coming for hours and hours. Only some teachers were able to handle such immense mental and physical strain. “I don’t know what all the whining is about,” said Mr. Miller, who was jumping rope and talking to parents for the entire course of the conferences.

“After these conferences were so successful in Stuyvesant High School, we are going ahead with ‘Plan Short Con’ and will attempt to spread our ideas into all the schools in the city,” announced Chancellor Fariña in her daily news conference, which lasted about 30 seconds.

Parents limited to 30-second conferences at PTC

By Daniel Goynatsky

Parent-teacher conferences are the highlight of the year for many parents as they get a chance to talk to their children’s teachers and create punishments for subpar grades. This year, however, the Department of Education (DOE) created a policy that limited teachers to 30 seconds per parent. This policy created confusion, chaos, and even arousal among parents, mainly directed at the teachers.

Some teachers felt this anger was misdirected. “I don’t see how this is my fault,” said chemistry teacher Brian Dibbs.

“I need to include at least one joke into my conferences with parents, and if that is a waste of time, then I don’t know what isn’t.” As parents lined the sides of the hallways waiting for Assistant Principal of Organization Sandra Rodriguez-Tabone to ring the end bell signaling the next rotation cycle, many began to hallucinate, saying, “I should’ve sent my child to the zoned school.” According to the school nurse, they began to ex-

Victor Hoang messes up his ukulele promposal.

By Nathan Mannes and Fish Milnikiewicz Prom season has just begun, resulting in a mad frenzy of seniors flocking to get prom dates.

The general consensus is that the easiest way to obtain a date is to ask the date in front of all their friends and peers, so it is impossible for them to say “no”. This method of obtaining a date has been abused for decades, and this year has been no different.

Just last Tuesday, junior Terrence Koo was asked by his friend Brian Yu to record his proposal. Yu was going to ask his crush, Emily Chang, to prom, a feat he had been planning since 6th grade. He would ride into the senior atrium on a heavily bedazzled Sean Toodle, followed by an amateur mariachi band. Yu was determined that his proposal be the best in Stuyvesant history. It was to be digitally preserved forever by Koo’s camcorder.

Immediately after school on the day of the notorious promposal, Yu and Chang went to their senior bar lockers as usual. Yu asked his friend, Andrew Puopolo, to get Chang to the senior atrium by any means necessary, so that he could begin his promposal. Then, he quickly rushed over to the gym staircase, where Toodle and the rest of his entourage were secretly waiting. They would exit the staircase when Yu received the signal: a discreet text from Puopolo.

According to Puopolo, he approached Chang, who was kneeling at her locker.

“Emily, go to the senior atrium. No time to explain,” Puopolo

Yi Zhu/ The Spectator

Urinal Thief Caught

Stuyvesant’s 3rd floor boys bathroom is missing a urinal.

By Jacob Faber-Rico

It is no secret that the bathrooms at Stuyvesant High School suck. The soap dispensers are all jammed or empty, the stalls frequently run out of toilet paper, and Moaning Myrtle won’t shut up. These issues have become so important to students that last year, current senior Jack Cahn promised in his legendary campaign for SU president to increase the supply of paper towels in the bathrooms. (His campaign ended

up being the most impressive SU campaign in Stuyvesant History ever to fail, probably because he didn’t address Moaning Myrtle.)

However, the most bothersome issue by far has been the lack of urinals in the boys’ bathrooms. A recent survey found that there were approximately five urinals in the entire school, which is especially disturbing when you consider the fact that there are ten boys’ bathrooms.

For years, male Stuyvesant students have been baffled by

the absence of these necessary resources. There has been endless speculation on the subject: Romanticists believe that the urinals got pissed off and just walked away; science-fiction fans believe that they were stolen by aliens to study human urine (from which the aliens will be able to recreate important elements of human society, such as the outhouses, subways, and Times Square); finally, conspiracy theorists believe that they are working with the U.S. government to create a “new world urinal” where urinals will reign supreme over all mankind.

This uncertainty has caused all sorts of problems in the consciousness of Stuyvesant students.

“Every day, another urinal disappears. It’s scary, because right now, it’s just urinals, but what if the issue spreads?” one anonymous student said. “We could be next.”

“The worst experience I’ve had at Stuyvesant is staring at an empty wall and trying to hold it in while I ponder the fate of our urinals,” added another student, who also wished to remain anonymous.

However, the majority of stu-

Yueer Niu / The Spectator

A Promposal to Remember

Students Receive Brochures on How to Handle Their Parents

dents have long suspected the existence of a urinal thief. “Oooooooh, I was just in here minding my own business when some boy came in and started tearing the urinal off the wall. It made a terribly loud noise. Ooooooh, it was dreadful, so dreadful” said Moaning Myrtle, who did not wish to remain anonymous.

However, authorities have not been able to gather any other useful information from Myrtle for several years. Because of this, the case of the disappearing urinals has remained unsolved until recently.

On Friday, April 11th, sophomore Jacob Hoffman noticed an awful smell at the end of the second floor hallway. “I often smell stuff weird stuff here, but it’s usually just weed smoke from the bathrooms, so I blow it off,” said Hoffman, “but that day it was different. Immediately, I suspected the urinal thief.”

Hoffman immediately notified Social Studies teacher Michael Waxman, who once caught North Korea’s infamous Hand Dryer Thief. “Unlike the North Korea situation, this was a pretty simple

said.

“I can’t. I need to go home and study,” Chang said.

“No, Emily, this is urgent,” Puopolo said.

“So is AP Chem,” Chang replied.

This exchange continued for some time, with Chang becoming more and more irritated. Finally, Puopolo decided it would be easier and “for her own good” to hog-tie Chang in order to coerce her into coming to the senior atrium. Dragging her into the atrium, Puopolo simultaneously sent Yu the alleged text.

This was Yu’s opportunity; he mounted Toodle. The big moment was about to happen, and everything needed to go perfectly.

Yu pushed open the staircase door, and the entourage shuffled in. The mariachi band was in tune.

Yet, Chang had the gall to deny Yu’s proposal as an enormous crowd of completely shocked peers around them watched silently. Chang had never felt so much pressure in her entire life. All she wanted was to go home and study.

“I don’t want to go to prom with you, Brian,” said the defiant strumpet.

Amid the chaos of her denial, Koo shoved his way to the middle of the atrium.

He bellowed: “Stop this promposal at once! Seriously guys I forgot to take off the lense-cap. I’m really sorry about that. Can we all start over?”

Emily shook her head in disagreement, and then went home to study.

operation. I just had my eighthperiod class sniff out the suspicious area in order to find out which locker the urinal was in,” Mr. Waxman explained.

After further investigation, a urinal was indeed discovered in the locker identified by Waxman’s students. The locker was traced back to senior Tom Marvolo Chen.

“I was planning to donate the urinals to the Museum of Modern Art, but I didn’t want to do it until I had every urinal in the school.

I was even planning to start a new Facebook page, ‘Urinals of Stuy,’” Chen told the Spectator.

“Of course, I had to keep one in my locker for personal use,” he added.

While the rest of the urinals are still being located, the capture of the thief will certainly ease the consciousness of the Stuyvesant community (not to mention their bladders). “On Tuesday, I will take my last DOE school survey,” senior Jeremy Karson said. “And after four long years, I will finally be able to tell them that, yes, I do feel safe in our school.”

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 23

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

By Winton Yee and Dennis Nenov

Score: 5 Excerpt from Response:

Score: 6 Excerpt from Response: Doodle of the girl from the taco commercial with the caption “Nature or Nurture? Why not both!”

Explanation of Score: This response shows mastery of the liberal arts— from the elaborate details of the drawing to the insightful yet concise caption, this response presents a thought-out, culturallysensitive response that fully addresses both sides of the prompt.

Explanation of Score: The creator of this blank response effectively uses symbolism to prove his or her point: neither nature nor nurture can explain how humans deal with the meaninglessness of life.

Adding a little variety, perhaps changing the size of each blank line would’ve made this response even better.

Score: 4 Excerpt from Response: The articles I read were about some twins who had the same toothpaste, or something. To be honest, that was really dumb. But you know who isn’t dumb?

The DOE. Man, the DOE is just great.

Explanation of Score: This is an above-average response; it clearly shows that the writer is aware of some obvious facts and is able to clearly express them. Some improvements, however, could be made in the usage of those “facts” to support a broader thesis. Indeed, having more analysis (i.e. explaining why the DOE is great) would make this response worthy of a 5 or a 6.

Score: 3 Excerpt from Response: A still life of some fruits Explanation of Score: This response is an artistic work that seeks to show the importance of nature over nurture, but it is lacking in both emotion and technical skill. Though the artist certainly has a higher meaning in mind for his painting, as evidenced by the ambiguity of his description, the linear, flat execution of his subject matter fails to portray the post-modern chaos that he so strives to describe. More talent and effort is needed in the brushstrokes and shading.

Score: 2 Excerpt from Response: The nature versus nurture question has baffled many for decades. The two articles presented offer differing views on the argument: one says our characteristics are “inherent” while the other states “our experiences shape who we are.”

I’d argue that the evidence presented in the first passage about twins who use the same toothpaste yet have different favorite colors shows that many aspects of our character—including our personalities—are not inherent, but rather, a product of our experiences. The twins, despite being genetically identical, led drastically different lives, which led to the differences in their personalities.

Explanation of Score: Though it may demonstrate perfect use of the English language and/or all the faculties necessary for a high school student in his/her development to become a functioning member of society, this response demonstrates a lack of critical thinking skills. Regardless of how rational and thought-out the arguments may seem, such writing is not worthy of merit, lest we also begin to reward other instances of irrational thought.

Alisa Su/ The Spectator

Alisa Su/ The Spectator

Explanation of Score: Like a cold sausage, egg, and cheese on a roll from your local deli, this response barely passes muster as you digest it, but leaves you feeling queasy for a while afterwards. Sure, the writer provides nearly everything we ask for, like, you know, details or whatever. But we are looking for pizzazz here. We want a warm chicken quesadilla, not evidence from the text.

Score: 1 Excerpt from Response: One of the biggest problems with the MOSL is that, despite the fact that it primarily tests reading and writing skills, it’s used to evaluate every teacher in the New York City school system—including math, science, and foreign language teachers. This subjects most teachers, outside of those who teach English, to an unfair evaluation mechanism because the material and skills they teach aren’t being evaluated.

Stuyvesant Environmental Club to Reform Lunchroom Recycling

By Ling Dong The school’s relatively new lunchroom recycling program will soon undergo changes by the Stuyvesant Environmental Club (SEC) in an attempt to better meet the needs of Stuyvesant’s bright and talented young students.

The recycling program, first implemented last year, originally asked students to sort their trash into labeled bins— one for recyclable waste, one for landfill, and one for compost. Two recycling stations can be found in either end of the student cafeteria for this purpose, each with trash containers and a dedicated club member nearby to help facilitate the waste reduction process. These members would often be found hard at work, either tapping away furiously

at small handheld devices or intently reading literary pieces, to help further the club’s cause.

However, this new recycling program has been the cause of recent discontent across the school. Students have expressed dissatisfaction with the new challenge introduced to their daily lives. Some have pointed out problems with the unclear instructions, w Which ask students to “flip it, tap it, and stack it.”

“Don’t get me wrong! I want to help the school be greener, but this is just too much. I’ve tapped a lot of things, but never in my life have I flipped or stacked them,” sophomore Miah Feroz said.

The gravity of the situation was highlighted last week, when junior Alanna Wong was reported to have fainted

while contemplating whether or not the cafeteria pizza was considered a food item. Since then, she has become a strong advocate to stop the harmful categorization of lunch items.

“And here I thought Stuyvesant was a progressive school,” she said.

In a highly reputable poll, two out of three students indicated that the recycling program is a major stressor, and attributed lower test grades and less sleep to it. All three poll participants also agreed that they spend a minimum of eight hours per day thinking about the program.

“We just can’t have this happen to our prized students,” Principal Jie Zhang said in response to the irrefutable statistics. “I stand with the student body. Take my simple, efficient procedure for pro-

gram changes for example.”

This week, the SEC board members have voted to take action and change the policies of the recycling program.

Some of the changes will include putting up more posters, having fewer words on the posters, using a bigger font for the posters, and having more club members on standby to help any students experiencing trouble. In addition, these club members will offer highfives and cheers of moral support when items are deposited correctly to encourage the students to confront their fears.

“I am excited to say that in just a few days, the entire cafeteria will be covered in bright posters and a small but supportive committee of at least nineteen club members politely reminding the students to FLIP, TAP, AND STACK,” ju-

nior and SEC Vice President Sunny Zhang said. “We’ve also made a pamphlet that helps students with easily confused items, such as oranges!”

These newly announced changes have received popular support for being both innovative and progressive. “I really appreciate what the SEC is doing for the students. This is the start of a new era of clubs that—wait, Sunny, I forgot my lines,” junior Jerry Dai said.

Still, others have expressed disapproval. “I always teach my students about the difference between bad stress and good stress, and the original recycling program was definitely good stress,” health teacher Barbara Garber said. “I can’t believe that they are giving up this wonderful opportunity for intellectual stimulation!”

The Spectator ●April 25, 2014

Page 24

Sports “From 54 to 37: What exactly happened Knickerbockers?”

As this dreadful season comes to a close, one can only look back at all of the foul ups, botched plays, and missed shots that made this season what it was: a disaster for the New York Knicks. However, the most unbridled marriage this season involved Knicks star Carmelo Anthony and ex-coach Mike Woodson. Anthony, arguably the best player to don a Knicks uniform in a decade, is about to be lost to free agency, as the team is unable to surround him with the necessities to win.

Anthony has said repeatedly throughout the season that he supports Mike Woodson as head coach; however, those feel like empty words, considering how poorly the Knicks have executed as a team during crunch time. In a game against the Washington Wizards, after allowing Bradley Beal to score with 6.9 seconds left, the Knicks were down by one point, with three timeouts left and more than enough time to call one. Instead of drawing up a decent play for the gamewinner, Woodson watched as Anthony dribbled the ball up the court slowly and chucked up a hail-mary right before the buzzer.

The Knicks frequently found themselves in tight end-game situations, and often relied on the scoring of Anthony to win games. However, the unoriginal and easily defended “Iso-Melo” play unsurprisingly resulted in zero game winners or game-tying shots. Woodson’s overuse of Anthony, who played 39 minutes per game this year, was probably a contributing factor to Melo’s recent small labrum tear in his

right shoulder and his left shoulder labrum tear from last year’s playoffs. The Knicks’ organization failed to provide their best player with an MRI until he had already played two games with the injury.

Amare Stoudemire, who is not a stranger to MRIs, has had his ups and downs this season as well. Stoudemire struggled with playing time at the beginning of the year, platooning with Kenyon Martin, and didn’t seem to be in rhythm at all. As the season progressed, however, he started showing signs of brilliance, on both the offensive and defensive ends. His newfound post game gave the Knicks a new scoring presence, along with Anthony.

If he continues his positive play next year, then maybe his exorbitant $100 million contract will somewhat pay off.

Unfortunately, last summer’s offseason acquisitions were disappointing. Andrea Bargnani, who was meant to be a “floor spacer” for the Knicks, wound up shooting a meager 27.8 percent from three point range.

Not to mention, his defense made fans everywhere moan and groan. Bargnani has been injured since January after attempting a dunk over the entire Philadelphia 76ers defense, tearing a ligament in his elbow. Also, who can forget Bargnani’s insensible and baffling three-pointer against the lowly Milwaukee Bucks? With 14.8 seconds left on the game clock, and the Knicks up by two, all they needed to do was hold the ball and get fouled.

However, Bargnani jacked up a three, missed, and gave possession to the Bucks, who tied the game.

Beno Udrih and Metta World

Peace, on the other hand, appeared to be low risk, high reward acquisitions during the offseason. However, a lack of playing time and rhythm hurt their chances of staying on the team. Udrih had a couple of good stretches, but was relegated to the bench after criticizing Mike Woodson’s coaching tactics. If you look hard enough during Knicks games, you can still see the ghost of Udrih at the end of the bench, forever haunting Woodson.

World Peace, on the other hand, made up for the lack of playing time with his hilarious, albeit nonsensical, tweets. “I woke up this morning and took a warm milked bath. Not a milk bath. A milked bath. I had the maid throw cereal with raisins in it,” World Peace said. “I’m so happy to be Metta this morning because at 4am I turned into the Geico lizard. I was so scared I would be in NY as a lizard!!”

Both Udrih and World Peace’s contracts were bought out before the trade deadline.

As for the younger brother of JR Smith, Chris Smith was chosen to make the opening-day roster over the likes of Jeremy Tyler, Ike Diogu, Josh Powell, and Chris Douglas-Roberts. After only two minutes of playing time, he was sent back to the Knicks’ D-League affiliate, and was then cut from the D-League team. The decision to keep Chris Smith on the roster over more productive players was baffling.

The Knicks’ D-League call-ups in past seasons include fanfavorite Jeremy Lin and sharpshooter Chris Copeland, both of whom have left the Knicks for greener pastures.

Overall, this season was con-

fusing, frustrating, and lackluster. There are many more questions than answers for all Knicks’ fans. Is Carmelo Anthony leaving town? Who will be the new head coach? What talent can Madison Square Garden attract? Can the team rebound from missing the playoffs?

One man may have the answers: Zen-master Phil Jackson, who has more rings than fingers to his name, an accomplished head coaching career, and a knack for calming down big personalities. His hiring as President of Basketball Operations was the lone bright spot in this otherwise dark and dreary season.

However, if anyone can steer the Knicks astray, it is owner James Dolan, undoubtedly the mastermind behind the laughing stock of the NBA during the

2000s. Poor trades and nonsensical draft signings have hindered the Knicks’ ability to progress as a franchise and rebuild. A small sample of his handiwork includes drafting players, such as Michael Sweetney, Jordan Hill, and Renaldo Balkman, and trading for Eddy Curry. Dolan’s hatred of the media led him to hide from MSG cameras until the recent hiring of Phil Jackson.

Dolan, from out of the blue, did radio and TV interviews about the hiring of Jackson, promising to give up all basketball decisions to Jackson. As much as people want to believe Dolan, it feels like he could do little but idly stand by, watching someone else play with his toys. We can only hope that Phil Jackson will be able to dig the Knicks out of their slump and into the promise land.

Justin Chan / The Spectator

By Jeffrey SU

Girls’ Lacrosse

By Jeffrey Zheng For the Huskies, who have been winless so far and are at the bottom of their league, this year’s season looks like a repeat of last year’s.

Many Huskies who are new to the team or did not play much last year, however, have improved immensely throughout the course of the season, leading to more competitive games than last season’s. Coming off one of their closest games of the season, a 14-10 loss to Beach Channel View, the Huskies entered their game against the Hunter Hawks looking to avenge their 16-3 loss from the teams’ previous meeting.

The Huskies lost their second match against the Hawks on Wednesday, April 9, by a score of 12-4, dropping their record to 0-6.

Though they did not win, the Huskies kept the score much closer

Huskies Whimper in Another Loss

this time than the first time these two teams met.“We were definitely more aware of the other players this time and we had a much stronger and smarter defensive strategy,” senior Victoria Li said.

Even though the Hawks scored 12 goals, some aspects of the Huskies’ defense were solid. The Huskies swarmed the Hawks and often prevented them from getting an open shot. Once, one of the Hunter players seemed frustrated with the Huskies’ defense and attempted an extremely difficult shot far from the goal. The Huskies also forced the Hawks to frequently reset their offense.

The Huskies did, however, have numerous defense breakdowns that led to easy goals for the Hawks.

A few times, Hunter players broke away after a turnover by the Huskies and were allowed to attempt

unchallenged shots on goal. Hunter also retrieved the ball several times after missed shots and scored on second chance opportunities.

“When we talk and crash and double the ball, they don’t get those shots in. We need to work on body positioning, talking, crashing, and double teaming the ball,” junior and co-captain Rebecca YusteGolob said.

On the offensive end, the Huskies looked a little shaky at the beginning of the game. They had trouble holding onto the ball, resulting in some easy goals for the Hunter team. Often, the team held the ball for too long until the Hawks double-teamed and forced turnovers, due to a stagnant offense.

Throughout the game, the Huskies failed to move around, making it harder for them to find open teammates.

“We really have to protect the ball and make better decisions with the ball. Moving the ball is essential, especially if we play a motion offense,” coach Brad Gitlin said.

Having a streak of consecutive losing seasons, this season, in terms of records, has not looked any better for the Stuyvesant Huskies. However, the Huskies still have a very optimistic outlook towards the last six games of the season.

“We played pretty strong defensively but we had a few breakdowns. I think we passed well today, and we had some chances offensively and scored a bunch of goals. I think we need to capitalize on more of our chances, but overall I think we’ll have a better look the rest of the season,” Gitlin said.

The immense improvement of individual Huskies has been notable. Li, who did not accumulate

any goals or ground balls last year, was a big part of the Huskies’ offense this game. She was aggressive offensively and frequently looked for her own shot, while also making the right passes. She scored her fifth goal of the season, and picked up four ground balls. Freshman Lucy Wang and sophomore Rebecca You contributed heavily on offense. Wang scored two goals, while You scored one and led the team in ground balls with seven.

“I’m really happy with the skill progression that I’ve seen so far this season. I don’t really care whether we win or lose, I just want to see everyone to play the best they can, and I think we’ve had a number of games where we’ve done that,” junior and co-captain Anne Duncan said.

Girls’ Softball

Rain Washes Away Renegades’ Chances versus Trojans

By Ari Hatzimemos

The Stuyvesant Renegades and the George Washington Trojans have been rivals for many years. But two teams can only have a true rivalry if they’re competitive, and recently, the Trojans have made this matchup quite lopsided. Last year, the Renegades lost to the Trojans in both of their meetings. These losses left them wanting a rematch, but when that rematch finally happened, the Renegades did not get the result they had hoped for. The Stuyvesant Renegades lost 4-1 to the George Washington Trojans on Monday, April 7.

The Renegades played a stel-

lar game until the sun turned to rain, causing senior, captain, and starting pitcher Marie Frolich to lose her touch. And when it came to their bats, the Renegades were subpar and unable to execute.

Frolich dominated the majority of the game. In her first five innings, she struck out seven batters. Even when she was not striking out batters, she was still contributing in the field. In the third inning, a Trojan hitter blasted a pitch back at Frolich, who managed to snag the line drive. “The defense played a really strong game, and Marie pitched beautifully,” sophomore and starting catcher Georgia Kamm said.

The defense helped out be-

hind Frolich. In the fifth inning, a Trojan batter hit a bomb to the left center and senior and center fielder Julia Witkowski, showing her range, sprinted to the ball and made the impressive, leaping catch.

For the first five innings, Frolich kept the Trojans scoreless until the weather took a turn for the worse. In the sixth inning, the Trojans scored four runs on walks, wild pitches, and hits. “I really think it was Mother Nature.

Both the GW pitcher and I were pitching shutouts and it was 0-0 going into the sixth. I was pitching when it started raining and I really couldn’t grip the ball very well,” Frolich said.

The first run the Trojans scored was on a wild pitch. With a runner on third base, the ball was thrown behind Kamm, and the runner ran for home plate. Kamm got the ball and dove for the plate, but it was too late, and the Trojans scored the first run of the game.

A stronger offense would have counterbalanced the late-game pitching struggles, but the offense was ineffective throughout the game. During the whole game, the Renegade offense had only four hits, and they didn’t even score a run until the sixth inning.

This may have been due to the high velocity and skill of George Washington’s pitcher. “This week, we will definitely have to work on

batting practice. If we can improve offensively, with hitting and baserunning skills, we will definitely be better competitors in our next game,” Witkowski said.

This loss stings worse than most. George Washington dominated the division for the past two years, and defeating them would have been a tremendous confidence booster for the Renegades.

“GW is our biggest rival and we were definitely in that game, so I am super pumped to play them again at the end of the year,” Frolich said.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 25

Sports Boys’ Baseball

Hitmen Steady to Start the Season A Tremendous Season Opener

By Ari Hatzimemos Last season, for the first time in 17 years, the Stuyvesant Hitmen failed to make the playoffs.

The team felt that they let down not only themselves, but also alumni who had played on the team, and they promised not to be in the same situation next season.

They held true to their goal, as the Hitmen started off the new season strong with a 17-0 shutout win against the High School of Graphic Communications Arts on Wednesday, March 26. “My first words after the game were, ‘Seven more wins to go.’

Seven more to make the playoffs,” coach John Carlesi said.

Sophomore Nathan Chandler started as pitcher for the season opener. He threw only 53 pitches, an astoundingly low number, to shut out the Devils in four innings by striking out five batters while only giving up only

one hit. “Nathan did an incredible job in his first varsity start, holding them to one hit. His pitching performance definitely led us,” senior and co-captain Ben Sydel said.

Offensively, the Hitmen looked sharp, as their hitters scored 17 runs in four innings.

The game was only four innings long because of the mercy rule, which ends the game if the score difference is greater than 10 at any point after four full innings.

Sydel hit two doubles, junior Demos Sfakianakis hit a triple, and freshmen Tobias Lange and Jack Archer each hit a double.

“We played well offensively. We got some nice hits and got the job done. I’m confident we will still have even better offensive games, as we didn’t actually have that many hits,” Sydel said.

Although 17 runs were scored, the Hitmen only had eight hits because of the six walks and three hits-by-pitch thrown by the opposing pitch-

ers. The Hitmen also stole nine bases. “We drew a lot of walks and hit-by-pitches, and also ran the bases really well,” senior Mike Mazzeo said.

Going forward, the Hitmen will use this game as a confidence booster and a template for victory. “It’s always a team effort with the Hitmen. You never hear someone talking about themselves and how they did.

We support each other and play as a team, and that’s how we got this win,” Archer said.

The Hitmen Face a Mini-Orchestra

By Louis Susser Despite the obnoxious behavior of the West 50th Street Campus fans, the Hitmen kept their composure on Thursday, April 10, avenging their loss to West 50th earlier in the season with a 13-6 win. With the help of a big third inning for the Hit-

A letter to the Stuyvesant Sports Community

By An Anonymous Student Athlete This is not about school spirit.

This is not about unifying school names. Because before we even talk about those things, we need to make sure that we have the fundamentals of a healthy sports community down.

We need to make sure that all of our sports teams and clubs are functioning in the correct way and that all student athletes are happy.

So what’s wrong exactly?

It’s common knowledge within the sports community which teams have happy players and which do not. The point here isn’t to attack any one team.

The point isn’t to punish anyone. The point of this article is to create a better environment for the Stuyvesant sports community.

Within our community, there are some coaches hurling ugly words such as “useless” and “fat,” and verbally abusing their athletes. There are homophobic jokes that are cracked behind the closed doors of our locker rooms by team members. There is also an unfair amount of responsibility put on captains and managers on certain teams; insurance books and running meets are duties that belong to coaches.

There are all of these problems, but no one speaking out. However, the lack of statements does not downplay the validity of these issues. There are no statements because no one is willing to go on the record about the treatment they have gone through and continue to go through because they are scared. This fear of speaking out is a testament to the urgency of the situation.

The question that often arises is that if it’s so bad, why don’t the student athletes just quit? They wouldn’t have to deal with being on a team that they hate. The first reason is that they love their sport. That love and passion for swimming in a pool, for running a race, or for shooting a ball into a hoop, is the reason that they joined the team in the first place. The second reason is that student athletes have created a community and family with their fellow teammates. Quitting their team would break up that family.

The third reason is that the amount of time that student athletes have committed to the team has been too much to just let go. Student athletes practice

for hours—sometimes seven days a week. They spend hours commuting to competitions. Quitting is simply not an option, but they are not comfortable being on their team.

Another question that comes up is: “Why don’t the students report it?”

The answer is that it isn’t as easy as it seems. Athletic Director Larry Barth’s job includes ensuring that the relationship between a coach and their athletes is healthy. The problem is that a good number of student athletes don’t know who Mr. Barth is, and don’t know anyone with whom they can share their concerns. The students who do know Mr. Barth are typically too afraid to approach him with complaints about their coach because they assume that Mr. Barth will favor the coach’s side of the story, since most coaches are teachers at Stuyvesant who work with Mr. Barth.

For these two reasons, student athletes are rarely found making any complaints about their coaches.

This is not an attack on Mr. Barth.

He can’t possibly keep track of the 41 official PSAL teams and all the unofficial ones, nor should he be expected to do so. What Mr. Barth needs to do is be accessible to students and let it be known that he is willing to listen to the students’ concerns and protect their interests. He needs to be someone students can trust.

However, for there to be positive change where problems may exist, student athletes have to take control and make it their jobs to voice their unhappiness. Is it risky? Of course it is. Your position on your team is in jeopardy. Is it scary? Of course it is. You are confronting an adult in an institution where students have less power than adults. But you have to take action if you want a chance. And once you get your voice heard, the idea of complaining and giving light to the problems within your team won’t be something that’s scary. It will become standard protocol. It will become what it should already be: your right.

Our sports community at Stuyvesant is one of the most renowned and successful in the city. We have numerous championship teams, recruited athletes, and esteemed coaches. It’s about time that the internal parts of the athletic community gets as much polish as the outside does.

men, in which they scored seven runs, the team gathered the momentum they needed to control the rest of the game.

With an improved performance at the plate, the Hitmen got their bats working; this was something that they lacked during their first matchup against West 50th. The Hitmen had nine hits, including a triple by senior and co-captain Timothy Diep and a two-RBI double by senior Nick Kalantzopoulos during the third inning. “Overall we did just what we had to do. We got hits with runners in scoring position,” Diep said. In addition, senior Shawn Gilhooley went 3-5 with two RBIs. With their impressive hitting display, The Hitmen clearly did not let the loud drumming and horn blowing get into their heads, as the West 50th fans entered Pier 40 with a mini-orchestra. Before and after each pitch, the fans blew on their instruments to catch the Hitmen off

guard. Though the noise seemed to be very distracting, coach John Carlesi felt that it had little effect on the Hitmen. “It affected the umpires more. Our guys did not really seem to mind,” Carlesi said. With the outcome of the game, it seems as if West 50th was the victim of their fans’ distractions.

On the defensive side, Freshman Jack Archer was on the mound for the Hitmen. He threw four solid innings, allowing only three runs on four hits. “He threw consistent strikes,” Carlesi said. “He kept the batters off-balanced.” Archer displayed confidence in his off-speed pitches, which succeeded in keeping the West 50th batters guessing.

Although the Hitmen also looked great on the field defensively, “our hitting was the story here,” Diep said. With this win taking them into their spring training, the Hitmen had a lot to look forward to as they packed their bags for Florida.

Boys’ Handball

No Surprises for the Dragons

By Jason Lee Dragons Fly Past Panthers The last time the High School of Economics and Finance Panthers played the Dragons, who have not lost a regular season game in 10 seasons, the Panthers nearly pulled off an upset. However, on Wednesday, March 26, it was a different story for the Dragons, as they beat down the Panthers, winning the match 4-1.

The matchup started off with the second doubles match, and with the team effort of junior Daniel Wu and senior and co-captain Long Yip, they won 21-0. Wu finished with a strong performance, hitting three kills and one ace.

“I did what was expected of me today against an inexperienced doubles team,” Yip said. “We as a team were confident, and we went out and played great.”

On the other hand, while the Dragons’ first doubles team was blown by opponents this season, their match against the Panthers was all but easy. Juniors Wilson Luo and Eddie Wang took some time to get into rhythm. At one point, the game was neck and neck, with the Dragons only up 11-9. However, with the help of Wang’s powerful serves, the Dragons managed to score the final 10 points and took the match 21-9. The two teammates expressed frustration in their inability to defeat the Panthers in a dominant fashion.

“In my opinion, my match was pretty bad,” Luo said. “My serves weren’t the way I would like them to be and I had a lot of missed hits.”

Nonetheless, the Dragons were still up 2-0, and needed to win one more match to clinch the victory. The Dragons were at a disadvantage, as they did not have their first singles starter, Wilson Li, who missed two weeks due to a shoulder and elbow injury. Hence, all the singles starters moved up one position, and junior Dylan Li took the third singles spot for the match. Li grabbed an early 7-3 lead, but his opponent fought back, serving three aces to make it a 13-10 game. However, Li was able to score the last eight points with two aces, and two kills to seal the victory for the Dragons.

Junior and co-captain Marco Liu took control of his second singles match-up, recording eight aces and two kills, winning 21-3.

Despite clinching the win with four victories, the Dragons knew that the first singles match would be difficult. Senior Kody Yan of the Panthers beat the previ-

ous Stuyvesant captain, Cody Tong (’13) in both encounters last season. This time, Yan faced another Stuyvesant captain, junior Young Kim. Yan had hard and quick serves, causing Kim to quickly fall behind 13-0 before a timeout was called.

“I told [Kim] to serve it to his left. I know [Yan] has a lot of power, but he’s wild. [Kim] can play to that and play it to his left hand,” coach Robert Sandler said. “I told him not to be psyched out by [Yan]’s serve.”

Kim followed his coach’s advice, and was able to score seven unanswered points after falling behind 13-0. Yan, however, was able to stop the bleeding, and extended his lead to 20-7. Though Kim tried his best to spark a comeback to prevent Yan from winning in six game-point situations, Kim only scored one point before Yan sealed the game.

“I was too slow and nervous in the beginning, allowing him to get a huge lead which he rode until the end of the game,” Kim said.

Even though Kim lost the match to a formidable opponent, the Dragons were still able to blow out the Panthers overall, securing every other match by double digits.

“Our team won by an overwhelming amount of points, except for first singles,” Sandler said. “They have a very strong first singles, but that’s about it. We were able to dominate all those other games, so I was pleased with the play, even with Young.”

The team remained content and positive after the match. “Today’s team was one of the better, if not the best, team in our division other than Bronx Science, and this win boosted our team morale,” Yip said.

The Dragons are looking forward to face the Panthers again on May 2. “I could have played better, and [I’ll] be prepared to beat [Yan] the next time,” Kim said.

Captains Carry the Dragons During the regular season, the Dragons are rarely challenged by a team as talented and skilled as they are. However, the Bronx Science Wolverines stormed into the Stuyvesant home court ready to give the Dragons their first regular-season loss in over a decade on Tuesday, April 1.

The first matches played were first singles and first doubles. In first singles, senior Wilson Li fell behind early with a continued on page 26

The Spectator ●April 25, 2014

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Sports continued from page 25

score of 7-3 due to a slow start.

Although Li cut the lead down to 15-11, his efforts were halted when his opponent scored four aces, and he lost the match, 2113.

In first doubles, juniors Eddie Wang and Wilson Luo also struggled to find a rhythm. They were losing 7-3 when coach Robert Sandler called a timeout. “Our first doubles team needs to work on control and keeping the ball on the court,” Sandler said.

Luo and Wang were able to gain momentum after the timeout and, with Wang’s hard serves and Luo’s returns, closed

the gap to 17-16. Their opponents took a timeout, and came back with a key ace, propelling the Wolverines to another victory. The overall match score was 2-0, and the Wolverines only needed one more victory to slay the Dragons.

Junior and co-captain Young Kim found himself playing in a second singles match with immense pressure: a loss meant that the Dragons would lose the match to Bronx Science. However, Kim went into his match with confidence. “We just had to push and get the rest of the wins,” Kim said. Kim used his opponent’s left side as a weakness. His opponent struggled to return Kim’s hard serves, and Kim blew out his opponent,

21-5.

In third singles, junior and co-captain Marco Liu and his opponent were neck and neck throughout the entire game.

Liu went on a 5-0 run and led 11-8 before Yang called a timeout. Yang came back and served two aces, and it was 14-14 before Sandler called a timeout.

Liu focused more on each serve individually, and his four aces and two kills fueled his 7-0 run at the end of the game to seal the victory, 21-14. This set the stage for the second doubles match.

“Going into my game, I did feel the pressure, but I just focused on the game and winning,” senior and co-captain Long Yip said. The match and

history were on the line, but junior Daniel Wu and Yip, the second doubles team, simply outmatched their opponents.

Fueled by Wu’s two aces and kill, Wu and Yip found themselves up 18-5. Their opponents tried to inch closer, but the 13point deficit was too great to overcome. The Dragons were able to win 21-13, and the team won the close match 3-2.

The Dragons were able to win the match against the Wolverines, a team that finished second place in the playoffs last year. “It was tremendous. It showed a lot of resilience,” Sandler said. “They were psychologically demoralized, but they played through it. I’m proud of them.”

However, the Dragons have some problems that they need to fix. For instance, many players have just come back from injuries, such as Li, who had elbow issues. In addition, they must work on controlling their serves and handling pressure.

On the other hand, there are many things for the team to be happy about, such as beating a championship-level team. Despite this, the team is just focusing on the present and what they can do to become even better.

“We [just] need to keep trying to constantly improve ourselves physically and mentally in preparation for the playoffs,” Yip said.

Point-Counterpoint College Isn’t Just Valedictorians Over MVPs About Academics

By GRACE LU

By Rayyan Jokhai

Although Stuyvesant makes it seem this way, academics aren’t everything in life. Achiev-ing high grades isn’t the sole way to make money or succeed. If everyone made academics their priority, the world would be bland and boring. There would be no entertainers, no singers, no dancers, no actors, and no athletes.

The notion that it is unfair that some students are accepted to or can commit to a college early for their athletic achievement, despite subpar performance in the academics, is completely absurd. Why should these students be denied access to colleges that are willing to accept them because they haven’t done well in school? We tend to believe that the sole reason students go to college is to pursue academics. This, however, is completely false. A large percentage of students do go to college with learning as their priority, but others go because they want to continue some other path they have found prosperous for them.

Academic achievement is not the only way into college; athletics may be the only way for these students.

Though they chose to go to Stuyvesant, a school known for its academic superiority, these athletes may not place tests as a priority, considering the time they devote to their sports teams. These students would rather be accepted to college because of their ability to play a sport, and not have to stress as much as everyone else does about grades, the SAT, or the ACT. It would be wrong for us to say that it isn’t okay for someone to be accepted into college based up-on their athletic abilities, because who are we to say that athletics are not as important as aca-demics? These students are being rewarded for their hard work in sports, similar to how others are rewarded for their hard work in their studies.

Some argue that students who are accepted to colleges to play sports have not worked as hard as others who are accepted based upon academic credit.

However, this argument is com-pletely blind to the effort that these athletes put in. The same way that most of us work extremely hard in school, spend late nights studying, and make sacrifices to get good grades, these students make sacrifices to commit to practicing with a team six days a week. They, too, spend late nights working, but instead of at a desk, they work on the court or in the pool.

If we were to prevent colleges from accepting students based on their athletic merits, we’d be discouraging students with athletic potential from pursuing their favorite sports and maximizing that potential. Why should we

be allowed to achieve our best while they can’t? Many students are accepted early to college based on their academic achievements, regardless of whether they are good at sports or not, and few see anything wrong with it, so why the

Students deserve to be rewarded for their accomplishments, whether academic, athletic, artistic, or otherwise.

double standard?

This idea of accepting athletes early not only benefits the students, but also the colleges, which gain lots of revenue from their successful sports teams by recruiting and accepting athletes based upon their athletics. Ohio State University wouldn’t have such a fantastic football team if their quarterback wanted to be a rocket scientist and their running back wanted to be a surgeon. Saying that it is unfair for colleges to accept students early based on their athletics is denying them a major portion of their revenue, which is unacceptable.

Students deserve to be rewarded for their accomplishments, whether academic, athletic, artistic, or otherwise.

Denying these students from reaching their potential in any area of passion is completely unjust, and claiming that their early acceptances to college based upon athletic per-formance is unfair is completely hypocritical. We should not let our priorities, as students who prioritize academics, hamper our ability to determine what is fair and what is not. The fact that another student does not value academics as much as we do does not mean that he or she did not earn that ticket through the same hard work that we put in.

You are presented with two different students who attend the same school. The first is a decent, yet athletically unexceptional, student with a 90’s transcript average and leadership positions in a few extracurricular clubs. The second is a jock who is MVP of his sports team, but has no other extracurricular activities, and is in the bottom tenth percentile of his school with a flat 80 average. The ugly truth is that top universities will go for the latter student without a second thought, and this process happens every year when admissions offices consider student-athlete early commitments.

Universities are academic, not athletic, institutions. It is unfair that these institutes of higher education are granting athletes with poor academics and no additional activities limited admission spots and added bonuses at the expense of gifted students. Talented students are deferred from their universities of choice during early decisions, but less accomplished athletes are committed to their first choice universities as early as sophomore or junior year. By accepting these early commitments and overlooking academic ineptitude, colleges cultivate an attitude that somehow holds the Most Valuable Player title higher than that of the valedictorian.

What does this entail? The athletes are comfortably assured that they will be secured early spots in college as long as they keep up their athletic involvements. They will then focus their attention on their sport and neglect their schoolwork, and their grades will consequently suffer. This mentality is only heightened after their junior year, when their commitment to sports is finalized and their goal is merely to pass their classes. The incentive to learn and gain knowledge in school is tarnished and the mission of educational institutions is undermined.

Injustice is done not only to the hardworking non-athletes who try to balance their grades, extracurriculars, and social lives, but also to nearly all of the committed students who fail to gain anything in the end. According to NCAA statistics as of 2012, “there’s almost no way [recruited high school athletes in college] are going to go pro,” Business Insider said. To put some hard facts on the table, take a look at football. Only 1.7 percent of college football players go pro, and that is high when compared to that of other sports. Men’s ice hockey: 1.3 percent; men’s soccer: one percent; women’s basketball: zero percent.

What is the point of spending so

much time and effort, not to mention money, on athletics, while sacrificing so much academically? These athletes, who are in top-notch schools, may be incompetent in areas outside of sports that they will need when they search for work after college. The struggle that ensues could have been avoided in the first place if they had been incentivized to reach their academic goals.

The emphasis universities put on athletics in accepting early commitments results in a loss for everyone.

The students who are more academically gifted in an institution meant to enhance these very skills or students who simply did not have the resources to become the star of a sport are overlooked. The vast majority of the recruited athletes enter college only to find that they are not suited to play professionally, and have a deficiency in the skills required for future success. Universities and education systems must reevaluate their priorities; they will find that experienced, diligent, and versatile students are more suitable candidates than academically-lacking student-athletes.

The vast majority of the recruited athletes enter college only to find that they are not suited to play professionally, and have a deficiency in the skills required for future success.

The Spectator ● April 25, 2014

Page 27

Sports Boys’ Golf

Girls’ Table Tennis

Sabrina Chan/ The Spectator

The Eagles Swing into Shape

The boys’ golf team takes on John F. Kennedy Campus at the Moshulu Golf Course.

By Erica Chio After winning the city championship last year, the Stuyvesant Eagles are eager to repeat their success. Last season, coach Emilio Nieves and the boys’ golf team were the underdogs, but this year, the other teams look to the Eagles as the team to beat. However, the Eagles are confident that they will be able to repeat their victory because of their increased experience, strength, and talent. “I’m confident we can make it to the championship again this year, we just have to execute,” junior Thomas Perskin said.

The Eagles have been practicing pre-season at Chelsea Piers once a week and have been going out to the course to play, but the brutal winter made it almost impossible for them to practice on the course. “In terms of being prepared, all the teams are in the same position: not being able to practice much due to the weather,” Nieves said. Fortunately for

the Eagles, the weather has now warmed up, and the team has been able to get back in shape.

The biggest obstacles the Eagles will have to overcome are the matches against the Staten Island teams and playoff games.

Since the Staten Island teams have more space to practice than the other teams in the city, they pose a big threat. In addition, the courses in the playoffs have always been a challenge for the Eagles. “The games we play in the playoffs will be more challenging [than] in the regular season, partly because we will have to travel to courses we don’t usually play [at],” sophomore Neil Vyas said.

But the Eagles have acquired promising young talent, such as freshmen Nicholas Ng and Zachary Ginsberg. With all these talented players and limited starter spots, there is healthy competition among the team. “The biggest impact of having so many good players on a team is [that] competition spurs because we have players from each grade who want to compete as starters and it keeps the level of play among ourselves really high,” Zheng said.

The Eagles were itching for a real match when the first game rolled around on April 8. However, the opposing team, Christopher Columbus Campus, only had three players, requiring them to forfeit.

The following game on Thursday, April 10, was an unsurprising sweep for the Eagles, who won 5-0 against John F. Kennedy Campus. Due to a band concert that same night, Nieves had scrambled to find enough players to participate. Even with his reserves, the Eagles put up yet another dominating perfor-

mance.

The lineup included freshmen Kevin Zheng, Ginsberg, sophomore Sunny Sompalli, and juniors Andrew Lee and Andrew Wallace. “There wasn’t really a strategy to the lineup, but the less experienced players were put near the end of the lineup to relieve some pressure,” Lee said.

However, it was the fifth starter, Sompalli, who impressed Nieves the most. “The player that stood out that day was Sunny Sompalli. He is a sophomore, but this was his first match ever.

He handled it pretty well and had the lowest score out of the players that day,” Nieves said.

Sompalli was able to par the third hole and boogie two other holes, giving him a total score of 23 for five holes.

All of the starters except Lee and Wallace only needed to play five holes out of nine because they won all five holes. Lee tied once at the second hole with a par. Wallace tied twice, at holes one and two, but won the next four holes. The first starter, Ginsberg, dominated by consistently getting at least three strokes lower than his opponent. Zheng also played well, as he got a par on the third hole while his opponent received the maximum score.

As the season progresses, the team hopes to play more matches and have more practices in preparation for the championships. “I look forward to the routine of playing matches two times a week when we get back from break so that we can begin to find that consistency that will be needed if we want to succeed in this year’s playoffs,” Nieves said.

Boys’ Volleyball

A Tough Start

By Tahmid Khandaker For fans of Stuyvesant’s boys’ varsity volleyball team, this season has come as a shock. The team’s performance is not reminiscent of their strong starting performances of the past three years, and the match against Louis Brandeis on Friday, April 11, capped off an incredibly rough start to the year.

Stuyvesant has been sitting comfortably atop their division for the past couple of years and is not used to being challenged for the throne. So far, the team has lost four times as many matches this season as in the past three years combined.

For the first time in years, Stuyvesant faced a change in their division opponents, forcing the players to adjust to the styles of their new competitors. “Instead of weak teams like last year, our division now has Brandeis and Environmental Studies, both of which are strong teams,” senior and captain Mingyung Jiang said.

However, facing new teams is not the only change; this season’s lineup is drastically different from that of the last season, with a total of 10 new members and only seven returners. “We really only have five players that have the experience and skill necessary to be a really good starter,” senior Connor Pfister said.

Though most of the newcomers are not as experienced in the sport as the returning

“It’s disgusting how many serves have been missed.”

—Connor Pfister, senior

members, there are a few who have provided the team with some much-needed help. “Kevin Zhang, a rookie senior, got to start as one of our middle hit-

ters for most games. He learned quickly and contributes to our offense. Victor Hoang, a sophomore, joined this year and made some great plays defensively throughout the season,” junior Vincent Huang said.

Zhang leads the team in blocks with seven so far, and Hoang, though he played in only three out of the six games, leads the team with 14 digs.

The match against Louis Brandeis showcased both the struggles and the successes of the team. Despite an enthusiastic play by the rookie Hoang, who dove for the ball to keep it in play, the team’s lack of communication caused them to lose two sets to one, giving them a record of 2-4 on the season.

Stuyvesant’s 14 kills, 11 assists, and three aces fell short compared to Brandeis’s 26 kills, 26 assists, and nine aces.

“Everyone needs to step it up,” Pfister said. “Common problems are hitting badly and serving. It’s disgusting how many serves have been missed.”

The boys’ varsity volleyball team has struggled this season, and the only way to accomplish their goal of making it to the playoffs, a difficult task that was a given in previous years, is to improve communication and hitting consistency. But if past seasons are any indication of the future, they still have hopes of turning things around.

For Once, Freshmen are Leading the Way

By Chris Kim Freshman are often categorized as bench players, and for good reason; with a combination of inexperience and underdevelopment in skill, it’s uncommon to see even a single freshman in the starting lineup of any team. However, for the Peglegs, the new Stuyvesant Girls’ table tennis team, it’s just the opposite.

Having been recently introduced as one of the sports for the PSAL spring season of 2014, table tennis immediately caught the attention of dozens of Stuyvesant students. While it’s never easy for coaches to cut players during tryouts, coach Kristina Dvorakovskaya had a much tougher job to face. Unlike the other Stuyvesant teams, table tennis is a new sport with no returning players, making it harder for Dvorakovska to decide who made the team. But as a Stuyvesant alumnus, the transition to becoming a coach at Stuyvesant was natural. “I’m really a Stuy person at heart,” Dvorakovskaya said. “I feel at home here.”

Dvorakovskaya decided to keep 18 players on her team roster, taking in a mix of underclassmen and upperclassmen. However, with a band full of rookies and the absence of a captain, the biggest question for the Peglegs was, who will lead the pack? But after their first meet against Staten Island Tech High School, those potential worries were replaced with sheer excitement, as three promising freshmen led the way for the Peglegs in a dominant 5-0 finish.

There are five matches in a table tennis meet: the first, second, and third singles matches, and the first and second doubles matches. Each match consists of five games, and whoever scores 11 points first wins the game.

The first and arguably the closest match against Staten Island Tech was freshman Karen Jin’s first singles duel. Playing in the first encounter between these two teams, both players had no idea of the style of skill of their opponents. “I wasn’t sure about how well she was going to play,” Jin said.

As a player who needs to time to warm up, Jin struggled to return the ball consistently and made some evidently careless mistakes. “I have to get really used to the game. When I start playing, I have to warm up, and I get better gradually,” Jin said.

Although Jin lost 11-9 in the first game, she maintained her focus, and slowly improved.

During the second game, Jin played with an air of confidence, hitting the ball with more power, and returning the ball more consistently, winning 11-9.

In the ensuing game, Jin’s inconsistency cost her, and after the game went to deuce, she lost and faced a do-or-die ensuring game. Jin didn’t let the match fall away from her grasp.

Through intense focus and persistency, Jin sent a message by winning the fourth game 11-2, and used her momentum to close out the match, winning

the fifth game and the match.

While the intense first single match was taking place on one table, freshman Alice Cheng faced off in the second singles match. Compared to the first singles match, however, this was an entirely different story.

From the start of game one to the end of game five, Cheng displayed quickness and impressive power in her returns, and her opponent had no answer.

“I wanted to see how well she did, and once I saw that she was mostly playing defensively, I started attacking more,” Cheng said. Cheng took all five games in a dominant fashion, securing yet another win for the Peglegs, who were now ahead 2-0.

The third singles match was similar to the second singles match, as freshman Anna Usvitsky also took down her opponent with ease. After seeing that she had the clear advantage, Usvitsky took full control of the games, displaying incredible power with her backhand.

“I decided to start playing more defensively and enjoy myself, because once you stop worrying, you have more control, and you can start smacking the ball and do anything pretty much,” Usvitsky said.

With the first, second, and third singles wins clinching the victory for the Peglegs, the first and second doubles matches were played in a much less pressuring environment. Both doubles partners for the Peglegs came out on top, winning four out of five games in both matches, and capping off a convincing start to the Peglegs’ season.

Undoubtedly, the team is full of potential, as the top three players are all freshmen. “I’m super excited; I think I’m more excited about next year and the years after than I am for this year,” said Dvorakovskaya, regarding the huge potential of freshmen Jin, Cheng, and Usvitsky. Despite their strong performance against Staten Island Tech, the Peglegs know that they aren’t the only team with talented players. With four more teams yet to be encountered, the Peglegs are still unsure about how they rank in their division. However, the Peglegs are prepared to face their potential opponents. “This [ambiguity] is going to be the same for every team we go against. We have to be prepared,” Cheng said.

“This [ambiguity] is going to be the same for every team we go against. We have to be prepared.”

—Alice Cheng, freshman

April 25, 2014

Page 28

The Spectator SpoRts Boys’ Tennis

Girls’ Fencing

The day before spring break, Willamsbridge Oval Park was packed with screaming children, filled with the joy of the upcoming spring break, except for one place: the tennis courts. There, the only sound that could be heard was that of the players rallying balls in anticipation of the game ahead of them between two rivals.

The Bronx Science Wolverines had defeated the Stuyvesant Smoking Aces earlier in the season. The matchup was hotly contested, as there is a long withstanding rivalry between the two schools. Last year, the Aces tied the division with the Wolverines, but this year, the Aces were trailing behind; the Wolverines entered the game 4-3, and the Aces were 4-4.

The Aces went into their game against the Wolverines on Friday, April 11, with newfound confidence, winning three of their last four games, after a shaky start to the season. Though the team was 4-4, the addition of a new player, nationally ranked junior Victor

Miglo, gave the team new hope.

“The first four losses we had, three of them we could’ve won, but we didn’t have Victor,” coach Marvin Autry said.

Miglo not only helps the team as an individual, but also helps the team as a whole. Miglo played in his freshman year and finished with a 7-2 record. After missing his sophomore season for personal reasons, he came back strong as a junior, taking the first singles position, the best on the team. The addition of Miglo allowed all the other players to move down one position and play against easier opponents.

At first, the match looked like a sweep. Miglo in first singles and junior Leonard Margolis in second singles quickly dispatched their opponents with scores of 8-0 and 8-1, respectively. The Wolverines were also missing depth in their lineup, as four of their players did not make it to the game, most notably their first singles player.

However, the game took a turn for the worse when the Aces lost both doubles matches, leaving the fate

of the game to the outcome of third singles. “They were missing four of their players, and we still had trouble against them,” Margolis said.

The third singles match was between junior Genji Noguchi, and Wolverines’ senior Gabriel Kramer Garcia. Garcia took control throughout the beginning of the match, with a 5-2 game lead, but Noguchi quickly rallied, eventually pulling the score to dead even. The match eventually went into a best of seven points tiebreaker, which Noguchi won, 7-5.

The Aces’ 3-2 win bumped them ahead of Bronx Science and into second place in the division standings. “We’re trying to land around the thirteenth seed [in the city]. That will put us in a position where we can have a shot to win it all,” Margolis said.

The win over the Wolverines marks the Aces’ third straight victory, pushing them one step closer to playoffs, and giving them momentum. And unlike the early stretch of the season, the Aces are now armed with their best weapon in Miglo.

Rosalie Campbell: #SoccerIsLife

By Erica Chio Starting college is a daunting but exciting situation in which you don’t know the people or the setting. But for senior Rosalie Campbell, she already has an entire team to fall back on at Hamilton College. As a future Continental, Campbell already has a group of peers ready to welcome her in the fall.

Campbell has been playing soccer recreationally since she was five, when her parents originally asked her if she wanted to try the sport.

“Her first game, she was playing center back, which oddly enough became her choice [of] position,” said Ed Campbell, Rosalie Campbell’s father, who also coached her first soccer team at Asphalt Green.

For Ed and Rosalie Campbell, soccer provided another topic to talk about and time to bond. “We spent a lot of time at the kitchen table, working on plays, moving the salt shakers around as players, to describe different tactics and approaches,” Ed Campbell said.

When she turned 12, Campbell was playing soccer, swimming, and fencing, and had to decide which sport she wanted to pursue. “The biggest thing about soccer was the team dynamic and that atmosphere that I really liked […] having a group of girls that you’re all working for one purpose,” Campbell said. She decided she wanted to play competitively and switched to travel teams, such as Manhattan Soccer Club and ISA NY, which required more commitment. For example, since her team practices in Long Island, which requires a three-hour commute, she makes sure to do as much work as she can in the car.

During her freshman year at Stuyvesant, Campbell made

the girls’ varsity soccer team, and it was a new experience for her. Campbell only played for one season as a Mimba, while her travel teams played year round. But being on the school team gave her a group of people she knew when she entered high school, and taught her a certain work ethic and time management.

“There’s a certain amount of work ethic that can carries over from academics, and being able to work hard in a difficult class in the same way that you have to work hard in the field. When a game isn’t necessarily going your way, but try and turn [the game] around,” Campbell said.

Time management is also crucial for her, because she has to balance school work, tournaments, and getting enough sleep. In fact, she gets her work done more efficiently during days on which she does have soccer commitments. “I know [that if I pull] an all-nighter, I’m not going to be able to play the next day,” Campbell said.

Mimbas’ coach Hugh Francis attended and nominated her for the Mayor’s Cup Game, in which the best PSAL players make a team to compete against the best Catholic and private school players.

Campbell also received support from teachers at Stuyvesant, such as Lawrence Barth and Vincent Miller, both of whom had insight on the college process. “[They] were like best buddies, help her work out, spend time with her talking about things,” Ed Campbell said.

For her, choosing Hamilton was a process because she wanted a school that would fit her academically and athletically. Wanting to play soccer enabled her to really narrow her colleges down to just Hamilton. “When it came down to it, Hamilton worked the best in that it was a relatively rigor-

ous academic institution, but at the same time would allow me to play soccer,” Campbell said. She also ensured that she would want to go to Hamilton by taking what she calls the “broken leg test.” The “broken leg test” questions if she would still like the school if she were to break her leg and lose the ability to play soccer ever again.

But the journey to receiving a Hamilton jersey was a long process. First, Campbell had to showcase her skills to the college coaches in recruitment camps or tournaments.

Since being scouted at tournaments depends on a certain degree of luck, Campbell put herself out there by attending recruitment clinics and camps. At a clinic hosted by Amherst College, Hamilton’s coach Colette Gilligan saw Campbell play for the first time.

From there, Hamilton reviewed her application and said that she was most likely going to get in. Gilligan and Campbell made an agreement a couple days before the early decision deadline that Campbell would apply to Hamilton early decision, without Gilligan’s support. If Campbell was accepted, there would be a roster spot on the team for her.

Though she isn’t sure what she wants to major in, she’s thinking about foreign policy, psychology, and communications; since Hamilton has an open curriculum, she is allowed to choose the classes that she wants to take. Campbell also said that she won’t be going professional after college, since women’s professional soccer is geared toward the division one schools, while Hamilton is a division three.

“I’m going to play throughout college. After that, I’m sure I’ll still be involved in soccer in some way,” Campbell said. “I don’t think it will be the end.”

Senior Julia Mendelsohn scores an arm touch against a player from Long Island City in the Stuyvesant Vipers’ 90-57 win in their season opener.

Boys’ Lacrosse

Eagles Soar over Crippled Peglegs

By Tahmid Khandaker The Peglegs walked onto the field against the Eagle Academy For Young Men expecting a tough match. Even though they enjoyed a close and competitive game in the opening minutes, they saw their chances of winning quickly slip away as their opponents scored a frenzy of 10 goals going into the half. They were outmatched by the undefeated Eagle Academy For Young Men, whose team boasted a league-leading 8-0 record. After all, the Peglegs lost 13-8 in their first matchup of the year, and this time proved to be no different, as they fell 15-7.

“It was a vicious game,” junior and midfielder Richard Zhou said.

The Peglegs were already injuryplagued, losing key players, such as sophomore and attacker Andrew Kratsios and sophomore and midfielder Laolu Ogunnaike. There was yet another hole in the roster after the team lost senior and midfielder Aron Lam after he became injured in the middle of the game.

The offense was working early on as senior and captain Noah Kramer and senior Matthew Dalton scored goals easily by breaking down the defense with a series of four or five passes. “Noah was exceptional as always, and Matt put some goals in,” Cheung said.

However, that offensive strength quickly dissipated as Lam, one of the few players Kramer said would have a “huge impact” due to his versatility as a midfielder and his ability to put shots up in a hurry, became injured. Though he remained in the game until the last quarter, the offense conspicuously slowed, as Lam was forced to play conservatively. His physical disadvantage forced the offense to “miss a crucial part,” Zhou said.

Capitalizing on Lam’s injury, Eagle Academy quickly targeted

the midfield and passed the ball around until they found a decent path to shoot. Utilizing this tactic, Eagle Academy scored 10 goals going into halftime.

The Peglegs came out of halftime addressing their defensive woes and attempted to solidify the goal area. “Our defense as a whole stepped up, as we only allowed a few goals,” Cheung said. The Peglegs had pep in their step as they started to intercept many of the opponent’s passes, holding Eagle Academy to only five goals.

Kramer attempted to even the score by taking more shots.

Unfortunately, this effort was too late, since the damage was already done. Still, the game against Eagle Academy proved to be a test of effort and talent, as the Peglegs put forth a strong effort by hustling for loose balls or anticipating a play on defense. “It was a good game.

I can’t say I was too disappointed because Eagle Academy is probably better than us. But it is good to know that there is a team better than you so we can work towards surpassing them,” Zhou said.

With the loss, the Peglegs are tied for second in the division with a 5-2 record, with both losses coming against first place Eagle Academy.

“We needed more threats on offense to help out Noah [Kramer] and Matt [Dalton],” Cheung said, as the game emphasized the need of another shot-taker.

Even though Kramer has scored 55 goals this season, the second highest scorer on the team, Dalton, has only scored 14 goals.

This disparity has given opposing teams the confidence to doubleteam Kramer on occasions. With five games remaining, the Peglegs have a promising schedule against opponents they have dominated before.

Jake Brimberg/ The Spectator

By Anthony Cheang

Alice Oh / The Spectator

Aces Add New Weapon, Squeak by Wolverines

Senior Noah Kramer (far right) dodges to the goal.