The C&G | Volume VIII | Issue 1 | Fall Edition

The C&G Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School 805 Mount Vernon Highway Atlanta, GA 30327 October 2019 Volume 8, Issue 1, Fall Edition

writing our

stories.

CONTENT STAFF

Editors-in-Chief Jaylee Davis Matthew Raeside

BRIEFS | 4

IMMERSION | 24

Around HIES | 4

Seven Days: Zero Waste | 24

HIES 360 | 6 Managing Editor Maggie Belenky Production Editor Maddie Poch Associate Editors Omari Foote Zak Kerr Staff Writers Parker Miles Katherine Poch

NEWS | 8

SPORTS | 26

The Reality of Virtual School | 8

Mind Games | 26

The Tik Tok Revolution | 10

Into the Huddle | 28

Adviser Danielle Elms

PEOPLE | 14 cover design; MADDIE POCH

Where Are They Now? | 14 The Faces of Uber | 18 Principal of Kindness: Meet Dr. Traylor | 22

The C&G Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School 805 Mount Vernon Highway Atlanta, GA 30327 October 2019 Volume 8, Issue 1, Fall Edition thecrimsonandgold@gmail.com

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY The C&G values inclusivity and encourages any feedback or contribution from its readers. To express any complaints, concerns, or compliments with our most recent issue, please write a letter to the editor and include your name. Email the letter to thecrimsonandgold@gmail.com, or slip the letter under the door of room STEM 603. Letters deemed appropriate by the C&G staff will be published in the following issue alongside a response from the editorial board.

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

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ometimes, our dreams push against the limits of reality. For the first few months of this year, we dreamt big, staring our challenges in the eye and refusing to back down. Despite our most courageous attempts, we are sometimes bested. The truth is, the reality of being an editor is much different than what we dreamed. It’s so much harder than what we originally expected.

As editors, there is a new sense of responsibility we now have to the C&G. We were initially blindsided by the additional work expected of us, yet we have come into our own, learning to lead a mighty staff of eight. Our roles on staff are a bit of a give and take - we each have to choose our battles, yet we are both grateful to have a partner in this endeavor. The C&G this year will be a force to be reckoned with, and we are not afraid to let that fact be known.

Now having finished the fall issue, we can better appreciate the efforts of our predecessors, Sarah Kallis, Olivia Martin, and Ethan Mullen, and would like to thank them for preparing us in unseen ways.

The job of an editor is unforgiving, yet they carried the burden of leading a staff with tenacity and grace that we still aspire to achieve.

Reality can seem bland in comparison to our greatest ambitions, but it is made sweeter with the small victories along the way. We consider this fall issue to be among these small victories, and we hope that you enjoy it just as much as we do. So we end with this: dream on.

Matthew Raeside Editor-in-Chief

Jaylee Davis Editor-in-Chief

LETTER TO THE EDITORS

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ormally, while on holiday, I set aside school work. In this case, however, I am making time to honor the talented student staff and wise faculty guidance of the C&G. The magazine deserves special attention these days because it provides the community with an increasingly valuable service. For example, Jaylee Davis’ recent article about sexual harassment on college campuses demonstrates the thorough research and genuine empathy necessary to quality journalism. The strongest reporting includes anticipation of and concern for its audience. As far as I can see, the HIES community has a thoughtful, creative, vibrant advocate in the C&G. Grateful greetings from Bergen, Norway.

Bill Brown; retired HIES English Teacher

MISSION STATEMENT The C&G staff aims to be honest, accurate and accountable as they convey news, ideas, events and opinions that are relevant to the Holy Innocents’ community, including but not limited to students, faculty, staff, parents, administrators, and prospective families. C&G aspires to publish complete and accurate coverage through journalistically responsible, ethically reported and edited content that values diversity of perspectives.

EDITORIAL POLICY The C&G is a student-run, quarterly magazine published by the Crimson and Gold journalism staff at Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School of Atlanta. All opinions expressed in this publication are those of the individual author, and do not necessarily reflect those of the entire staff or those of Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School. The magazine is written and designed as part of the journalism curriculum, and contributing writers can be included. The C&G values inclusivity and would appreciate any feedback or contribution. The staff strives to publish a diverse set of writing and perspectives while maintaining a standard of excellence. Please contact thecrimsonandgold@gmail.com for more information. The advisor and the editors have the ultimate say on content and have permission to edit contributions for grammar and taste. The staff will only publish legally protected material and keeps the privacy of individuals included in mind.

AFFILIATIONS CSPA // GSPA // JEA // NSPA

4 BRIEFS

AROUND HIES News briefs about HIES happenings

THE NEW SECURITY PLAN MAGGIE BELENKY, managing editor Starting in the fall, students will have to use security badges in order to access buildings on campus. This measure is being taken in an attempt to make the HIES campus a safer environment. “It will enable us to lock down or to lock all the buildings on campus,” Paul Barton, Head of School, said.

might misplace their cards, names and faces will not be displayed on the cards.

“We had to put electricity through doors and then also [installed] additional card reader software [with] the ability to ... [scan] cards,” Barton said.

“Obviously talking about school shootings and there’s so much in the news the last few years that all schools are looking at how to enhance security,” Barton said. “The system will allow students to move freely at the same time [while] having more secure buildings and have a better sense of access control.” ◼︎

The cards will only be issued out to Upper School and Middle School students, along with the Lower and Primary School teachers before the end of October.

In order to protect privacy and remain cognizant of the chance that students

There were many factors that prompted this decision, but the most influential factor has to do with the national increase in school shootings.

THE BEGINNING OF MIDTERM EXAMS MAGGIE BELENKY, managing editor December 2019 will bring the rebirth of the midterm exams. “Yes, midterm exams are making a return because we have so many more classes now each semester,” Upper School principal Manning Weir said.

Students will also be allowed to choose what day and what time they take their exams. “So about a week or so before, you’ll declare when you’re going to take the exam,” Weir said.

But the end of semester exams are not going to be the in traditional format.

There will be two days, December 18th and 19th, on which students will take their exams.

The reasoning behind this new change is due to the new schedule. “There was a push that now that we’ve gained some more class days knowing that there were quite a few teachers who wanted to go back to having midterms, [since] they didn’t like having to wait until the end of the year to do some sort of major assessments,” Weir said. “This plan seemed to kind of check a lot of the boxes we wanted to check.” ◼︎

“But only English, math, and science are going to give their exams,” said Weir.

This includes any AP English, math, or science classes students are currently taking.

BRIEFS 5

THE SCIENCE OF DOWNTIME KATHERINE POCH, staff writer

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ith the addition of flex and tutorial time in our 2019 Upper School schedule, it seems that the school is starting to take a closer look at the mental wellbeing of its students. Rather than jam-packing the schedules and leaving students with a staggering amount of stressful work on their plates, HIES has decided that taking breaks is beneficial. With more time to de-stress, students can begin to focus more on their mental health instead of neglecting it.

Considering that anxiety affects one third of all Americans and hospital admissions for teen suicide have doubled over the past 10 years, it is vital that HIES begin to take action to combat mental illnesses. Sometimes, the most important step to limiting stress is creating downtime during your day.

new humanities building in the near future. “We recognize this new building as an opportunity to build multiple social spaces,” HIES Headmaster Paul Barton said. Barton explained that although the STEM building had not done the best job at creating social spaces, the new humanities building will make that a top priority.

In the plans for humanities building, there will be a large lounge area dedicated to students. In this area, Barton also wants to have smaller bump-outs or nooks, for students to converse in smaller groups. This way, students have the ability to spend time with lots of people while also creating a more private place to talk about schoolwork.

When are you most likely to have downtime during the school day?*

“We want to try to prevent this idea of having to sit on the floor where everyone’s going to climb over everybody else’s feet,” Mr. Barton explained.

FLEX TIME 13%

Fitting downtime into a busy school day is vital to maintaining good mental health. Is your downtime TUTORIAL during a 30 minute flex time break where the halls of 15% the Riley and Groesbeck are packed full of students lounging around on the floor? Is it during lunch where LUNCH you eat and talk to friends? Or do you find that the 27% most relaxing time is tutorial where you can take a break and simply study? Outside of classes, teachers may patrol through to make sure all the students are behaving as they should, but for the most part, students are completely free to socialize and move about as they please. So the question is - does this downtime really help us?

“I think downtime is crucial, especially when we’re kind of in a high intensity environment with our school especially in my senior year,” senior class president Patton Mooney said. “We’ve got a lot of pressures with college applications and these flex blocks and advisory times give our brains kind of like a default time to relax.”

There is overwhelming evidence that “unstructured play” and social time are crucial for children’s academic and mental well-being. Students who hang out with their friends during free time will be less likely to talk during class, therefore becoming more focused on the lesson. Memory is also enhanced by breaks because the brain has been allowed cognitive rest. This helps students retain material for longer periods of time. As Mooney said, our brains need time to take a break.

The current STEM and Riley buildings are not designed for social breaks, but HIES is working to fix that. The STEM building has few areas where students can work together and socialize. Generally speaking, the building is separate from floor to floor, with little connection to the classrooms. Although the Riley building has commons and lounge areas, it was also not designed for students to socialize.

As a result, the majority of students end up sitting in the hallways. HIES does not plan to let this continue for much longer, however, as there are plans to build a

FREE PERIOD/ STUDY HALL 45%

The humanities building will have a feature that Barton calls the “atrium effect.” He wants students to be able to see up three stories when they stand in the lounge area, similar to a hotel atrium. This way the building feels vertically, and not just horizontally, connected.

“What we want to see is lounges but couple that with an atrium, breakout spaces, hallways, and little nooks and crannies that are designed for social spaces where maybe you want to get together with one other student or just a teacher and not a whole lounge,” Barton said.

Also in the plans for the humanities building will be a quad or an outdoor space with benches and areas to sit where students can spend time with other students and take a few minutes to de-stress. This will serve as a social space where kids can relax with their peers.

“We feel like that’s kind of a missing link if you talk about community. You have to create spaces where community can naturally happen in large groups and small groups,” Barton said about the design work of the future building. Not only does extra downtime and social time give students a helpful mental break, but it also helps to create a strong sense of community among students.

“The first step to combating mental health with our theme of wellness last year was sort of pulling back that curtain where it’s not a bad thing to talk about things like stress, anxiety, depression, and suicide,” Barton said. When it comes to the mental health and wellbeing of students, sometimes just having a conversation about relaxing the amount of stress people feel is helpful. ◼︎

* According to the results from a September 2019 survey of 167 Upper School students

6 BRIEFS

A BOILING TRADE WAR PARKER MILES, staff writer

An overview of the effects of the US and China Trade War

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n March 2018, the U.S. and China entered a contentious trade war that resulted in President Trump imposing tariffs on Chinese imported goods. Over the past 18 months, the U.S. has imposed $300 billion on Chinese foreign imports. In retaliation, China has imposed another $185 billion on U.S. imported goods.

According to former U.S. Secretary Lawrence Summers’ August 2019 tweet, “We may well be at the most dangerous financial moment since the 2009 financial crisis…” He is one of many economists predicting an recession in the near future should trade tensions between both countries continue to rise. Similarly, Morgan Stanley equity strategist Michael Wilson was quoted in a September Fox Business article as saying, “the increase of tariffs on the $300 billion of Chinese imports will likely end up hitting consumer goods directly which could lead to some demand destruction, particularly for low end shoppers who are more price sensitive.”

As the trade war has continued to boil, president Trump imposed another $50 billion on over 1,300 goods such as airplanes and cars and in return, China has instituted tariffs on 128 highly valuable products such as beef, soybeans, and pork. Furthermore, by September 2019, about 82 percent of goods traded from China to the United States had been tariffed.

And to cap it all off, the Chinese ministry has been recorded numerous times saying that this trade

war dispute could lead to “the largest trade war in economic history to date.”

As the prices of everyday goods continue to rise, it has been rather difficult for some rural farmers to buy goods they need. Subsequently, farmers have been affected as the demand for agricultural products has decreased during the trade war. As a result, farmers aren’t able to purchase goods they need for farming such as fertilizer and seeds.

Production has decreased, perpetuating a vicious cycle for many American citizens as the trade war wages on.

E I H

To put it bluntly, the short answer is that there is no easy way out of this and easing tensions could take months or possibly years. However, the most effective manner to settle disputes is for leaders of both nations to sit down and talk.

Quoted in the South China Morning Post, Jamie Dimon, Chairman of JP Morgan Chase, stated that it is essential to “get a tradesperson to sit down, listen, make a list, get details, do it again, and resolve it.” He continued, “They laid down what they want. The American side has laid down what they want. And that’s how you start a conversation.”

At the moment, it is essential for both countries to come to some sort of a consensus in order to move forward in peace talks. The solution seems clear, but an end to the trade war seems distant. ◼︎

What is your understanding of the trade war?*

3

How do you learn about global issues?*

I fully understand

11% 44% 45% I don’t understand I somewhat understand

47%

50%

30%

33%

67%

10%

Talking with parents

Reading the news

Watching the news

In the classroom

Social media

Other

BRIEFS 7

BREXIT BROKEN DOWN KATHERINE POCH staff writer

An overview of Brexit and its effects on England and the EU

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S IE

0 6 3

deal Brexit. Some companies are worried about the consequences of Brexit and have begun to relocate company operations to other countries.

Some citizens are even beginning to fear a food and medicine shortage after a possible no-deal departure. A projection has been made that under Brexit, Britain’s economy will be four to nine percent smaller than it is now.

Overtime, Britain’s support for staying in the EU has slowly, but steadily declined. In 2013, Prime Minister of England, David Cameron, promised a national referendum on EU membership.

Cameron wanted to settle the question of England’s EU membership once and for all.

Voting took place on June 23, 2016, and 52 percent of voters supported the exit from the EU, now known as Brexit.

May promised that Brexit would end ‘free movement’ or the right of people living in Europe to work in Britain and vice versa. This has encouraged some who see immigration as a threat to jobs, but is dispiriting to others who hoped to study or work abroad. Another issue of Brexit is the question of the Irish border.

May wanted to prevent security checkpoints from going up at the border between Ireland and Britain using a method that she referred to as “backstops.”

This backstop method, however, would keep the UK in a trading relationship with Europe until a final deal could be reached. This created fear for Brexiteers that a definite border would never be formed between England and Ireland. The backstop would also bind Northern Ireland to some European laws.

Johnson has promised to negotiate a deal without the backstop.

Since the decision to leave the EU was made, Britain’s two main political parties, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, have been fighting over the best way to withdraw. The nation remains completely divided. Theresa May, Conservative Party representative, recently stepped down as Prime Minister on May 24, 2019 after failing to devise a withdrawal plan for the nation that satisfied both her party and the opposition party (the Labour Party).

Do you agree with the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union?*

33% 67%

rexit - a combination of “Britain” and “exit” - is what the news cycle has termed Britain’s planned withdrawal from the European Union (EU). The EU is a political and economic union between 28 European countries. Although Britain joined the EU in 1972, its membership has been debated as far back as 1975, only three years after it joined.

NO

Later, on July 23, 2019, Boris Johnson, a public advocate for Brexit, was chosen by the Conservative Party to succeed May. The deadline of October 31 approaches and no option has been chosen yet.

There is a possibility that Britain could leave the EU without a deal if a resolution cannot be made quickly. Many fear that this will cause catastrophic economic damage. Johnson’s decision to shorten the deadline was very controversial, and some politicians even denounced it as undemocratic.

Another possibility is abandoning Brexit completely.

At the end of August, Johnson promised they would come up with a plan before the October deadline, shortening the time that Parliament has left to debate. This increases the chances of a no-

YES

* According to the results from a September 2019 survey of 167 Upper School students

In 2017, a year after Brexit had been voted upon, Parliament set March 29, 2019 as the day that they would quit. However, after May’s plans failed to follow through, the EU pushed the date back to April 12 to give her more time. When the threat of a nodeal Brexit loomed larger, European leaders insisted on pushing the date back until October 31. On June 7, Theresa May was forced to step down as Prime Minister, saying that the lawmakers had not yet settled on a deal.

Currently, Britain is scrambling to come up with a suitable deal before the October deadline. Johnson has promised that Britain will leave the EU, with or without a deal, no matter what the consequences are. One fact that is for sure, if Britain does eventually leave the EU, Europe and the world economy as we know it will forever be changed. ◼︎

8 NEWS

VIRTUAL SCHOOL REVISITED Last year, the C&G published an article on the growth of online school, especially Georgia Cyber Academy. The release of an Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) story “Georgia’s Largest Public School Struggles to Survive,” and damning reports of the Georgia Cyber Academy’s academic performance demands a follow-up.

NEWS 9 MAGGIE BELENKY, managing editor

I

s it possible that the flexibility and low cost associated with online school might just be too good to be true? The benefits of cyber school are appealing, but are they illusory for most students?

Mike Kooi, principal of GCA, disputed the reality of the headline that the AJC ran in their Jun 27th article , “Georgia’s largest public school struggles to survive.”

With the Georgia Cyber Academy (GCA) due for accreditation renewal, these questions have resurfaced. After years of poor academic results and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars spent, 11,000 GCA students were faced with the possibility of having to find new schools.

“I don’t think that’s an accurate depiction of what’s happening at the school right now,” Kooi said, “I think we’re finally getting to a place where we can put the resources of the schools being given to things that are going to drive student achievement.”

Although the school’s problems only may have become a topic of interest recently, the GCA has actually struggled for years. Starting in 2014, the State Charter Schools Commission began evaluating the school on four categories: overall scores, academics, financials, and operations. According to the State Charter Schools Commision Standards, GCA met the mark for financials and operations. The academic performance of its students, however, is a persisting issue for the academy. Ever since State Charter Schools Commission began evaluation, GCA has received zeros on almost every academic category, resulting in a 0/100 on the academic criteria. The scores from the 2018-2019 school year have yet to be released.

The school also has failed many college and career readiness evaluations. “Georgia Cyber Academy’s College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI) scores were below the state average for the elementary, middle, and high schools, with elementary and high school scores approximately 20 points below the state average,” stated one of the reports, published in late December by the Performance Audit Division.

So the question stands: why are GCA students struggling so much?

Steps toward improvement the school has taken include adjusting their enrollment policies, meaning that they have lowered the number of students admitted to the school, therefore lowering the student-teacher ratio. The school has also implemented a stricter attendance policy.

“We have implemented some new RTI and remediation programs for the students that are behind grade level,” said Kooi. (RTI stands for Response to Intervention.) He continued, “That’s the term that is used to determine what students are struggling with and instructional methods that will help them to achieve.”

“We think that the curriculum changes that we’ve made this year are going to have an even greater impact in a year,” Kooi said.

“I think we’re finally getting to a place where we can put the resources of the schools being given to things that are going to drive student achievement.” - Mike Kooi

THE ADMINISTRATION Over the past year, GCA has separated from its parent company, K12. According to their website, K12 calls itself, “the nation’s leading provider of online curriculum and support services for grades K–12.” The school is now self-managed, and K12 is no longer involved.

THE PARENT Barbara Maddox, president of the Parent-TeacherStudent-Organization, also known as the PTSO, at GCA and mother to eighth grader Jeremiah Maddox, says that her son is thriving at GCA. Dissatisfied with their local public school, Maddox turned to GCA as a last resort.

“They were teaching us the things that I needed to know, but it wasn’t teaching him to where he was learning well or where he was reaching those milestone scores,” says Maddox. “His milestone scores were still low and were going downhill so I was like ‘let me try something different.’”

Maddox became involved with the school shortly after her son enrolled. “Education is pretty much the most important thing that I’m looking for,” said Maddox.

As far as the low test scores go, Maddox believes that the parents are equally to blame. “The school, the parents, and the students weren’t all on the same page,” said Maddox. “I’d say it was a mixture between everyone, because the kids weren’t progressing because parents weren’t encouraging the kids, and then some teachers weren’t giving their child that extra teaching they need.”

But Maddox remains optimistic for the future of the school, as long as the parents, teachers, and students are willing to pull their weight.

THE STUDENT Though the average test scores for GCA are low, that doesn’t apply to all students. Jeremiah Maddox has been at GCA for three years, and his scores have only gone up.“My first year was hard because I had so much work and I did not know how to stay caught up. But they have taught me how to be more organized. I have A’s and B’s now,” said Jeremiah. He also has made the honor roll for the past two years.

“My mama decided to send me to GCA because I was not doing so good at my other school,” said Jeremiah.

The one negative thing that Jeremiah has to say about GCA is the lack of social time. “The only thing I do not like about is that I cannot see my friends all the time and the long computer hours,” he said.

Though only in middle school, Jeremiah knows that he has a bright future ahead of him at The Georgia Cyber Academy. ◼︎

10 NEWS

TIK TOK

THE REVOLUTION JAYLEE DAVIS, co-editor-in-chief design, MATTHEW RAESIDE, co-editor-in-chief

C

NEWS 11

ringe. Addictive. Funny. Annoying.

“VSCO girls” and “eboys.” With these phrases, one thing and one thing only probably comes to mind.

Tik Tok. In a digital instant, Tik Tok has ascended from relative obscurity to social media stardom. The rate of the app’s integration into the social media market and popular culture is not unprecedented, but it is truly remarkable. According to Sensor Tower (a company that collects data for mobile apps and developers in order to help increase their downloads), in February 2019, Tik Tok reached the threshold of one billion downloads on the App Store and Google Play. For the first three months of this year, Tik Tok ranked as the third most downloaded app overall.

What makes Tik Tok different from Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat -- the seasoned platforms -- is not its popularity. Despite its meteoric growth, the app still trails far behind other social media apps and lacks a firm investor foundation.

Yet, somehow, it distinguishes itself from common fray of social media apps.

Where did Tik Tok come from? What factors have led to its sudden popularity in the United States? How is this app that seemingly came out of nowhere revolutionizing social media as we know it?

ORIGINS Unlike most popular social media platforms, Tik Tok was not created ex nihilo. It was produced by a snowball effect of failures and mergers. Tik Tok’s stepping stones for success were two other apps known as Cicada and Musical.ly -- both of which were cofounded by Chinese developers Alex Zhu and Lulu Yang.

Envisioning the power of digitally accessible education, Zhu and Yang created Cicada Education. The startup intended to use the engagement features of Twitter along with the content of massive open online courses (MOOCs). Despite their aspirations, Yang and Zhu’s dreams for Cicada died. In the process of bringing the app to the market, however, they discovered that people do not use their phones to learn, but to communicate and entertain themselves.

“Education is something a little bit against the human nature. ... It’s hard for a new startup to fight against the human nature. It’s better to follow the human nature,” Zhu said in an interview with Greylock Partners.

Unable to fight “human nature,” Zhu and Yang cut their losses with Cicada. With the last pennies from their campaign, they launched Musical.ly in July 2014.

Instead of long-form educational content, Musical.ly was designed for sharing short, fifteen-second videos that could be synced with an audiotrack -- the polar opposite of Cicada.

By 2015, Musical.ly was a chart topper. The short videos began cropping up on every edge of the internet, infiltrating the Facebook-Instagram-Snapchat trinity.

Tech companies and media analysts alike stood in awe of the first Chinese social media app to capture a significant Western audience.

This anomalous appeal of Musical.ly is best characterized by Greylock investor John Elman who said to Business Insider, “It’s the first company to be headquartered in China, designed in China, but popular in the US. Finally we’re seeing talented people who live in that ecosystem in that world and actually transcend it and build products in the US.”

BYTEDANCE MERGER Eventually, the surprising success of Musical.ly captured the attention of Chinese tech conglomerate, ByteDance.

ByteDance, founded in March 2012 by tech entrepreneur Yiming Zhang, describes itself as a “platform designed to help users explore and discover the world’s creativity … empowering everyone to be a creator from their smartphones.”

Before the merger with Musical.ly, ByteDance’s digital repository included a variety of content-aggregation and social media apps. The most recognizable of these are TopBuzz and TopVideo which featured trending news and video content, respectively.

In September 2016, ByteDance created the Chinese version of Musical.ly known as Douyin. Not long after this, ByteDance bought Musical.ly and merged it in 2017 with a new app, called Tik Tok internationally. Despite the merger, Douyin, Tik Tok’s Chinese doppelgänger, remains separate from Tik Tok because of restrictions caused by Chinese media censorship and regulations.

“MORE MACHINE THAN MAN” The signature element of Tik Tok is its aggressive integration of artificial intelligence (AI). As Kevin Rose wrote in a New York Times feature article published this March, “TikTok is more machine than man.”

On Tik Tok, no profile is needed for personalization. Content flows like a stream, sucking the viewer into a portal with no clear end in sight. Part of this is what makes Tik Tok so popular; it generates prime, low-effort consumption.

12 NEWS

TIK TOK

by the numbers

2017 launch date 500 million users worldwide

#3

ranked downloaded apps

$75 billion value of ByteDance

“You can be just a viewer and start looking at videos, and it’s already making suggestions, and then it just continues to do that,” Jay Bolter, Georgia Tech professor and Wesley Chair of New Media, said.

On other platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, AI separates -- creating factions that spread hate and negativity. Tik Tok, however, seems devoid of any real inflammatory content. Every niche, from the lip-synchers to the meme masters, share the platform with relative peace.

“It’s … at least in principle, not very political and not very controversial,” said Bolter, “It does seem to be mostly pretty benign. It’s for fun.”

Tik Tok is especially fun for teenagers, who constitute the majority of the Tik Tok user population. Out of a poll of 175 mostly 9th and 10th grade Holy Innocents’ students, about 47% reported using Tik Tok. How Tik Tok manages to attract such a young population, especially when other social media apps struggle to do so, is similarly intriguing to social media analysts. Bolter describes this as a result of its visual-centered design.

“Everyone says we live in a visual culture … Young people are particularly visually oriented and not textually oriented. This app … aims for that demographic or that supposed characteristic of young people,” Bolter said.

Ren LaForme, digital reporter for the Poynter Institute of Media Studies, suggests that Tik Tok’s young user base is the result of the novelty of the app itself. The natural diffusion of new platforms flows as expected; young people detect and catch onto trends first.

“When new, interesting things come out, it’s usually younger people who are leading the charge and … building that interest in it. Then, older people join later. Then, younger people leave because they don’t want to deal with the older people on the app,” LaForme said.

The mass of young people on the app creates what LaForme calls a “safe space for young people to do fun things and be kind of silly and not have to worry about … people giving them problems for it.”

Teenagers are certainly making the most of this “safe space,” by endlessly posting and watching Tik Toks.

Ansley Diaz, a senior at HIES, is a part of the group of Tik Tok teens. For her, Tik Tok functions mainly as a source of amusement.

“Videos on Tik Tok make me feel entertained, always,” she said, “They can spur all

“

NEWS 13

Videos on Tik Tok make me feel entertained, always.

They can spur all types of emotions, but for me it’s mostly humor. I’ll open up that app and laugh at videos for an hour and not even realize that time had passed.

- Ansley Diaz

“

types of emotions, but for me it’s mostly humor. I’ll open up that app and laugh at videos for an hour and not even realize that time had passed.”

TIK TOK IN TROUBLE

Diaz relishes in the personalization and the range of content Tik Tok is known to offer on its “For You” page, the first page that appears when you open the app.

In February 2019, Tik Tok’s young audience and AI combined to disastrous effect.

Alleging a violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the Federal Trade Commision struck ByteDance with a whopping $5.7 million fine for collecting and preserving sensitive information from children without parental consent. The fine did not impede Tik Tok’s growth, but instead introduced the freshman ByteDance to an enduring challenge that social media companies face -- the issue of balancing personalization with privacy.

“I go immediately to the “for you” page and just start scrolling. Pretty much all of the content I watch comes from there because you can see posts from famous people and just normal high schoolers like me,” Diaz said.

REMIX Tik Tok’s status as the first Chinese social media company to gain a United States audience only explains half of its revolutionary nature. According to Bolter, Tik Tok is innovating media as we know it. On Tik Tok, users are encouraged to recycle and combine multiple sources of original content to create something new. Bolter identifies this model with the concept of “remix” proposed by Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig. In his book of the same title, Remix, Lessig claims that the digital age is antiquating the way we formerly thought of original, copyrighted content.

“To me, what’s interesting is that it’s [Tik Tok’s] a part of this larger phenomenon of remix, and that has all sorts of interesting implications …You have a culture of artistry and expression [in which] we reuse materials rather than constantly having to try to create new materials,” Bolter said.

The rise of Tik Tok presents an exemplar case study for this trend, as Tik Tok is flooded with remakes, retouches, and revamps. The app’s model encourages you not to create your own music or your own challenge, but to ride the bandwagon of already popularized content.

“Our culture still treats intellectual property according to standards that don’t make a lot of sense in the digital age when everybody can remix,” Bolter said.

It’s the added feature of remix that cements Tik Tok’s place as a gamechanger and, possibly, another reason why the app is so entertaining.

“It does seem as if the remix, this remix formula, that these short videos have offered is something that’s very appealing to lots of people. By lots, I mean, hundreds of millions. So it seems like this genre of video sharing app may well continue,” Bolter said.

“It’s not uncommon for a lot of new social media tools to have a lot of big questions about privacy. It’s just part of growing pains of a new social media network,” LaForme said.

The more pressing concern is not the abuse of user data as it is with United States companies. With Tik Tok comes uniquely unnerving questions. Will Chinese companies use social media to exploit the information of United States citizens?

Will China’s infamous censorship policies clash with First Amendment rights?

The answers to these questions are yet to be determined, but they are highly anticipated.

“I think the biggest concern with Tik Tok is that it’s owned by a Chinese company. … The Chinese government is known to collect information on its citizens. And there’s some concern that with this app, it’s also collecting information about foreign citizens, people who don’t live in China, which is concerning for a lot of privacy reasons,” LaForme said, “It’s something they’ll have to address if they want to keep growing.”

Hints of Chinese censorship are already budding according to an article written

by Alex Hern of The Guardian in September. Documents leaked by Falun Gong, a religious group banned in China, seem to suggest “ByteDance, the Beijingheadquartered technology company that owns TikTok, is advancing Chinese foreign policy aims abroad through the app,” Hern reported.

Growing concern about Chinese media companies aside, nothing seems to subtract from the pure enjoyment Tik Tok stimulates. Whether it will be held back by geopolitical issues remains to be seen. But in the meantime, Tik Tok reigns supreme. And its revolutionary status stands unmatched. ◼︎

14 PEOPLE

PEOPLE 15

WHERE ARE THEY

NOW?

A look into the lives of six former HIES Valedictorians.

OMARI FOOTE, associate editor

T

hroughout high school, we will all earn an achievement that will make our day, week, or even our year -- whether its getting a good grade on the nearly impossible AP Lang essay or acing that Calculus quiz on the first try. Some will score the winning point against the number one team, others will win awards for service, but only one person, or two, will bestow the honor of being Valedictorian. The award, a centuries long tradition that began in 1772 at William & Mary, is now practiced at many schools across the country including our own.

In the HIES Upper School’s short history, 28 graduates have been named valedictorian. We have had three ties, two sets of siblings, and an average GPA of 101.52 since 2007. Catching up with this exemplary group was fitting, as we began the 60th anniversary. So, after countless emails and lots of long phone calls, there were six brave souls who were willing to share their story.

Each valedictorian has taken a different road. While they started their path to adulthood, walking the same halls, joining similar clubs, and even ending their high school experience with the same reward, all of these people have begun

their own uniquely individual lives. From musicians to doctors, each person has gone somewhere different.

But, one lesson they all unknowingly taught was that everything is temporary.

Out of the six valedictorians, not one of them remembered their valedictorian speech. Whether they graduated four years ago, or fourteen years ago, the most they could remember was a phrase. A speech they spent countless hours working on to be valedictorian, and even more on a meaningful speech for their peers. Yet, they can’t recall it. This is not to say that what you do now isn’t important. Instead, it’s to say that some things aren’t worth stressing. In fact, with a little thought, all of the valedictorians could remember their happiest moment. They could remember the location, the plot, and all that led up to the defining moment. So, while you study for quizzes, and try to ace the next rhetoric pop quiz. Or you work to make every shot you take, remember to save time for the immeasurable moments. Start horse riding, talk to that crush, seize every moment. You may not end up as valedictorian, but you can end up leaving high school with memories that are so great, they don’t fade away.

16 PEOPLE Steven Yelich ‘07

Erik Carlson ‘99

Natalie Sterrett ‘13

S

N

E

“Being valedictorian was not an option,” he said. Rather, for Yelich, it was the standard.

“When everybody around me is getting competitive, I can’t help but get competitive,” she said, “I’m like well, if this person got a 98, then I should have gotten a 99.”

However, HIES was a different place in 1999, when Carlson graduated. Riley was a new building. Dr. Swann was Mr. Swann. Mrs. Rivera was a student, not a teacher. Despite these changes over time, Carlson credits the school’s youth for his academic success.

teven Yelich was a bully to homework. He didn’t have assignments, the assignments had him. His motto towards school was “I will f--k you up,” as he said. But this behavior was expected with two elder sisters as valedictorians.

With this pressure, Yelich was consumed with academics. He can recall spending seven hours on homework a night, and his success was all centered around academic achievements. So, he only allowed for like-minded people in his social circle. Yelich’s attitude towards school often estranged him from anyone who didn’t meet his high bar.

“All the other folks, I didn’t understand their motivation.

I didn’t understand why they didn’t try in their classes.

It was just a mystery to me. I just knew I didn’t want to be like them,” he said.

This strict social criteria left Yelich with two trusty friends. While he mentioned that he can still count on those friends to this day, he also thinks that this mindset hindered him socially. In high school, Yelich often kickboxed another boy his age. Although he thinks his opponent wasn’t likely be able to solve a simple math problem, the boy always outsmarted him in the ring. Looking back, he now realizes that the boy he consistently lost to, was also smart, but in a different way.

“I didn’t understand that there were other types of intelligence,” Yelich said.

Yelich has since broadened his horizons socially but remains just as goal-driven as he was in high school.

As a musician, his goal is to get better each day at the various instruments he plays. Whether it is the band he occasionally plays for or the classes he teaches at the Atlanta Art Institute, Yelich wants to be superb in it all.

“Every single area of my life. I’m trying to improve everything but you know, I’m a person,” he said. “I make a lot of mistakes, and if I think about it too much I get depressed, so you just keep going.”

atalie Sterett, like most of us, doesn’t like to fail. While she wasn’t one to start a competition, she made sure to finish it. So, when there were whispers about who got the highest test score, or essay grade, she wanted to be at the top of the list.

Even now Sterrett guides her life with the same competitive ideals of her adolescence. In her professional life, she is an epidemiologist. However, after feelings of helplessness following the 2016 election, Sterret has recently decided to lead a nonpartisan lobbyist group on the side.

As a result of her competitive spirit, Sterrett would occasionally get frustrated with herself when she didn’t reach certain goals. Sterett can recall having this attitude from elementary school when she began horse riding, after her friends began the hobby. After begging her mother to allow her to start, she unfortunately found that the sport was not as simple as she thought.

“I actually didn’t like it at first, because I didn’t think I was really good at it … I was a little bit scared,” she said.

This seemingly insignificant hobby became a lifelong pastime for Natalie. After years of horse training, her family allowed her to travel to Boston where she competed in a national equestrian competition.

Surprisingly, Natalie believes that her happiest moment was at this competition, where she won first prize.

“My happiest moment is not related to school, at all” she said, “You feel good about a good grade, or being valedictorian, but I wasn’t really overjoyed. It was more of relief.”

rik Carlson was a star-studded student. Beyond academics, being involved in multiple activities shaped his high school experience. From basketball to student council, Carlson always had something to do.

“I think, overall, you know the great thing about the school back then and hopefully still today is that it’s a real community. ..People care about each other and they want people to do well,” he said.

Going into college, he was prepared for life’s next challenge. As a business major at Dartmouth, his plan was to work in business. With the country making rapid technological advances, he figured it was the best time to get started in the field. Although, one event completely changed that for Carlson.

While on a flight to Boston where he was interning at a hedge fund, Carlson watched a plane hit the World Trade Center, on the day that we now recognize as 9/11.

“That was a very weird time, there was a lot of uncertainty and soul searching,” he said.

Carlson’s soul searching resulted in a career change.

While he doesn’t think negatively of those who work in that field, he realized after the tragic event that he needed more. So, he went back to school and began working to be an eye doctor.

“For me, I think I needed something more tangible.

I needed to see the results of something that I was doing more visibly,” Carlson said.

Now, he resides in New York, where he strives to continue to do the tangible. As a dad, he is trying to replicate some of those experiences two decades later with his children. “Holy Innocents’ certainly affected me in ways that are very apparent to me today,” he said.

Mary Catherine Thomson ‘14

M

ary Catherine Thomson can remember nervously walking into the headmaster’s office thinking that she’d done something wrong.

Little did she know, she would receive some of the best news of her high school career. In this short meeting, she found out she would be valedictorian along with Natalie Kessler. This was a momentous achievement for Thomson, although she tried not to dwell on it during her high school experience.

“I didn’t want to go through my high school experience having that as my goal,” she said. “It would have added to my stress.”

Like many other valedictorians, Mary Catherine just wanted to do well. As a senior, she was a part of multiple clubs including, National Honor Society, The C&G, and even the basketball team. She was even voted most likely to be president by her peers.

While being president is not quite on her list of goals as her classmates envisioned, she is still onto more accomplishments. After finishing her undergrad at Davidson, she decided to attend medical school. This decision was not something she was always sure of.

As her studies always concentrated on the humanities, it took her up until her sophomore year of college to figure out her true passion was for medicine.

“I was kind of deciding between whether or not I wanted to take the medical route or the business route.”

Thomson feels that she ultimately made the decision the summer of her freshman year when she interned at the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta.

“I think that was the first time where I was like ‘Wow, she gets to play such an important significant role on her patients’ lives’ and getting to watch her interaction with them and just how thankful and gracious they were for the help that she was providing them with.”

She continued, “I think that on an emotional level it kind of struck a chord with me.”

Austin Logan ‘98

A

ustin Logan didn’t even know that he was in the running for valedictorian. What he did know was that his parents would not be able to pay for his college education, so it was a must that he worked as hard as possible to receive scholarships.

“I would definitely say I’m not the smartest guy in the world but I definitely worked really hard.” Logan said.

He admitted to spending at least four hours a day studying, including weekends. With this hard work, by the time tests and exams came, he didn’t have to cram study sessions in. It is safe to say that with his job, being a varsity wrestler, and multiple hours of studying, Logan learned how to balance activities early.

In all, it helped with the adjustment that freshmen face going into college.

“It certainly was more challenging but, it was kind of a challenge that I expected,” he said. “It was more just a continuation of the way the school had prepared us.”

With all of the skills he acquired at HIES, he began his collegiate career at University of Georgia, majoring in management information systems. His love for technology began when he was younger, and as he grew up, the opportunity for success in the technology sector grew as well.

“I was really interested in the problem solving,” he said.

Now, he oversees around 250 people for a company that implements the software for the banking industry.

Although, Logan can remember his first job out of college. He was just beginning his long career with a tech start up, but the feeling of independence was a moment he hasn’t forgotten.

“When I got my first real career associated job in consulting know that really gave me an appreciation for what my education had done for me.” He said, “For me, that was real life changing kind of moment.”

PEOPLE 17 Elizabeth York ‘04

E

lizabeth York has wanted to be apart of the big screen since before she could remember. Her interest began the day she realized that kids her age were able to act and play different characters.

From there, she started to make her own homemade movies, even with the limited technology of the early 2000s.

Like many other students, she found herself trying to balance between dreams and practical ideas. While she had this passion for film, she also constantly found herself in a science classroom.

York balanced these polar opposites all the way through college. While she majored in computer science, she chose also to minor in film. She figured that with a degree in computer science, she would have something firm to fall back on if film did not work.

Being that these were two difficult studies, her mindset changed a lot while she was in college. Although she was still very driven, she did not put as much pressure on herself to succeed.

“As long as you’re putting your best foot forward, doing what you can do. Because there’s so many things that are just out of your control,” she said.

This mindset aided her when it came time for York to take a leap of faith and move to Los Angeles without a job.

“The entertainment industry is different than most industries in that you kind of just need to be in LA,” she said.

So she moved. Despite not having a set plan, she knew where she wanted to go. So, she worked extremely hard to get in her foot in the door, and hasn’t stopped since.

First, she worked as an assistant to a feature travel agent. Then, she worked herself up to coordinator, at Sony for six years which led to her current position as a TV development executive. Her current company, Original Film, has produced movies like 21 Jump Street.

“My goal is to help create content that has a positive impact,” she said, speaking about her future plans. ◼︎

18 PEOPLE

UBER MATTHEW RAESIDE, co-editor-in-chief

THE FACES OF

We’ve all done it: mindlessly hop into an Uber, plug in headphones, and exchange only a polite “Hello” and “Thank you” as we enter and exit the back row of an Uber. Instead, I jumped into the passenger seat of three Ubers and asked the drivers about themselves as we took a small twenty minute loop within Atlanta. Here are their stories.

PEOPLE 19

R

WAIMEN WAN, 36, HOPEFUL

I

t is 1:06 p.m. when a 2014 TSX Acura pulls up to the front entrance of the STEM building – engine idling, driver waiting. The driver introduces himself as Wai Men Wan, and he watches uncomfortably as I drop myself into the front seat – he is used to his passengers occupying the back two seats. Inputted in his Google Maps is our route – a quick drive down Mount Vernon to the friendly neighborhood Publix and back. As we travel this course and settle into a conversation, Wan slowly warms up and the discomfort dissipates.

Wan gives a brief introduction – he says that he is thirtysix years old and that his parents emigrated from Hong Kong before he was born. He often spends twenty hours a week driving with Uber, and during those hours, Wan chauffeurs passengers across the Atlanta area. “Most people are pretty chatty, so I find out about them, and they ask questions about me. I generally don’t strike conversations unless they initiate it. Sometimes people will come in with their headphones on and listen to their own music, and those are the people that want to be left alone and just want to get where they are going.”

He chuckles, “maybe they’re just getting off of work and don’t want to deal with people.”

Either eight or nine months ago – he’s not quite sure – Wan moved to Atlanta with a friend from Philadelphia.

His friend is employed as an accountant, but Wan is still looking for a steady job. “I didn’t drive for Uber until I came out here because I had difficulty finding something more permanent. [Driving] was supposed to be temporary, but I’ve been doing it for a while now. I really only drive twenty hours a week so the rest of the time, I’m looking for a job or lounging around and being unemployed.”

MATTHEW RAESIDE/ co-editor-in-chief

With a degree in hospitality from Penn State, Wan worked various jobs in the hospitality industry for nearly ten years. Disliking the long hours and “drama” involved with working late nights and dealing with difficult people, Wan escaped to Atlanta to receive a certificate in IT repair. “I’m trying to break into the IT world, but it’s kind of difficult when you’re in a new city without knowing anyone,” he confessed. And although Uber is hospitality-adjacent, “the people you drive compared to those in the food service are easier to deal with, because if I don’t like a passenger, I can just tell them to get out.”

Wan quickly clarifies, “Which has not happened ever!”

His passion for IT repair and computer hardware sprouted from his childhood. “I grew up with computers – I was always pretty good at fixing them,” Wan said. “I’ve built my own computers, and I thought I’d do something with that, but it hasn’t really panned out for me.” He sighed, “I’ve just been in the hospitality industry forever – I just stuck with it and got a degree in it because [hospitality] was what I knew, yet I kind of wish I hadn’t.”

Sitting in the Publix fire lane, waiting to figure how to loop back to school, Wan comments, “I didn’t see myself in Atlanta two years ago. [In the future,] I don’t see myself driving with Uber, but I don’t know…” He trails off. “I mean for the time being, it’s okay. This is a very transient city – no one in Atlanta is from Atlanta...”

Wan, the Uber driver from Philadelphia, stuck in this “transient” and diverse city without a more permanent job, drops me off back in front of the school, and he drives off.

UBER 20 PEOPLE

A

new day arrives, and a second Uber pulls up – the driver is seated in a red Toyota Camry with a cracked front windshield. He introduces himself as Fiseha Zeleke, and he speaks with a scratchy Ethiopian accent. In his 30s, Zeleke moved from Addis Ababa to live with a relative in Texas, and shortly thereafter moved to Atlanta, where he has resided for over 25 years.

Zeleke moved to the United States during the Derg rule of Ethiopia, when the Workers’ Party had control of the Ethiopian government.

“There was nothing to do there. Unless you were a member of the [Communist] party, you got nothing,” Zeleke said. “Back then, if you didn’t follow the rules, they put you in jail. I’ve been to jail twice.

Once, I didn’t show up for ‘orientation’. The next day, they took me to jail. In ‘orientation’, you learn about the communist manifesto – they teach you about how the communist system works,” Zeleke said. “The second time, I read something posted on a telephone pole. Me and my friend were just passing by, and we stopped and started reading [the posted sign]. The police came by, and well…”

He continued, saying “when I was younger, we had Emperor Haile Selassie, and that was a good time. Our life was much better than under the communist government. I was in elementary school when [the Derg] overthrew him. When [the Derg] came into power, everything was stagnant. No one was moving and everyone was starving. Freedom is hard to explain until you lose it. When the Communist party first came to the country, we thought everything was going to be okay.” He laughed, “[They said] everyone will be equal, yet everyone was poor.”

After moving to Atlanta, Zeleke worked multiple minimum-wage jobs to make ends meet. It was no easy transition for him – even after 25 years, he still is adapting and learning how to thrive in the United States. “Life is better here, but when you imagine America before you get here, you believe life is much easier than it is. I

MATTHEW RAESIDE/ co-editor-in-chief

thought that life was easy, and that money came easily to you,” he said. “The perception you have of America – it’s what you see in the movies, and that is an idealistic perception.”

R

FISEHA ZELEKE, 59, SETTLED

“When I was a child, there were some athletes who left Ethiopia to compete – Ethiopia, you know, has a lot of runners. When they came home, they used to tell us stories about their experiences [in foreign countries]. [One athlete] said that in a country he went to, milk came from a pipe. [Ethiopia] was so far behind that I didn’t know what he meant. We thought every home would have a pipe that when opened, you would get milk.”

Zeleke ran a convenience store in Atlanta where he worked for over 16 years with his wife, Mulu, who he met at an Ethiopian soccer tournament. Tired of the overbearing work of running a convenience store, he decided to sell his business and start driving for Uber, which he has done for nearly three years. “It was time to get out. It was hard work, [spending] seven days a week at the convenience store. It wasn’t easy,” Zeleke said. Instead, “[driving with Uber], you have no boss. Your customers are your boss – that’s it.”

With the flexibility in hours that Uber provides, Zeleke and his wife now have time to walk around in parks, get coffee, chat – “do nothing that exciting,” he said. This December will be his first time going back to Ethiopia and will be the first time he has seen some of his family members for over two decades. He sighs, “I don’t know what to expect…”

After arriving back in front of the school, Zeleke added, “in America you are free, and if you are bright, you can make a good life out of it. If you are average like me, you can still make a good life for yourself. America has been good to me and my wife.” Zeleke – a native of Ethiopia who made it work in Atlanta – then drove off.

R WHITNEY SPENCER, 33, VIVACIOUS

A

final Uber arrives to take me on a final interview – the car is a small Ford Fiesta with a stick shift, window cleaner bottles littering the floor of the front passenger seat. My driver, who speaks with a slight Southern accent, is Whitney Spencer, a 33 year old single mother from Detroit.

Sporting a pair of black slippers, Spencer tells me that today is her day off, and she started the morning with an iced Starbucks coffee.

PEOPLE 21

MATTHEW RAESIDE/ co-editor-in-chief

program focused around the mother of the home, and we have a third program, 4-H youth development, that is geared toward children.”

When Spencer has time off from her job in the extensions department, such as on Sundays or until she has to pick up her daughter from school, she drives with Uber. “[Driving] helps me get little pieces here and there,” she said. “On the road, I don’t usually communicate. I just turn on the music and take people where they need to go.”

UB

Spencer lived in South Korea for a year during her early college years, working as a contractor for the military. “It was fun, it was the best time of my life. I wanted to go as far away as I could,” she said. “It was definitely a culture shock – it was my first time on a plane, and I was the only black girl. Yet the culture embraced me and I loved it.” She pauses as the car approaches a fork in the road. She turns right, and too late Spencer realizes, “Am I going the right way? I don’t think I am... We’re just going to ride – it feels like a field trip anyways. This is cool, that’s fine. It’s a neat experience and I live for experiences.”

Back on track, Spencer adds, “I basically worked with the military kids that were on the [military] base in South Korea. I was a Director of Counsellors who set up programs and after-school programs for the kids that were more centered on education and care to military families.” Continuing her job as a contractor for the military, she later traveled to Germany. “I didn’t really care for Germany as much as I cared for Korea, but on weekends and on your time off, you could take the Eurorail and go anywhere, so I was able to travel to 18 different countries during my time in Germany.”

“If people don’t want to talk well... When I take an Uber, unless I start chatting, I don’t know.... I’m a people person but I’m not going to initiate the conversation unless there’s something that needs to be said,” she laughs, “I let people do their thing… If you attack me, it’s probably going to be a problem. So I just let [passengers] do their thing.”

Deciding to avoid further confusion on our drive, we turn around to head back to school and exit the labyrinth that is the Atlanta suburbs. Spencer begins to talk about her four-year-old daughter, Sunny. “My daughter – she’s hilarious – and I know where she gets it from. She is the most important person to me.” Growing to be a global citizen like her mother, Sunny attends a language immersion school on the South side where she is learning how to speak both Japanese and Spanish.

As our drive gets progressively further off track, our car skirts through tight one-lane roads that traverse the Atlanta suburbs. “We’re just all up in here!”

Spencer said. In the middle of her train of thought, Spencer whips her head around to look at the passing houses. “Ooh… I love… I like to look at houses. That house is gorgeous,” she said. “Where am I? What street am I on?”

Eventually, Spencer hopes to leave her job in the extensions department and travel. “It’s just a job. It’s something totally not what I was expecting to do. In a few years, hopefully I could quit my job and travel with my child, or start some type of online business. Ultimately, I don’t want to work for anyone,” Spencer said. “I would really travel anywhere, but I want to touch at least a couple of different continents. Without the city life, I would be okay. People say ‘unplug’ – I would do that, but I don’t know if my daughter would like that.”

Although spending years abroad, Whitney found herself back in Atlanta, working as an age specialist in the Dekalb county extensions department. “Everytime I leave Atlanta, I always come back. It’s my second home, where my mother lives,” Spencer said. Tapping her fingernails on the plastic dashboard, she continued, “[The extensions department] is basically centered around community. There are three different program areas, and one program is based around agriculture and natural resources in rural areas. We have a family and consumer sciences

As we part ways in front of school, I ask who inspires her. “Who inspires me…”

Spencer said. “Hmm… I guess myself. I don’t know. Because I just do. I’m a spontaneous type of person. Like my dad says ‘I just do what I want.’ I do. I don’t let other people’s opinions or perceptions or anything hold me down or get to me. I want what I think is best for me. So me.” Spencer, a single mother hoping to travel the world again, kicks her car into gear, makes an awkward circle out of the drive, and prepares to pick up her next passenger. ◼︎

22 PEOPLE

THE PRINCIPAL OF KINDNESS:

MEET DR. TRAYLOR

The impeccably dressed opera singer working to enhance the middle school experience one interaction at a time.

ZAK KERR, associate editor

D

ressed in a spruce red suit with a matching bow-tie and an infectious smile, Dr. Nigel Traylor, the new HIES Middle School principal popped out from behind the Middle School Administrative Suite eager to begin our interview. As we walked to his office, a neat and meticulously organized space, illuminated by natural light, I could not help but take note of Dr. Traylor’s tremendous energy; it was as though I were conversing with the Energizer Bunny himself.

Aside from his many degrees, including a doctorate in educational leadership, Dr. Traylor possesses an innate talent for the musical arts which he studied on a full-ride scholarship at Clayton State University.

Energetic indeed. “[Dr. Traylor] is out and about and in the classrooms all the time. He even goes out during recess and plays four-square with the kids,” recounted Karen Anderson, the Middle School Administrative Assistant.

After much conversation about our mutual love for opera, Dr. Traylor recalled how he discovered his “God given talent” for singing. It was at Clayton State University that Dr. Traylor vividly recalls having starred in the Opera by Menotti, “The Old Maid and the Thief.”

After the Opera, Dr. Traylor noted how, “[Opera] was something that just connected with my soul and spirit.” Inspired and enamored, he began studying the work of Puccini, Mozart, and all of the Italian operas and Arias.

As Dr. Traylor and I sat down in the surprisingly comfortable chairs surrounding his office coffee table, he carefully rearranged the feng shui of the fruit and mints on his table as though he were a computer scientist soldering the circuitry on a computer chip. A plethora of diplomas and other academic accolades hung behind his desk; indicative of an extensive academic journey.

“I remember having a very small, forty-nine keykeyboard. It was a Casio, and I just taught myself how to play the piano. I would stay up all hours of the night, in my room, playing the piano; when I played Moonlight Sonata for my parents on this 49 Casio, they were like, ‘we’ve gotta get you a piano.’ They got me a piano and the rest is history.” he said.

Born in Fort Benning, Georgia, Dr. Traylor had loving, yet, tough parents. His father served in the military, worked in law enforcement, and later became the

president of a school board while his mother was an early childhood educator.

When discussing his parents, Dr. Traylor lit up as he immediately recalled when his father would ask him, “Did anybody tell you that they love you today?” if Dr. Traylor had responded no, his father would say, “I love you and now go and tell your mother you love her.” At the same time, Dr. Traylor recalls his father “running a tight ship” and pushing him to excel in his academics.

Dr. Traylor had a simple and joyous childhood. He recalls his favorite memory from childhood being shortly after he moved to Fort Stewart, “I met this friend, Jason, and I can remember he was my best friend. We would sit on the front porch of my parents’ house where we would eat these Mickey Mouse ice cream pops without a care in the world. It was utter bliss.”

While Dr. Traylor has a brilliant mind and the matching sophistication, he also possesses a deeply empathetic soul; his heart exudes positivity and compassion with every beat. “Fun-loving, fair, respectful, kind, and genuine” are just a few of the many words used by his colleagues to describe his personality. Perhaps, this is

what makes education such a perfect fit for him.

In all sincerity, Dr. Traylor said he would look to see that he was, “having a good quality of life. That means being healthy, being around my friends, and family; people that love me while being able to give back in ways that will help people less fortunate than me. I want to just be living a life as a good human being and be a good person to people. I don’t necessarily care about fame and riches and positions. Rather, I want to see myself doing well and doing well by people.”

According to the Associate Head of School, Steven Turner, who was one of the chief parties responsible for the hiring of Dr. Traylor, HIES had a total of 25 initial applicants which was narrowed down to the four candidates that were brought on campus for finalists’ interviews which entailed meeting with students.

“Dr. Taylor had lunch with a group of sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students...there wasn’t a negative survey that we got back on the man!” Turner proudly touted.

Middle School students feel as though they can always go to Dr. Traylor as they find him “approachable.” At the same time, they

became a music teacher a path that he continued for a number of years.

“Every head of school that I worked for said, ‘you’ve got something more.’ So, they would give me responsibilities over curriculum, testing, and student programming.” As a result, Dr. Traylor decided to take the next big leap in his educational career by earning his Doctorate in Educational Leadership and Organization. “I got my doctorate and I was like: okay, I think I can effect change on a larger scale. So why don’t I look at some administrative opportunities?”

At his previous school, a Catholic high school of approximately 900 students in the Maryland area, Dr.

PEOPLE 23 “I was and I kind of have always been sort of a reserved and introverted person,” Dr. Traylor stated after a short yet powerful pause. “I was a very quiet kid, but I was also kind of squirrely too. I know that’s kind of like an oxymoron a little bit!”

After a shared laugh, he continued in an earnest tone.

“It was a rough time for me, I was sort of all over the place. But, what I do remember is that I had a good teacher and people around me. I will never forget my seventh-grade social studies teacher, Ms. Sobel, who is still a teacher in DeKalb County, saying to me: ‘You know, you’re going to be something one day and as long as you continue to do the right thing and remain focused and always be kind and honest, the truth will always prevail.

The sky will be the limit for you.’”

He wants the same experience for students at HIES. “I want teachers to be teaching in a way where students are so engaged and having so much fun that they don’t even realize that they’re learning. That’s why I’m a huge

proponent of experiential learning.

It takes learning beyond the four walls and it allows students to have Dr. Traylor gazes out of his office window onto the Middle School carpool a hands-on real-world experience. circle.

So, what was it that led Dr. Traylor to giving And so, all of that is what I would up a promising career in music for a career in hope that people would look back education?

Traylor initially assumed the role of Assistant Principal on and say, ‘you know, Dr. Nigel Traylor did that.’” of Academics but was shortly thereafter promoted to Before answering this question, our interview was the office of the Principal.

There are many people in the world who talk about temporarily interrupted by the excruciating Atlanta heat; Dr. Traylor stood up and lowered the sun shade to While Dr. Traylor regards his experience up north as being a good person and few that actively are good cover the large, panoramic window in his office. With a wonderful one, he felt an urge to return back to his people - on a consistent basis. Not only has Dr. Traylor been a good person to others, he has also devoted his the heat subdued, we continued our conversation. family in Atlanta, Georgia, where he found HIES. entire educational career to creating an environment After having completed his Master’s and applying to “After wanting to be back home and wanting to have that fosters the development of good people. several colleges and universities to earn his Doctorate a different experience and grade level, it brought me of Musical Arts, Dr. Traylor recalls having felt “fear to Holy Innocents’. When I saw the position open, there “I would hope that my legacy would be that we are coupled with the idea of being a starving musician” was just everything about the mission and everything always imparting knowledge and changing lives for that dissuaded him from continuing his professional about what I saw on the web site that resonated with these students.” He continued, “The grades are fine, and all this other stuff is fine. But are we creating career in music. me. After talking to Mr. Turner and Mr. Barton, I was good human beings? That’s really what I care about. I like, I think this is the place that my hands have been want people to know that Nigel cares about cultivating “I didn’t take the risk and I won’t say that I regret it called to; this is an incredible school” said Dr. Traylor. and building students that are nice and that are kind because I love exactly the place that I’m at now.” he said. Furthermore, education appealed to Dr. Traylor With the startling sound of the obnoxiously loud bell in to people.” ◼︎ given he, “could have the best of both worlds” as he Dr. Traylor’s office, we began discussing middle school: could pursue his passion for music while being able popularly regarded as a time not too many look fondly to “impart knowledge and change lives.” So, Dr. Traylor upon; Dr. Traylor agrees. maintain a great deal of “respect” for him as their Principal.

24 .IMMERSION

seven days:

zero WastE

I created the bare minimum amount of waste for a week.

Here’s how it went.

MADDIE POCH, production editor

A

Banjo bar melts in its wrapper atop a table in the dining hall. Sticky and delicious moments ago, the ice cream novelty now softens among the noodles, napkins, and sauces strewn about the Dining Hall.

Most days, I pretend not to notice the mess that remains after a hearty lunch. Today, the crumbs are my responsibility. Dr. Kreinheder, my advisor, selected this day to begin our week of lunch duty.

As someone raised to clean up after themselves, I typically find lunch duty annoying on the best days and humiliating on the worst ones. This week, I only felt numb with secondhand embarrassment. Lunch duty coincided with my zero waste immersion.

While I attempted to live a week creating the bare minimum amount of trash, the excess of wrappers, napkins, and crumbs mocked me. Students I eat next to in my cafeteria are so detached from their waste, they cannot be bothered to pick it up, much less can they consider the lasting impact of their trash.

Many Americans are similarly dissociated from their trash, and the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the average American produces just shy of four and a half pounds of municipal solid waste, or trash, daily. A growing number of environmentally conscious individuals are striving to eliminate their contributions to this ample average. Those who lead a zero waste lifestyle have taken drastic efforts to reduce their consumption and give back to the environment, such as composting, eating and drinking from reusable containers, and grocery shopping primarily at farmers’ markets to avoid plastic packaging.

For one week, I challenged myself to adhere as closely as possible to the practices of a zero waste lifestyle. In order to live wholly without “waste,” I could not breathe, eat,

shower, drive, use electricity, or perform the abundance of tasks and bodily functions that result in wasted energy and matter. While these byproducts are significant in both their size and consequence, I focused exclusively on eliminating my personal amount of trash. Any trash that I could not avoid creating, I put in a mason jar.

Recyclable products, such as plastic water bottles, also had to go in my mason jar.

The majority of recyclable waste is not actually recycled because the type of plastic cannot be recycled, the plastic has been improperly cleaned, or the plastic is thrown away or lost.

“Around 10 percent [of plastic] is recycled,” AP Environmental Science teacher Mr. Fernando Notario said. “Most of it is just lost in the process, transformed into other stuff, and never recycled.”

During the week, I drove, used the restroom, showered, brushed my teeth, and used electricity as usual. Though I continued these practices, I found my trashless week demanding nonetheless. An empty mason jar in hand, I was ready to begin the week without waste.

Day 1 A Labor Day without school was the perfect extension of my weekend, and I felt prepared to start my wasteless week from the comfort of my own home. As I went about my daily routine, I had time to anticipate any complications in creating waste.

Though I managed to finish the day without creating any trash, my first wasteless day was full of rude awakenings. Most unfortunately, I realized I could not wear contact lenses for the week’s duration. Each contact is packaged individually in a plastic container with solution, and I dispose of my contacts on a daily basis. For the entirety

IMMERSION 25 of the week, I was brought back to my bespectacled days in third grade, and this was most bothersome when I ran in Atlanta’s hottest September in nearly 80 years.

Because of the company we had hosted the day before, I was fortunate to have plenty of leftovers to eat from reusable containers already in my fridge. With the full day to myself, I also shopped for a few products that would make the rest of the week easier. My mom had always wanted to start composting in our own home, so we went to Lowe’s to find a bin to use. An employee informed us that they had stopped carrying compost bins in the store, but we did have the option to order one online. Because the delivery process would involve packing, thus creating more waste, we opted to set up a container for our family to use for this week until we were able to get or make our own bin.

To purchase foods not covered in packaging, I went to Sevananda Natural Foods Market, a locally-sourced grocery store. I was able to make a completely wastefree purchase here since the food I bought had no labels and I carried my purchase in reusable bags.

Day 2 My second day of living without waste was my first day back at school. By then, I had my morning routine finetuned. After having a smoothie for breakfast, I rushed out of the house to get to school by 7:00 for a group PSAT tutoring session. These morning sessions drained my brain before I started my first class of the day, and I made my first mistake of the week in a groggy daze when I dried my hands with a paper towel in the restroom. For the rest of the week, I could only use the bathrooms in the Riley Building because those are the only bathrooms in school that have air dryers as an alternative to paper towels.

Since I had a meeting during lunch, I had to bring my own meal in Tupperware to avoid wasting plastic silverware and containers. With my refrigerator at home still stocked with salads and fruits from the weekend, I was able to put together a salad with ease.

An apple, my favorite food, was naturally a part of my lunch, and I saved the core to compost at my house.

As lunch ended, I realized with annoyance that I had to add another piece of waste to my mason jar of trash since my wasteless week coincided with my advisory’s lunch duty. Though I did not count the garbage left on the tables and floors as my own waste, I wore a pair of disposable gloves to pick up the trash, and these gloves took up an alarming amount of space in my mason jar.

To reduce my waste for the remainder of the week, I planned on bringing in my own pair of reusable gloves.

Day 3 After a couple of mistakes yesterday, I took extra precautions to make sure I didn’t have to add any more trash to my mason jar. For lunch duty, I wore my bright

orange reusable rubber gloves to shield my hands from germs as I threw trash away.

The bright orange gloves sparked questions, as did my glasses, and I answered them fully. Yes, I am still showering and using toilet paper. Yes, I will run wearing glasses unless our cross country practice gets cancelled because of the heat index. No, I will not count this napkin you just used and handed to me as part of my own waste.

Three of my friends joined me in my attempt to live without waste, and they realized that, with some attention, it wasn’t so difficult to approach a zero waste lifestyle.

When I got home, I had a lighter load of homework, so I meal-prepped a salad with ingredients I purchased from Sevananda prior to the week’s start. I also received a package with my name on it, a thoughtless addition to my cart on Amazon. Because of the cardboard packaging, I opted to wait until the week’s end to find out the contents of my mystery delivery.

Day 4

By Thursday, I had figured out a few strategies to make it easiest to avoid waste in the high school. The water fountains in the STEM Building are designed to refill water bottles and are perfect to fill up a reusable cup. At this point in the week, my biggest challenge in avoiding waste would occur if I caught the cold spreading rapidly around school and had to use tissues. For lunch, I was already bringing reusable cloth napkins to use in place of paper napkins, and I did not have much room left in my bag to hold a handkerchief. Though I question the benefits of dietary supplements, I took extra vitamin C to support my immune system, and I stayed healthy for the remainder of the week.

Day 5 Today was another early morning at school, this time for cross country practice. Because of the scorching afternoon temperatures, I don’t mind running in the cooler morning breeze. This morning, my main concern was that I packed myself breakfast in Tupperware to eat after my run. Today was my advisory’s last day of lunch duty, and I couldn’t be more excited to put away my reusable rubber gloves for the rest of the week. I was waste-free until I went shopping later that day. I only bought a couple items, so I didn’t ask for a bag, but I still got a receipt for my payment that had to go in my mason jar.

Day 6 As the week drew to a close, I struggled to finish my immersion without waste. I had a cross country meet in Cartersville, and the race presented plenty of obstacles to reducing my waste. Because of the searing September heat, I opted not to wear glasses during my race for cross country. A plastic container for each of my contact lenses went into my mason jar.

The race itself was grueling. Though called the Run at the Rock, I found the incline to be closer to that of a mountain. Though my race was early, the heat was oppressive by the time my race started. A helpful volunteer offered me a cup of water, and I was in no state to refuse it. I added the plastic cup and a bib I wore to time my race to my mason jar later that day.

Day 7 The end of my zero waste week had finally arrived, and I wanted to finish on a successful note. I celebrated my friend’s birthday at a restaurant, and I carefully minded my waste to avoid making any contributions to my mason jar. Though I made sure to bring my friend a gift, I did not wrap her gift to avoid unnecessary waste.

Because Taverna provided cloth napkins and reusable silverware, it was surprisingly easy to eat without creating waste. Already planning the packaged food I would eat in the morning, I went to bed and finished my week almost without waste having learned about myself and the effect of my life.

AFTERMATH Though I was able to fit the entirety of my trash in a mason jar this week, severely reducing personal trash is not a permanent solution to our problem with waste.

Creating waste is ingrained into our lifestyle, and being conscious of unnecessary paper and plastic products we use throughout the day is an important initial step in reducing our negative impact on the environment.

However, physical waste products account for only a modest portion of our total waste. Transportation, agriculture, and manufacturing result in massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, but we remain even further detached from their role in the creation of these emissions.

Awareness of waste matters more than avoiding it entirely. In the days following my immersion, I opted to use less disposables because I recognized these products’ performance. Incremental changes in a larger population will be more impactful than one individual making every effort to avoid waste entirely.

My friends who participated in my immersion taught me that community goals are the best way to affect change. Collectively, our school community and our local communities should raise awareness and aim to reduce our waste in an attainable fashion. ◼︎

Compost at home!

As more individuals seek to reduce their waste, companies, such as CompostNow, compost organic waste for customers. For $29 per month, families receive one composting bin to be swapped on weekly basis. Leslie Causey, HIES parent, uses CompostNow as a way to minimize her waste and give back to the community. “My current plan is to donate this soil to farming communities in the local area,” Causey said.

26 SPORTS

MIND Games

How HIES athletes prepare their most powerful muscle for peak performance MADDIE POCH, production editor

Freshman Reese Martin, a runner on the Varsity Girls’ Cross Country team, credits mental preparedness to her success this season. MADDIE POCH, production editor

G

RIT. BEAR DOWN. NO PAIN. Every team that competes for HIES is expected to train hard, work hard, and fight hard. Varsity and junior varsity teams alike spend hours honing their craft. Lifting weights in the Wellness Center, drenched in sweat running suicides, or huddled in front of white boards committing plays to memory, every athlete devotes time, effort, and energy to better themselves for their team.

When practice ends, this effort continues. Coaches badger their players to hydrate, SAGE Dining prepares meals full of protein and carbohydrates to fuel athletes, and teams have dinners together to foster camaraderie.

Performing at the highest level demands all of the above. Teams set their sights on championship games. Individuals labor to exceed their own personal bests. Seniors, often the captains of their team, yearn for their last year in a sport to be their most successful. Bleachers fill with family, friends, strangers, and college recruitment officers.

Strengths and weaknesses are displayed for every face in the crowd to judge.

Stomachs churn, hands tremble, and breathing

quickens. The pressure is suffocating. How could it not be when so much seems to be on the line?

According to data from the C&G’s survey of 175 HIES high school students, only 50 respondents reported using mental training techniques to help them improve in a sport. HIES teams, and the players that comprise them, have high hopes, and they toil tirelessly to fine-tune every movement, every muscle, every reflex. Yet, they may neglect to train their most powerful muscle, the one capable of making or breaking performance in an instant: the brain.

From the Player Though freshman Reese Martin is one of the youngest members of the HIES girls’ varsity cross country team, she has outpaced every upperclassman in a 5K this season. Martin credits her success in part to mental preparation before each race. Many cross country races are situated well beyond Atlanta, and Martin utilizes this travel time to settle her nerves.

“To calm myself down, I listen to some music on the drive over and before the race,” Martin said.

No two cross country courses are the same, and Martin accounts for disparate racing conditions by visualizing herself competing on each unique route.

“I map out the course in my head an envision myself running it and finishing it,” Martin said.

Senior Sam Aiken, one of the HIES football team’s defensive ends, also employs visualization as part of his preparation for games. Each week, Aiken spends upwards of an hour creating a game simulation in which he stages the game’s outcome until its conclusion.

“I just play snap by snap, play by play up to like 160 plays,” Aiken said. ”If I wasn’t happy with that result, I’d try to change something, switch around a variable, and then play the whole thing out again.”

Sometimes Aiken’s simulations occur entirely in his head; other days Aiken jots them down.

Most critically, Aiken shares the findings from his simulations with his teammates.

“If I see a tendency, I’ll make sure to let people know,” Aiken said. “If we capitalize on this, if we take this

SPORTS 27 weakness of theirs, and if we exploit it, we win this ballgame.”

For Logan Jackson, HIES junior and (position) on the girls’ basketball team, mental preparedness come from a connection to her purpose.

“I push myself and play my hardest, and I know what I’m playing for,” Jackson said. “I’m playing for my team, myself, and my future. That drives me when I play.”

When Jackson is most closely connected to her purpose, she feels that the quality of her playing improves. For example, much of the basketball she plays over the summer is in front of college coaches, and this serves to highlight her purpose in playing basketball.

“I feel like I definitely played better over the summer when I’m in front of college coaches,” Jackson said. “I get the feeling that this is what I’ve been preparing for.”

From the coach With an undefeated team, Head Football Coach Todd Winter cited confidence-building as a key component of his mental training.

“Your mentality or mental preparation starts first with confidence,” Winter said.

During practices, Winter intentionally creates scenarios so his team can experience success and increase confidence. His players then carry these positive feelings into their games.

“As they become successful, I continue to challenge them,” Winter said. “When they overcome those challenges, they become stronger mentally and then confidence improves.”

Head Girls’ Basketball Coach Nichole Dixon places a similar emphasis on her team’s practices.

“We always try to make the practices harder than the games,” Dixon said. Though her players are accustomed to running short sprints with breaks during games, her players have to run a mile as part of their training, making them mentally tougher.

Mental toughness is central to success in basketball, and one aspect of mental strength Dixon emphasizes is the ability to separate a difficult day from a difficult practice.

“I’ll tell them, ‘I had a terrible day today, but I’m so excited I get to see you guys,’” Dixon said.

Compartmentalizing a sleepless night, a rough test, or an unhealthy relationship is a life skill, and Dixon encourages her team to clearing their headspace to best prepare themselves for a practice.

Through quotes and readings, Dixon also furthers her individual players’ commitment to the team goal.

“Each year we try to have quotes or books to reinforce that ... [this] is a team,” Dixon said.

From the counselor Elizabeth Carter, pre-licensed professional working out of WholeHeart Psychotherapy in Atlanta, Georgia, starts by identifying the different pressures athletes face. Competing in team and individual sports creates varying types of stress. Social, physical, and financial factors make up internal and external pressures, and Carter advises her clients to keep a thought log to evaluate the validity of their ruminations.

“Track these distorted thoughts,” Carter said. “Look at the emotion that comes with them, and then try to adapt them. Then really check the facts on them.”

When athletes are aware of their thought processes, they are better able to identify which of their negative thoughts are unrealistic. A poor mental dialogue can be detrimental to an athlete’s performance on the day of a game or match, and Carter works with her clients to help them practice correcting their defeatist attitudes well before the time of competition.

Setting goals is another critical aspect of Carter’s practice. While many athletes compete to win, Carter encourages her clients to change their focus to incremental levels of success.

“What I really focus on is creating goals that aren’t about winning or losing,” Carter said. “It’s just about enhancing your game.”

Carter considers meditation to be critical to her athletes, and she encourages her clients to mediate for ten to 20 minutes a day at a minimum. To aid with the act of meditation, Carter recommends the Calm app as a guide to help athletes focus on events at hand.

“We need to learn how to stay present,” Carter said.

“We’re here in this moment. We’re not in the past.

We’re not the future.”

A mantra is a word or sound used to aid in meditation, and Carter’s favorite mantra reflects why meditation is essential in her practice.

“One of my favorites is OHIO, ’Only handle it once.’

You can think about the game over and over and over again or the tournament or the match,” Carter said. “It’s only going to happen once. Why ruminate over it a hundred times?”

Rather than exerting mental energy focusing on the past, Carter also recommends that her clients employ visualization techniques to optimize their performance.

“Imagine your strokes,” Carter said, referring to her clients who play golf. “Imagine you know your opponents. Imagine yourself playing well.”

Carter recommends that her clients use these techniques before a game or match in order to mentally prepare for weaknesses during the competition.

“Where did you struggle in the past?” Carter asked.

“Imagine yourself actually coming through.”

Combining both physical and mental training, the body scan is another effective tool to prime the body and mind for peak performance. Also known as paired muscle relaxation, a body scan helps athletes release the tension in their bodies through each muscle group.

“Start at the head and stretch your face, stretch your eyes, and shrug your shoulders for at least five seconds,” Carter said. “Then let it out and feel that release.”

in the game In celebration of 60 years as a school, HIES hosted their Homecoming football game at Baker Field on October 4, 2019. To ensure their success, the football team planned specific strategies.

“When we play Mount Vernon, we know they’re going to throw the ball,” Aiken said.

This idea gives Aiken the “basic parts” which he includes in his simulation along with any “if parts” that Mount Vernon could come up with on game day.

After factoring in different plays and techniques, Aiken analyzes the patterns in his game simulation.

“It gets to a point that if we do these things consistently, no matter what they do, we’ll win.”

With a 49-14 win over Mount Vernon, Aiken has reason to be confident. In his last season of HIES football, he will employ these techniques in hopes of maintaining the team’s undefeated record. ◼︎

INTO THE HUDDLE 28 SPORTS

MATTHEW RAESIDE, co-editor-in-chief

MATTHEW RAESIDE/co-editor-in-chief pictured; Charlie Mallady ‘22 (left) and Joey Holliday ‘23 (right)

pictured sitting on the bench; Hall O’Neal ‘20 (left) and Hunter Hawk ‘20 (right) MATTHEW RAESIDE/co-editor-in-chief

SPORTS 29

O

n a warm Friday night in late September, the Bears’ football team defeated the number six Wesleyan Wolves 31-0 at Wesleyan. Fans of both both teams dressed in orange in support of Lex Stolle, a Wesleyan fifth-grader battling Leukemia.

HIES students flooded the visitors’ stands to cheer on the Bears’ football team following the team’s historic defeat of the Eagle’s Landing Chargers the previous Friday.

pictured; Tyquann Alexander ‘21 (left) and Marshall Nichols ‘21 (right) watch anxiously from the Bears’ sideline as the Wesleyan Wolves drive forward.

MATTHEW RAESIDE/co-editor-in-chief

30 SPORTS Running back Micheal Cox ‘20 breaks away from Wesleyan defenders to get a first-down for the Bears.

Described as a oneman bulldozer by fellow teammates, Cox scored three touchdowns against the Wesleyan Wolves on 35 carries.

MATTHEW RAESIDE/co-editor-in-chief Following Head Coach Todd Winter’s speech and a brief prayer led by Moreland Bell, the Bears break the huddle down by raising their helmets.

MATTHEW RAESIDE/co-editor-in-chief

The Bears’ student section, wearing orange in support of Lex Stolle, a Wesleyan fifth grader recently diagnosed with Leukemia, illuminated the stands at the start of the fourth quarter during the game on September 27th.

MATTHEW RAESIDE/co-editor-in-chief

SPORTS 31

A

s is tradition, Head Coach Winter said a few words after the game in a huddle of players, coachers, fans, and parents under the Friday night lights. Below is the speech he made following the Bears’ win against the Wolves.

H

"

eading into their Homecoming game on October 4th with a 5-0 record and ranked number one in the state, the Bears have already shown themselves as a force to be reckoned with throughout the region and state. Despite their success so far, the team has not taken this season for granted and continues pushing toward the state championship to prove their strength. ◼︎

F

irst off, you guys looked... You looked amazing. I’m going to be honest - I can’t lie. I’ve been in the biggest classifications, colleges, all over this great country. And I have never seen a student body this supportive. I love you guys!

Listen. The toughest thing to do in this game is to play a game like you just played last Friday against the number one team in the state, the number fourteen team in the nation. And to win that game and not have a let down the next week...

We challenged you on Sunday. We said you have to show the maturity of a champion, and that you have to put the win behind us. And that’s exactly what you did.

You were dialed in all week and you’ve executed the game plan out here.

These guys were averaging almost thirty points a game. Their quarterback has an offer from William and Mary, and you dominated on defense and on offense. We almost had the ball for the entire third quarter. Great job you guys... Great job.

Next week’s going to be a big one. Another challenger - we’ve got Mount Vernon. We’re playing them in our house, for the first time ever, on Baker field and its going to be an unbelievable environment. We’re going to be ready.

Lastly, I love the orange. The Stolle family - I can understand a little of what they’re going through. My oldest son was born with a major heart problem, and immediately he went to the NICU. He had a heart transplant when he was two months old, he was third on the list, and we didn’t think he would survive. So I understand a little of what they’re going through.

The love that you have showed... At the end of the day, we are all God’s children. We care and love one another. And that’s what these guys do and that’s what I’m seeing right now. This is a community, a family, that loves and supports one another. When a family is hurting, we come to their aid.

That is the greatest thing that I’ve seen - you guys all in orange. I know you’re praying, and I ask that you continue to pray for the Stolle family and for this young child’s health.

Let’s get fired up and let’s get ready for next week!

"

32 BRIEFS