Issue 31 - Class Day

Volume 118

The Record Horace Mann’s Weekly Newspaper Since 1903

record.horacemann.org June 7th, 2021

CLASS DAY INSIDE THIS ISSUE 8-9

Students’ endorsements for mayor

18

The pandemic’s toll on mental health

19

Lost traditions from a pandemic year

20-21

A tribute to Allen Park ‘19

23-27

Faculty farewells

30

Cover art by Rachel Zhu/Art Director

Understanding queerness in adolescence

2

THE RECORD NEWS JUNE 7TH, 2021

THIS YEAR IN HEADLINES

(September 18th)

(September 8th)

(October 9th)

(October 2nd)

(September 18th)

(October 16th)

(October 23rd)

(April 16th)

(April 16th)

(November 6th) (April 23rd)

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HORACE MANN NEWS JUNE 7TH, 2021

College admissions rates plummet for 2021 Increased applicant pools limit seniors’ options Katya Tolunsky Staff Writer “There are students who feel like ‘Gosh, I worked hard. I spent those late, late nights studying. I did not go out with my friends every Friday.

I sacrificed so much, and I’m still not going to the college I wanted to,’” Head of College Counseling Canh Oxelson said.

This year, many students had fewer acceptances and thus limited options as a result of test-optional policies and the increase in applications at many selective colleges. More students were also placed on waitlists than in previous years, and significantly fewer students were admitted from the waitlist compared to years prior.

“

only four of the 17 schools he applied to through regular decision, he said.

Although Oh is pleased with the college to which he has committed, receiving so many rejections was disheartening, he said.

Mikayla Benson (12) said many seniors were surprised about their outcomes and their friends’ outcomes this year. “There was a lot of disappointment and bitterness in my grade,” she said. “Regardless of how much you prepare yourself for your results, getting a rejection will always be painful.”

The students who were affected the most by the changes within this year’s process were those who overshot in early decision, Oxelson said. “These are the kids who took a huge leap of faith because of test optional and

“There was a lot of disappointment and bitterness in my grade. Regardless of how much you prepare yourself for your results, getting a rejection will always be painful.”

-Mikayla Benson (12)

The reduction in overall acceptances was the same for almost every independent school, as well as many other high schools, Oxelson said.

While regular decision acceptances decreased, early decision (ED) outcomes remained the same as previous years — approximately 30% of students in the grade were admitted

+ 29 waitlist offers - 24 admits

applied to a school where their GPA range did not make them competitive for admission and their testing, or lack thereof, didn’t support applying to that college.”

If students majorly overshoot with early decision, they essentially guarantee themselves a rejection or

Class of 2021 admissions results among 15 popular schools

Based on data released on April 7th from the College Counseling Department on HM Seniors who applied to the following schools: Brown, UChicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Harvard, Northwestern, Penn, Princeton, Rice, Wash U, Vanderbilt, Yale

into college through early decision.

The final data for the Class of 2021 may not demonstrate fewer students attending reach schools but rather students having fewer options, Oxelson said. “Having to go to a particular college because it’s the only place you got in, that doesn’t feel very good,” he said. “We’d rather have students own the decision, instead of having the decision made for you.”

Selective colleges saw an overwhelming increase in the number of applicants. According to the Wall Street Journal, Colgate had an 103% increase in applications this year, Columbia had a 51% increase, and Harvard had a 42% increase. The sharp increase this year is likely due to both test-optional policies and to the fact that colleges were recruiting virtually this year, which allowed for greater access to informational programs, Oxelson said. The increase in applications caused a sharp decrease in acceptance rates.

Alex Oh (12) was rejected from his ED school and was later accepted into

deferral, Oxelson said. Then, they apply regular decision, where the applicant pools are much larger. “In their defense, most of these students didn’t know that the applicant pools were going to be that big. Nobody did,” he said. Instead of having five options in a previous year, for example, a student from this year may have only had two options, Oxelson said.

Although Eli Scher (12) was rejected from his ED school, he does not regret applying there early, he said. “I had no way of knowing that acceptance rates would go down,” he said. “If I applied to a different school ED and not gotten in, then I would have always wondered if I made the wrong decision. There is just no way of predicting what’s going to happen.”

Nathan Zelizer (11) is not overly worried about the changes to the college process and outcomes, he said. “If [the] worst case scenario is that students have one or two less options, then that’s not too bad,” he said. “I think when you have a large group, those changes seem to get exacerbated, but if you look at it

individually it’s less scary.”

Two of the success factors considered by the college counseling department (CoCo) are how happy the students and families are with the support they received from the CoCo and where the students with GPAs in the middle and lower range of the class end up going to college, Oxelson said.

The CoCo sends out an anonymous survey at the end of each year for students and parents to express feelings regarding the advice they received concerning college lists,

essays, and interviews from their student’s college counselor and the CoCO in general. For the Class of 2021, Oxelson is generally pleased with the results of the anonymous survey that he has received thus far, he said.

The CoCo considers where students in the middle and lower GPA ranges end up because it is never a surprise where the students with the highest GPAs attend college, Oxelson said. “For kids with average or below average GPAs, that’s where I think as college counselors we really imagine

the value that can be added at a place like Horace Mann.”

Oxelson believes that most of the changes of this year in the college process, including the test-optional policy, will remain. “From a national landscape standpoint, the testoptional thing is a great thing,” he said. “I believe at my core that equity and access are really important in the college admissions process, and test optional has helped in that regard.”

At Horace Mann, though, testsee admissions process on pg. 4

Seniors embark on gap years * * *

Ceci Coughlin and Alex Lautin Staff Writers

At Horace Mann, only a few kids take a gap year annually, Executive Director of College Counseling Canh Oxelson said.

Some students use gap years as a time to step off of the “academic treadmill,” Oxelson said. “Taking a break between high school and college can actually lead to a better first year of college.”

Other students use their gap year to reapply to college. In some cases, colleges, such as the University of Chicago and Harvard University, ask students to be admitted for the following fall as an enrollment management technique if the incoming class is already full.

Students who use gap years as a break from academics tend to travel, pursue various internships, teach, tutor, and work, Oxelson said.

In a 2015 national survey conducted by the American Gap Association and Temple University, 92% of students took a gap year to gain life and experiences and grow personally, 85% to experience other cultures and travel, and 82% to take a break from the academic track. Half wanted to explore academic options and volunteer.

Due to the pandemic, the number of freshmen at University of Pennsylvania taking a gap year for the 2020-2021 school year increased from an average of 50 to 200 students, a 300% increase, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian.

This year, Mandy Liu (12) considered taking a gap year because of the limitations caused by the pandemic. However, Liu ultimately decided against the gap year because she misses in-person classes and wants to stay on a school campus, as she has spent the school year with her family in China, she said.

Alexander Shin (12) will be taking a gap year to take a break from academics, he said. The following year, he will attend Rice University, where he will most likely study Anthropology and Linguistics, he said. “At school, it’s very easy to get caught up in academics, going from assignment to assignment, from test to test, from year to year, and not really being able to take a step back and understand what you’re doing it for.”

During his gap year, Shin will spend three months of his gap year in China, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia for a service-learning trip. Shin also plans on attending Gastronomicom, a culinary school in Agde, France and working at a restaurant as a line cook. Shin has enjoyed cooking for his

Community Council members 2021-2022

family since he was young. His first experiences in cooking were helping his mom make dinners, and he has since progressed to cooking whole meals for his family. “I don’t know if I’m necessarily going to be going into the restaurant industry, but [cooking] is a skill I want to be able to develop,” Shin said.

Shin’s family preferred that he not take a gap year at the start of the college process, he said. The financial burden of a gap year can be a cause for concern for many families, Oxelson said. “With a gap year, you are paying for things like travel, depending on what you want to do.”

Alex Gerstenhaber (12) is taking a gap year to travel and explore his passion for photography. “I really enjoy seeing different parts of the world and meeting new people, and I thought that taking a gap year was the best opportunity for me to do that before I dive into a very competitive university and professional atmosphere.”

Gerstenhaber will travel to and take photos in parts of South America before going to Harvard University, where he will study government or computer science.

Samuel Schuur (12) is taking a gap year to work on electric motor design at Berkeley with a company called ALM Works, he said. “I’ve always been into engineering, but I’m not totally sold on it, so I think it would be kind of cool to spend a year in a more industrial setting and see if that’s for me.”

Parents and students tend to be uneasy about taking gap years — students worry that they won’t graduate college with their high school class, Oxelson said. “But when you graduate from college, you are in a work world with everybody else, not just people in your class that you went to high school with.”

In addition to cost concerns, Shin’s family was apprehensive because they wanted to make sure that he would use his time effectively during his year off.

Schuur was also hesitant to take a year off, as he was afraid he would fall behind academically. “I certainly had a stigma of gap years, at least from my Horace Mann experience,” he said. “I’ve been a little bit closed-minded about it.”

However, after completing the college application process, Schuur felt more comfortable in his decision. “I talked to some friends who were seniors last year who chose to take a gap year and they were having an awesome time with it,” he said.

Schuur’s aunt and cousins also talked to him about gap years and said they wished they had taken one because they felt they weren’t mature enough to go straight to college.

CC Chairs: Rowan Mally & Maya Nornberg Class of 2022

Class of 2023

Class of 2024

Justin Burrell Emma Colacino Destiney Green Justin Gurvitch Rowan Mally Maya Nornberg JT Thomas AJ Walker

Miller Harris Eshan Mehere Hannah Moss Ariela Shuchman Steve Yang Jake Ziman

Nate Chiang Ariella Frommer Erica Jiang Sofia Kim JoJo Mignone Jorge Orvananos

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THE RECORD NEWS JUNE 7TH, 2021

Class of 2021 graduates in person Jade Ciriello Staff Writer The Class of 2021 will have an inperson, masked graduation, which has been the administration’s goal since January of 2021, Head of Upper Division Dr. Jessica Levenstein said.

Students will sit three feet away from one another near the stage, their families will sit in their own pods facing the stage, and faculty will sit together on the side of the stage, she said. As per the spacing in the pods, students are only allowed to bring six guests due to distancing protocols. In past years, alumni parents and the Board of Trustees were on stage alongside Levenstein and Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly.

This year, however, the only people on the stage will be Dean of the Class of 2021, Dr. Susan Groppi, Kelly, and Levenstein, who will hand out the diplomas, Levenstein said.

Kelly is currently creating a list of requirements for all attendees, who also have to show proof of a vaccine or negative PCR test, Levenstein said.

The tent will be much larger than those used in past years in order to maintain social distancing protocols, Levenstein said. Given the tent’s size, it will be oriented so that the back of the stage faces Pforzheimer.

Because attendees will be distanced, there will be screens installed on the stage so those in the back can see the stage, she said. The event will also be live-streamed on the school’s Vimeo channel so that those who are unable to attend in person can still watch it.

The biggest challenge while planning graduation has been following the state-mandated rules, Levenstein said. Until a few months ago, the administration did not know whether they would be allowed to have a graduation because of state rules. As the state precautions evolve, the administration adjusts rules, such as the number of guests students can bring, Lauren Kim /Art

she said.

Unlike past years, there will be no musical performances from the chorus, orchestra, and band ensembles, Upper Division Library Department Chair Caroline Bartels said. To replace the lack of musical entertainment, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches will play on a loop before the ceremony, she said.

Seniors are grateful that they are able to have their graduation in person because it serves as recognition of the past four years of hard work, Kate Bown (12) said. “I’m excited to feel a sense of accomplishment and pride and gratitude for my experience and knowing we all made it together.”

Ari Salsberg (12) is thankful the year will end with an in-person ceremony. “There’s something that feels more genuine about it,” he said.

Ahaana Shrivastava (12) is looking forward to spending time with her friends, family, and teachers during graduation. “I really want to end my time at Horace Mann with a more impactful day,” she said. “Having an in-person graduation means getting to see all of our friends, peers, teachers, classmates, and faculty members for the last [time] on a full non-academic day, which will really make us feel like we’re ready to move on to the next step.”

Similarly, Lauren Gay (12) said she is glad her parents will be able to see her walk across the stage in-person, especially since she has attended the school since kindergarten. An online graduation would be frustrating and difficult, she said.

Since the school has limited the number of guests in attendance and required testing to take place before the event, Shrivastava is not worried about potential health risks associated with an in-person graduation.

“It will be, as this whole year has been, different,” Levenstein said.

“But my real hope is that the spirit of the day, which is a celebration of this grade, will be the same as always.”

Sam Chiang/News Editor

CONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY Stamford Tent builds tent for graduation.

Director

Courtesy of Jake Federman

One of 5,000 nationwide Familia (12) wins Cooke Scholarship

Courtesy of Ericka Familia

Nate Chiang Contributing Writer Out of 5,800 applications nationwide, Ericka Familia (12) was one of 104 students to win the 2021 Cooke College Scholarship, which grants students up to $40,000 annually for undergraduate education.

Run by the Jack Kent Cooke (JKC) Foundation, the award is given to high-achieving and promising high school seniors, according to its website. The scholarship also connects recipients with educational advising and access to a network of over 2,800 alumni and current Cooke scholars.

The JKC Foundation also has two other programs for students: the Cooke Young Scholarship for rising high schoolers and the Cooke Graduate Scholarship for rising graduate students. Familia was first named a Cooke Young Scholar when she was in seventh grade at the Bronx Global Learning Institute for Girls.

Through the Young Scholars Program, Familia was able to participate in several summer programs like the CTY Civic Leadership Institute at UC Berkeley and the CIEE Language and Culture Program in Beijing. “I spent a month living in Beijing with a host family and taking Mandarin classes, which was an amazing experience,” she said.

Familia believes she won the award because of both her dedication to her studies and her meaningful community involvement throughout high school, she said. “The Cooke Foundation’s motto is ‘Think big. Work hard.

Achieve.’ and they saw this reflected in my application and during my time as part of the Young Scholars Program.”

Currently, Familia serves as co-President of the Saturday Morning Tutoring Program and Mock Trial Team, the co-Editor In-Chief of “Folio 51,” and the coFounder and co-President of Period @ HM. Familia is highly focused and responsible when it comes to her work in class and in the community, Chair of the History Department, Dr. Daniel Link said. “She supports others and engages with ideas in the classroom and issues of importance to our community outside the classroom, whether that be centered around how we address race at this school or issues of equity around menstruation,” he said.

Inside of the classroom, Familia is a fantastic student and an excellent listener, Link said. “Her contributions in class come from both her own ideas and hearing and responding to others, so that her classmates know that, even if she disagrees with them, she respects them,” he said. “In my AP US History class during her junior year, Ericka and her partner were the first to volunteer to colead teaching a class, stepping up when the seniors in the class hesitated.”

Familia gives 110% to every class she takes, Alexis Fry (12) said. “She is an amazing person to collaborate with,” she said. “Ericka is a leader that can pave new paths and create her own movements, her own communities, and her own organizations.”

A major part of the Cooke scholarship is the family of alumni and academic advisors. The JKC Foundation also provides Cooke Scholars with internship and study abroad opportunities.

This summer, Familia is interning with FLIP National, which advocates for first-generation low-income students on college campuses. Familia plans on taking a semester abroad at some point in college since she enjoyed the summer study abroad program in China, Familia said.

“I love the community, and I am excited that I can continue on this journey with them,” Familia said. She is also looking forward to working with a college adviser because her high school adviser gave her advice on which classes to take, feedback on her college essays, and ensured that she has all the books she needs. “She has been a valuable part of my support system for the past four years,” Familia said. “I am sure that my college advisor will be just as useful for support and resources.”

Although the annual scholars weekend was moved online due to the pandemic, Familia is eager to expand her network and meet her fellow scholars, she said.

from Application process page 3 optional policies are not necessarily a positive for every student, Oxelson said. Since most Horace Mann students have the resources needed to succeed on standardized testing, the school’s students generally

“

feel like that’s been diluted a bit because there are going to be kids who are going to be considered who don’t even have testing,” he said.

For the Class of 2022, the CoCo plans on advising students

“reach schools” for those same students as a result of the lower admissions rates, he said.

Corey Brooks’ (11) college expectations prior to this year were higher than going into his senior year, he said. “There

“Most of these students didn’t know that the applicant pools were going to be that big.

Nobody did.”

-Canh Oxelson

COLLEGE EXCITEMENT Seniors show off college merch.

have very high test scores, he said. The test-optional policy means that students at the school will be competing against significantly more students, many of whom did not even submit test scores, Oxelson said.

“If you perceive your testing ability to be an advantage, you

to make more sensible choices for early decision, Oxelson said.

“You can still aspire, just don’t overshoot,” he said.

Many schools that have previously been “target schools” for some of Horace Mann’s students, such as Boston College, might actually become

are some schools that I once thought that I could probably get in, that now I’m more unsure of,” he said.

Scher would advise the incoming seniors to hope for the best, but expect the worst in the college process, he said. “I know that sounds pessimistic,

but it’s important to not have too high of expectations because you’ll just set yourself up for disappointment. Instead of expecting the best possible outcome, try to get excited about all of the schools on your list, especially any ones you’ve gotten into already.”

Piper Wallace (11) is not too concerned about the changes in the college process, she said. “It’s reassuring to know that this is an issue that’s affecting every single person at the school and not just you,” she said. “If I get screwed over by these changes, who’s to say that 50 other people didn’t also get screwed over?”

Going forward, Benson thinks that an overall goal for the school should be to emphasize that just because a school is selective does not mean it is the right school for you, she said.

HORACE MANN NEWS JUNE 7TH, 2021

P R I D E

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Natalie Sweet/Opinion Editor

Students and guests host educational workshops

Shaw (11) discusses Lavender Scare Liliana Greyf Staff Writer

Sarah Sun/Design Editor

VISIBILITY TODAY Brenner (11) discusses LGBTQ representation in films.

Last Thursday, Vice President of Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) Jacob Shaw (11) led a workshop about the Lavender Scare — the mass dismissal of queer people from their workplaces in the 1950s — and the LGBTQ community’s response. Using a slideshow of images related to the topic, Shaw provided a thorough explanation of these historical events.

Shaw began the presentation with an explanation of the Lavender Scare and the people it affected. He then discussed the response of the queer community and the resulting

Homophile movement, one of the first groups that actively pursued gay rights.

Shaw explained that while the group protested to ensure that queer people were allowed equal opportunities to jobs, they also did not do enough. They did not actually fight for the ability of queer people to exist openly and freely, only for their most basic professional rights, he said during the presentation. “It’s an issue within the larger struggle for gay rights,” he said. “It’s a very revealing view into how we got to where we are today.”

Math teacher Timothy Behan’s twelfth grade class attended the workshop, along with a handful of students who chose to come during

their free time.

Shaw’s workshop stemmed from a research paper he wrote for his Global Cold War history class over the course of this year. He has been researching and writing about the Lavender Scare since the fall, so when President of GSA Evann Penn Brown (12) asked him to conduct a workshop, he immediately knew that this would be the topic, he said.

Shaw’s presentation was important for members of the community because it was a form of education and remembrance, he said. Pride month itself is a way to remember and honor the Stonewall riots, so this presentation was a recollection of history in a similar way, he said.

Dr. Oliver Bacon presents on history and stigma surrounding STIs Mia Calzolaio Staff Writer This Thursday, Dr. Oliver Bacon, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco in the HIV division at San Francisco General Hospital, presented on the current state of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia, and syphilis. The workshop covered the history of the STI discussion, the symptoms and transmission of STIs, and national trends of each main STI. Attendees included science teacher Dr. Matthew Wallenfang’s AP Biology class.

At the start of the presentation, Bacon stated that there is both good and bad news regarding STIs in the country. “There is a new approach to HIV prevention and treatment,” he said. “It’s called universal testing and treatment, plus Prep, and there’s good evidence that it leads to a decline in cases. The bad news is, there isn’t a new approach to STI prevention and treatment yet, but one is in the works.”

During the presentation, Bacon also discussed the origins of the many names for STIs, showcased war propaganda that warned soldiers of the dangers of STIs, explained his role at the health clinic, and described how each STI can be treated. He showed surveillance data that highlighted the steadiness of AIDS cases in the country and the increase in cases of the other main STIs across the nation.

Bacon was invited to speak by Nina Gaither (12), who knows him through her father.

After hearing about Pride Week, Gaither was inspired to invite Bacon because she knew that he ran sexual health clinics in San Francisco, and she was interested in hearing about the role these clinics played in helping the LGBTQ+ community, she said.

Gaither appreciated that Bacon spent time discussing the stigma around STIs and the factors that play into such stigma, she said. “I think that was very interesting — that HIV and STDs and STIs really play on a lot of other issues surrounding healthcare, access to healthcare, and then what different communities are willing to speak out against.”

Sarah Sun/Design Editor

PRIDE WEEK PRESENTATIONS Brenner (11) speaks about queer representation in film.

Class of 2021 attends prom at Tavern on the Green Arushi Talwar Staff Writer 171 seniors and 16 faculty members attended the outdoor prom at Tavern on the Green in Central Park on June 4. The school set COVID-19 protocols in accordance with state guidelines and rules other private schools in the area had set for their respective proms, Director of Student Activities Caroline Bartels said. No outside guests were allowed, and students had to bring masks and present a negative COVID-19 test beforehand.

The students attending prom took a PCR test on Wednesday to ensure a negative result for the event, Bartels said. Head of Upper Division Dr. Jessica Levenstein, Dean of the Class of 2021 Dr. Susan Groppi, and Dean of Students Michael Dalo were among the faculty in attendance.

After much planning and

deliberation, the administration decided that traditional prom activities — such as photo booths and dancing — would still be present, but with masks, Bartels said. Regardless of the precautions and extra protocols, she hopes students will make the most out of the experience. “Seeing the space and knowing what it could look like, I feel confident that it will be a really great event for everybody,” she said.

Although Helena Yang (12) understands the importance of the safety precautions, she remained concerned as to whether she would experience the social aspect of prom to its full extent. “With social distancing and masks, I don’t think the atmosphere would be the same as it was from the years before,” Yang said. Still, she was grateful to be able to experience prom in any form.

Since the state-wide safety guidelines allowed for gatherings of only 200 people outside or 100 inside, the event needed to be held

Julia Goldberg/Editor-in-Chief

MATHEMATICIANS & PHYSICISTS Crowley’s students enjoy their night. outside, Bartels said. “Even in early April when the guidelines were still up in the air, it was hard to commit in contract with a place when you might have to pull out,” she said.

Since prom is outside, the school also ensured they were prepared for rain by ensuring they had access to a tent.

Whereas only members of the

Class of 2021 attended this year’s prom, in past years, students have brought dates from other grades and schools.

Henry Bloom (12) anticipated the school would want to control the number of attendees. “I’m just looking forward to having the time to spend with my peers there,” Bloom said. “[The news] definitely did give

some people anxiety because many people want to go with a date, but this year I think a larger portion of people went as friends or just with their friend group.”

When Andie Goldmacher (12) heard that she could only take a date in her grade, she was apprehensive.

She had always imagined taking someone from outside of school, but because she and her friends found dates who were also all friends, it worked out better than she had expected. “It could honestly be nice that dates are only in our grade because we don’t have to look out for our out-of-school dates and make sure they’ve met everyone and are entertained when they don’t know our grade as well,” Goldmacher said.

Pascale Zissu (12) appreciated the fact that her peers could only take a date in their grade. “This gives us a nice opportunity to spend time as a grade for the last time,” she said.

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THE RECORD OPINIONS JUNE 7TH, 2021

Protecting women’s choice: The Supreme Court abortion fight

Madi Four-Garcia Donald Trump’s presidency was full of controversy and extremely questionable administrative decisions, and he left his legacy in a long-lasting manner with the nomination of three separate Supreme Court justices: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-Barrett. Their confirmations to the bench and the passing of Justice Ginsburgh solidified a conservative 6-3 majority for decades to come in the highest court of the land. This majority directly threatens several civil liberties, like those established by landmark cases Obergefell v. Hodges and Roe v.

Wade. Many Americans have been holding their breath as they wait for the appeal of oppressive pieces of legislation, the number of which has been only increasing as more states attempt to circumvent Supreme Court precedent, hoping these laws will make their way to the newly conservative bench.

While the Supreme Court is often considered to be the most powerful part of the judicial branch, it is important to note that President Trump also appointed over 200 federal judges during his term. Since abortion rights are an extremely partisan issue, Roe v. Wade is potentially threatened by this increasing conservative majority in the judicial branch. If an appeal of restrictive abortion legislation makes its way to the Supreme Court, as is happening right now in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the conservative court could issue a decision invalidating Roe v. Wade and establishing a new, more inhibitive precedent.

In the months following Trump’s 2016 election, 18 states enacted 50 restrictive and controversial

abortion laws alone. One of these laws, passed in Indiana, requires the burial or cremation of aborted fetal tissue to further the rhetoric used by the pro-life camp, who argues that life begins at conception. In 2017, President Trump reenacted the global gag rule with severely restricted access to reproductive health care abroad, demonstrating the reach of his anti-abortion agenda. The global gag rule blocked US federal funding for nongovernmental organizations that provided counseling, referrals, education, and other resources to help women have safe and healthy abortions. Some of President Trump’s largest voter bases were the white evangelical community and other conservative Christian sects that strongly oppose abortion on religious grounds.

Trump’s pro-life stance allowed for over 200 total restrictive abortion laws to be passed in the past four years alone.

In order to understand the importance of the appeals of Roe v.

Wade, we should first understand what protections are actually outlined by the decision.

The question that faced the Court was whether the United States Constitution included the right to an abortion under an individual’s right to privacy.

In a 7-2 decision, the Court held that the right to an abortion was inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and thus, abortion was in fact included and protected under an individual’s right to privacy. Although not explicitly stated in The Constitution, landmark cases brought before the Supreme Court had slowly defined and established an individual’s right to privacy and the legal definition of that privacy. Perhaps most relevant to Roe v. Wade was Griswold v.

Connecticut (1965), in which the Court struck down a Connecticut statute that made it illegal for women to use contraception and explicitly stated in its opinion that contraceptive legality falls within the rights to privacy afforded to United States citizens by The Constitution.

Griswold v. Connecticut paved the roadway for reproductive rights to be inherently included in an individual’s Constitutional right to privacy.

Moreover, the Court held that the Ninth Amendment protects the individual from any state action that could infringe upon their right to privacy while still recognizing that states had a just and legal interest

Rachel Zhu/Art Director

in protecting the health of both the mother and the unborn fetus. A key caveat of this established state right was the change in weight between the protection of the mother and the unborn fetus through the course of the pregnancy. Because of this fluctuation, the Court outlined parameters for legislation potentially limiting abortion. In the first trimester of pregnancy, states were prohibited from regulating the abortion decision. In the second trimester, the state may impose regulations on abortion that are reasonably related to maternal health. Third-trimester abortions

may be completely banned or regulated however the state determines, insofar as there remains an exception in which abortion will effectively save the mother’s life.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Court’s holding that the choice to terminate one’s pregnancy falls within one constitutionally protected right to privacy. Every woman should have autonomy over their own body and sole discretion when it comes to reproductive and healthcare choices they must make.

Thus, I feel it is vital that I make a certain distinction between the currently accepted synopsis of Roe versus the Court’s actual opinion.

Roe v. Wade in no way provides women autonomy over their own body, nor, in reality, the right to an abortion. Instead, it provides women the right to privacy for a predetermined amount of time under which they find themselves pregnant. The Court’s decision clearly states that the right to an abortion is classified under the right to privacy but goes on to outline parameters under which that right can be restricted. There is no equivalent under which a man’s right to privacy is restricted.

Therefore, the constraining language of Roe v. Wade and the way in which it is to be instituted limits a woman’s right to privacy in its efforts to weigh states’ concerns about potential life with a woman’s right to privacy. I firmly believe that a woman should be offered the same full autonomy over her own body that men are afforded and have been afforded since the inception of this country. Although Roe v.

Wade is a step in the right direction towards affording women their full constitutional rights, it should also be recognized as what it is in practice: a more lenient restriction on a woman’s right to privacy.

In recent times, one of the most restrictive laws to challenge the right

to privacy as outlined by Roe v. Wade has been the Texas abortion law passed by Governor Abbott. The bill bans abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy, a clear violation of the trimester regulations as outlined

by Roe v. Wade. This bill joins others as outlined by the legislature and governors of Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi as some of the strictest abortion prevention measures of the twentyfirst century.

The pro-life camp is largely motivated by religious justifications for their strict regulation of women’s bodies. Furthermore, most government officials that actually work to pass these bills are white men. There is nothing surprising in this uptick of blatant regulation of women’s bodies. I believe actions like these are simply a continuation of the blatant misogyny and white supremacy on which America was founded. Little consideration is given to the fact that access to safe and legal abortions saves lives by the thousands. Conservatives that call themselves “pro-life” are often found in the NRA’s pocket, resisting the call for more restrictive gun control laws in light of the mass shootings that plague America’s children and the larger population.

We must recognize the Texas abortion bill for what it is: an almost complete ban on a right that the Supreme Court had previously established was protected by our Constitution. Many women are not even aware that they are pregnant by the six-week point, meaning that if they desire to terminate their pregnancy afterwards, they could be found criminally negligent. America has spent far too long reaping the rewards of the hard work and determination of half its population only to turn and restrict their civil liberties. Religion and misogyny have no place in American politics if we long to truly live up to our status as a democracy. Now is the time to fight for women, not to push them further into the shadows, showing little regard for their lives.

Like with many issues at the center of American society today, it’s important to realize the impact see women’s choice on pg. 10

How to recognize when you’re being mistreated

Sonia Shuster It’s hard to be yourself when you don’t yet know exactly who you’re supposed to be. As much as the school tries to orient us before we enter the Upper Division, students are often still at a total loss when it comes to navigating Horace Mann’s challenging social, extracurricular, and academic landscape. In my experience as an underclassman, I found that a lot of us came into high school with the expectation that we were going to have some kind of perfectly curated “experience” that will stay with us for a lifetime. An experience we certainly got, but perfectly curated it was not.

Over the years, I longed for structure and guidance in a way that frequently led me

into less than pleasant situations. I stayed with friend groups for the sake of having a friend group, and sacrificed my academics for a role in a club with the sole intention of eventually joining its leadership. Both of these endeavors failed horribly, as did many of my other attempts at fitting into a structure based not on what I needed, but on what I thought I really wanted. Only by the summer of junior year did I start actively making authentic decisions, starting with the choice to take summer physics in order to replace science with a history my junior year. Now, as a senior, I can positively say that I am glad how things turned out in the end.

There are plenty of situations that have left me extremely unhappy, though, both in the way I handled them and in the impact they had on my life. Thoughts like “had I been stronger in my refusal to continue a toxic friendship” and “had I been more attentive in chemistry” have frequently crossed my mind.

The main thing it all taught me is that regret is pointless. I now feel like I have no room for regret in my life.

I firmly believe in the teaching power of mistakes and in actively doing something about your current situation instead of being hung up on the past. I do not have the time to passively wonder “what could have been” if I had chosen different friends, different clubs, and had focused more on my academics than on the anxieties of the immediate moment.

Active regret only brings about a tentative sense of despair, one that will leave you lost and unsure of what to do next. This is no way to move on.

High school is not about “finding” yourself. It is about laying a path for your future and setting a precedent for who you want to forge yourself into. And that future does not end in college; it does not end with your first promotion, nor anywhere else.

Your treatment of friends and strangers, your attentiveness to your academic work (and later to your profession), and your willingness to participate in altruistic pursuits, all contribute to who you are and who you become. Your decisions create you. And if your decisions do not come from an authentic place, then you are not authentic.

I know I haven’t always been — and am still not constantly — authentic. I’ve made many choices that are not in line with what I feel, not true to my morals nor what I believe should be done. Sometimes these choices were made on a whim, sometimes they were made to cater to someone else’s fragile ego and feelings. Over the years, it has been such decisions that I have had to work to undo or, at the very least, abandon to pursue a more authentic existence in which my choices reflect who I really feel I am.

This is my final stand against all things superficial, I suppose. High school is a pressure cooker, a paradise for the ambitious,

and a place where many shallow concerns can sweep away the strongest sailor. A word to the young, to the unsure, and to the ones who are lost in an endless sea of indecision and anxiety: be authentic in your decisions.

Do not live looking back with regrets. Live looking forward, holding tight the lessons of the past. There is more to life than high school, and there is more to high school than the worries of yesterday.

Rachel Zhu / Art Director

7

HORACE MANN OPINIONS JUNE 7TH, 2021

Finding myself during 400 days of quarantine

Tomoko Hida Since last May, I’ve been attending HM remotely from Japan. To put this into perspective: I have two friends in Japan, and my most frequented destinations are my grandparents’ house and the grocery store five minutes away. In the past year, I continued my struggle with mental health and weight gain, and I had moments where I felt worse about myself than I ever had before. I realize now that I’ve been able to heal completely from those downhill moments because of my year in isolation. I believe that everyone can benefit from a year during which no one outside of their family sees them, particularly because it gives you the

time and energy to heal from whatever you may be going through.

This past year in isolation, I was rarely distracted from my mental health as I spent so much time with myself. I was hyper-aware of when I felt anxious, stressed, or sad, and had ample time to exercise what my therapist had advised me to do in those situations. While I often spent time out with friends in New York during sophomore year, junior year proved to be a less forgiving year, leaving me to spend the few minutes of free time I had a day with my parents at home.

But because both my parents primarily work in Tokyo and I’m unable to see them while in New York, even those short spans of time with them were precious moments of healing.

Living in isolation also shifted my perspective on commitments I had been dedicating my free time to in New York. Violin lessons took around an hour and a half every weekend and an additional four to five hours of practice during the week. Before quarantine, there is no doubt that practicing violin was a point of stress in my life. But once I stopped playing the violin for a few months, I ended up gravitating towards it when I was feeling

particularly sad. Though it is cliché, it’s true: music allows you to express how you feel when you can’t quite find the words to do so. I remember feeling overwhelmed by my sadness when I would unbuckle the clasps on my violin case, my movements slow and heavy. Once I played an excerpt of Howl’s Moving Castle’s Merry-GoRound Theme, however, I remember feeling physically lighter. Isolation was important because I would not have otherwise been able to let go of my routine lessons and repertoire that prevented me from having a positive relationship with violin playing, something that I had once thoroughly loved.

My confidence, passions, and ambitions changed drastically over my year in isolation. Partially because I was crafting the ideal version of myself on my Instagram feed but partially because I was really living out that same life I was curating in pictures; I was happier than I had ever been for a while. Of course, this changed with weight gain and some waves of sadness but the overall self-love I swore by stayed with me. Because I was in isolation, I never worried if people would judge me or my outfits. I felt like

Gabby Fischberg/Art Director

I was an influencer, posting whenever and whatever I wanted at some point, not caring about what people may think because I simply could not see them. It felt to me that the only people who existed in my life then were my closest friends, my family, and my teachers who I saw on Zoom.

Meetings with teachers were the highlight of remote learning. If anything, I’d say those were the only sense of normality during all of remote HM. During meetings, I received meaningful guidance on projects or papers I was working on in and outside of school, and I was able to have thorough conversations about topics I’m most passionate about. Rants about finding myself and relating myself to feminists and films were all too common. Academic confidence was indeed an achievement of my

junior year. I spent the free time I had made over the weekends honing in on what exactly I was passionate about, and pursued research paper topics and internships that invoked a profound interest within me. Within the confines of the internet, and with my newfound confidence, I worked my magic to reach out to a woman who had an inspiring career in developing accessible and comprehensive Sexual Assault Kits.

Ultimately, a year in isolation led me to better my mental health and pursue my passions that I would never have expected. In the end, I found myself.

Of course, I expect to find myself again and again as I live my life but I can confidently say that who I am now is the version of myself that I am most happy to be at this moment.

I’ve separated myself from a culture of stress

Hanna Hornfeld When I started high school, I, like many of my classmates, was eager to start the journey ahead. I have always loved school, and every class felt new and exciting. Academically and personally, I had a great freshman year.

Sophomore year, though, things began to change. Now that the excitement of being in high school had worn off, grades seemed to take up a lot more space in everyone’s minds. Many of my classmates would constantly talk about how worried they were for tests, how much each test could affect our final grades, and how nervous each class made them feel. I echoed these sentiments because, on the surface, I agreed with them. Yes, this test will be difficult. Yes, I will have to study a lot. Yes, I am stressed too. If we were unsure how to fill a silence or start a conversation we defaulted to the subjects of stress and sleep deprivation. The idea that work should always be on our minds seemed to be embedded in student life.

The energy was contagious. Soon enough I found myself internalizing it more deeply.

By November of sophomore year, I was overwhelmed. The schoolwork itself wasn’t overwhelming, and I was getting good grades.

But somehow, any amount of work felt heavy. I built up a negative association with schoolwork in my mind. Where I used to think “I have to write an essay about the amazing book I’m reading” with an emphasis on “amazing book,” I now focused on “I have to write an essay,” specifically, the newfound negative connotations of the said essay. The goal was no longer the outcome of my work but the achievement of a grade. It became mechanical.

My routine did not change at all. Go to school, come home, do homework. Eat a snack, watch some TV or read a little, go to sleep. Repeat. Go out with friends on weekends. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but my outlook had changed.

Learning was no longer exciting; it was a chore.

It was something draining that I sat down to do every day, and every day, though I was sleeping enough, I became more emotionally tired. The idea of work as a negative task and grades as a source of stress had seeped in.

Then the pandemic hit, the school moved online, and my mindset shifted again. Now that I was deprived of in-person school I remembered and missed everything I used to love about it.

The first day of junior year was the most exciting first day of school I can remember. I was in person, surrounded by friends again. I had chosen to take all of my classes in subjects I loved.

I was determined not to allow academic pressure to interfere with my love of school. Somehow I stopped thinking of bad grades or an abundance of work as issues weighing me down but rather just as occasional, slightly frustrating parts of life.

For a while, that went well. Even during times when I had a lot of work and was physically tired from it, I was happy. My renewed attitude protected me against the emotional drain.

Then the notorious junior spring began, everybody around me was stressed out and I, again, was stressed out too. Suddenly, the sheer number of assessments meant that any given day had the potential to negatively impact my grades.

The goal was no longer learning, maintaining or improving an average. Again I was burning out, unmotivated to do my work, and unable to relax because I felt guilty doing so.

In psychologist Shawn Achor’s TED Talk, “The happy secret to better work,” he talks about positive psychology in terms of academic and professional success. He argues that schools and workplaces have painted happiness as a prize to be won: get good grades, get into college, get a good job, then you will be happy. However, Achor tells us that people who do not rely on achievements for happiness are more equipped to reach their goals. They perform better in their workplaces because their mindsets allow them to.

As a school community and as a society we have internalized a mentality that to be happy we have to achieve our goals. How many times have you or a friend said, “I just have to get through this week?” I say it all the time. The problem with this logic is that by its standards, happiness and relaxation are impossible. I cannot rest at the end of the week because there will be another week right after it. If we only allow ourselves to be happy once we accomplish our goals, we will never be happy, because our goals are always in motion.

As individuals and as a community we need to find ways to separate our happiness levels and our sense of self-worth from our academic

performance. The culture in our society seems to put work above everything else. It feels as though we have glorified overworking ourselves for the sake of our classes. I doubt we will be able to remove this idea from our school’s culture any time soon, if ever. So, the next step is to work on this on a personal level.

Of course, we are faced with a lot of academic pressure and a heavy workload to which we cannot simply turn off our emotional response.

However, we can try to make a conscious effort to focus on parts of our lives that bring us joy besides academic achievement. The more we focus on the negative aspects of work, the heavier an emotional burden work will carry.

Though I wish I could share a perfect formula to accomplish this, it is an individual journey that will look different for everybody. For me, this is still a work in progress. I’ve found that it helps to catch myself when I am consumed by the negativity surrounding me and remind myself that I do not have to be worried about something just because everybody else is.

Once in a while it helps to do nothing for an afternoon. Sometimes a day of procrastination can be a positive thing, if it will put me in a better place to accomplish my work the next day when I’ve rested. It helps to focus on the aspects of my classes that I love and making schoolwork fun for myself whenever possible. It helps to conversation starters besides “I have so much work” and “I’m tired.” In the fall, I will continue to take these small steps to stay positive during what is sure to be a work-intensive year, and I encourage all of you to do the same. We can’t go into the year expecting to completely and permanently change our mindsets, but these minor changes can be the first step to dismantling the culture of stress so deeply ingrained in our community.

Volume 118 Editorial Board Managing Editor Talia Winiarsky Features Henry Owens Emily Shi Vivien Sweet

News Sam Chiang Yesh Nikam Marina Kazarian

Staff

Opinions Maurice Campbell Avi Kapadia Natalie Sweet

A&E Izzy Abbott Abby Beckler Oliver Steinman

Staff Writers Devin Allard-Neptune, Mia Calzolaio Chloe Choi, Emma Colacino, Yin Fei, Lucas Glickman, Claire Goldberg, Tuhin Ghosh, Liliana Greyf, Lauren Ho, Hanna Hornfeld, Purvi Jonnalagadda, Oliver Lewis, Rowan Mally, Simon Schackner, Morgan Smith, Arushi Talwar, Katya Tolunsky, Nathan Zelizer, Max Chasin, Alex Lautin, Jillian Lee, Hannah Katzke, Vidhatrie Keetha, Zachary Kurtz, Clio Rao, Ayesha Sen, Emily Salzhauer, Aden Soroca, Emily Sun, Madison Xu Staff Photographers Kelly Troop, Sophie Gordon, Amanda Wein, Emma Colacino, AJ Walker, Lucas Glickman, Lauren Ho Staff Artists Eliza Becker, Felix Brenner, Vivian Coraci, Riva Vig

Editor-in-Chief Julia Goldberg Lions’ Den Yotam Hahn Alison Isko Josh Underberg

Issues Editor Adam Frommer

Middle Division Adrian Arnaboldi Bradley Bennett Jack Crovitz

About Founded in 1903, The Record is Horace Mann School’s award-winning weekly student newspaper. We publish approximately 30 times during the academic year, offering news, features, opinions, arts, Middle Division and sports coverage relevant to the school community. The Record serves as a public forum to provide the community with information, entertainment, and an outlet for various viewpoints. As a student publication, the contents of The Record are the views and work of the students and do not necessarily represent those of the faculty or administration of the Horace Mann School. Horace Mann School is not responsible for the

Design Lowell Finster John Mauro Sarah Sun

Editorial Policy

Art Annabelle Chan Gabby Fischberg Lauren Kim Rachel Zhu

accuracy and contents of The Record and is not liable for any claims based on the contents or views expressed therein.

Editorials All editorial decisions regarding content, grammar, and layout are made by the senior editorial board. The unsigned editorial represents the opinion of the majority of the board.

Opinions Opinion columns represent the viewpoint of the author and not of The Record or the school. We encourage students, alumni, faculty, staff, and parents to submit opinions by emailing record@horacemann.org.

Letters Letters to the editor often respond to editorials,

Photography Jackson Feigin Julia Isko Maxwell Shopkorn

Faculty Adviser David Berenson

articles, and opinions pieces, allowing The Record to uphold its commitment to open discourse within the school community.

They too represent the opinion of the author and not of The Record or the school. To be considered for publication in the next issue, letters should be submitted by mail (The Record, 231 West 246th Street, Bronx, NY 10471) or email (record@ horacemann.org) before 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening. All submissions must be signed.

Contact For all tips, comments, queries, story suggestions, complaints and corrections, please contact us by email at record@horacemann.org.

8

THE RECORD OPINIONS JUNE 7TH, 2021

Who should be New York City’s next mayor?

Maya Wiley

Alex Nagin The New York City Democratic Mayoral Primary has developed into a race strikingly similar to the 2020 Presidential primary, characterized by a sea of candidates, most of whom are proving to be less than ideal. When asked to estimate the average price of a property in Brooklyn during a New York Times interview, former Obama Administration official Shaun Donovan and Citigroup executive Ray McGuire missed the mark. Donovan guessed the price to be $100,000 dollars, while McGuire guessed a mere “$80 to $90,000.” The answer: $900,000. Even a guess relatively close to the $900,000 mark from these two candidates could prove their understanding of how absurdly expensive it is to live in New York City.

However, Donovan and

McGuire’s estimations show their general ineptitude in regards to one of the most prominent struggles hard working New Yorkers face: affordable housing.

If the next mayor of New York City is to be successful, they must be prepared to lead the city with a bold, progressive vision that stems from a deep understanding of not only housing inequities, but also the climate crisis, public education, and police reform.

Only one candidate, though widely overlooked, meets these criteria: Maya Wiley.

Maya Wiley, former Counsel to Mayor Bill De Blasio and Civil Rights Attorney, is the progressive that New York City desperately needs. Take for example her stance on the necessity of reforming the New York Police Department (NYPD). The Citizens Budget Commission reported that for the 2020 fiscal year $11 billion dollars were allocated to the NYPD from the city’s budget. Compare this to the 2015 budget: a mere $4.7 billion. There is an irrationality to this kind of increase. This is where Mayor Wiley would act as a true agent of change and introduce a measure of rationality.

Wiley avoids blanket political statements such as “defund the police,” understanding that such positions lack nuance and only cement existing divisions. Rather, Wiley

Courtesy of the Gotham Gazette

MAYA WILEY Candidate for NYC Mayor.

Andrew Yang

works through aspects of funding, suggesting moving funding to social servicing agencies that can address mental health and other issues that should not be left to law enforcement. Nor does Wiley demonize all police, which, in reality, does not resonate with the vast majority of New Yorkers.

This approach echoes the one taken by President Obama.

When asked about the “defund the police” slogan, the former President explained that “You los[e] a big audience the minute you say it, which makes it a lot less likely that you’re actually going to get the changes you want done.”

And that is Wiley’s aim: to get things done.

Another way in which Wiley plays it smart while pushing forward a progressive agenda is her stance on education. She does not seek to tear down existing schools or place blame on administrators, parents or teachers; rather, Wiley aims to acknowledge, restore, and support. In this regard, Wiley brands her stance on public school curricula as “an education in line with the ‘5Rs of Real Integration’ framework developed by the students of Integrate NYC: Race and enrollment, Resource allocation, Real relationships, Representative staff and faculty, and Restorative justice.” This type of education would not be a mere condemnation of traditional education, but a recognition of inequities in resources and opportunities.

If we are to take anything away from Wiley’s candidacy, let it be this: branding matters. For my fellow progressives, we must do more than simply call out inequities. We need to derive and support solutions that bring as many as our fellow citizens into the fold as possible. We need to be more than slogans. Maya Wiley is the only candidate with a deep understanding of this critical value and should be the next Mayor of New York City. Vote Wiley. June 22nd.

Eli Scher Perhaps the most notable of the 2021 mayoral candidates, entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang has an innovative vision for the five boroughs. He hopes to break the mold of a traditional politician with his modern ideas, including universal basic income, combating the effects of automation, and “human-centered” capitalism — which emphasizes and values people over money.

Yang brings an outside perspective to the position, given that he has not served in any political office. Now, this trope may trigger memories of a certain reality TV star who decided to “drain the swamp” and run for President in 2016, but Yang is far from a repeat. Though not a traditional Democratic political

challenge the status quo of traditional U.S. capitalism without completely uprooting our city’s structure or its middle class with increased taxes or radical policies.

If you’re looking to vote for a candidate who represents a real change in the economic disparity in our city — including a deep dive into the root causes of the homelessness crisis — choose someone with a knowledge of economics, not just an

Courtesy of the Times of Israel

ANDREW YANG Candidate for NYC Mayor. candidate, Yang uses his background as an entrepreneur and his pragmatic ways of approaching social and economic issues to benefit people. He also refrains from using inflammatory language to rile up fringe groups of ideological outsiders.

It is completely understandable to see universal basic income and other policies as an economic risk for New Yorkers. However, Yang’s ideas will

unrealistic, unachievable vision of economic equality through bloated spending that can be found in the platforms of more radical candidates.

Though I’m not eligible to vote in the NYC mayoral election, for these reasons I would strongly encourage voting for Andrew Yang in the primary in June and again in November.

Eric Adams

Aaron Shuchman Eric Adams is the best candidate for Mayor of New York City because he understands the true problems facing the city , and he has the experience and ideas to tackle them.

As the incumbent Brooklyn Borough President, Mr. Adams is well-versed in the economic, governmental, and educational issues that are confronting New York. Recognizing the impact of the pandemic on small businesses and low income and blue collar New Yorkers, Adams would work to utilize tax breaks and deregulation to spur new small businesses, create a weekly sales tax holiday, provide back-office support through local Chambers of Commerce, and simplify the permitting process to reduce red tape and fees

as mayor. He would create an online portal for the bureaucracy of the NYC Department of job seekers and provide tax breaks and debt Education and the malign influence of teachers’ forgiveness for the hospitality industry to enable unions. them to begin hiring again.

As a retired New York Police Department Adams is also dedicated to reducing waste, (NYPD) captain, Mr. Adams is well-versed in the inefficiency, and mismanagement in city important role that the NYPD plays in maintaingovernment, actions critical for a city with a ing public safety, but he also recognizes the need bloated budget and a crippling bureaucracy. He for reform and accountability. He is dedicated would institute a hiring freeze for city agencies, to stopping rampant gun violence and violent create a singular portal for residents to access all crime through revamping anti-crime city services, combine all city agency metrics into units, but he is also committed one data platform in order to use data analytics to transparency by publito save resources and provide better services, and cizing lists of cops accused of cut unnecessary programs or spending. misconduct.

He would also Adams’ plan for education would be extremely grant communities more impactful and uplifting as well. He would use control of their local the City University of New York as an incubator for young entrepreneurs and startups in the city, develop fellowships between city schools and startups, and create more opportunities for job training and vocational schools. He is also supported by leading charter school advocates, such as Success Academy’s Eva Moskowitz. His support of charter schools is critical because of their success in providing Courtesy of the NY Post quality public education without ERIC ADAMS Candidate for NYC Mayor.

precinct. He also would make the NYPD far more cost effective by transitioning cops working on primarily administrative issues into the civilian workforce.

Through his long tenure in city government and the NYPD, Eric Adams knows the roots of the core issues facing NYC today, and his efficiency-driven plan for economic, educational, and public safety renewal are exactly what the city needs to emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever.

Gabby Fischberg/Art Dire ctor

9

HORACE MANN OPINIONS JUNE 7TH, 2021

UD students advocate for their top candidates ahead of the june 22 primary elections Ray McGuire

Ellie Henes On June 22nd of this year, New Yorkers will vote in the Democratic and Republican primaries for the mayoral race. While not definitive, the winner of the Democratic primary will likely be the next mayor of New York City, which makes the primary as important as the general election in November. There are many candidates in the mayoral race, each of them seeking to help transform our city. Each comes from a different upbringing, providing them with different approaches on how to help the city. New York City is home to many of us. I am sure, just like me, all of you care deeply about this city and want to make it the best

city it can be. And, I am also sure that you have your own concerns and ideas about how to improve New York City.

I want a mayor who can help the city make a comeback from the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, which led me to support Democratic nominee Ray McGuire. I was drawn to McGuire for countless reasons, but his “cradle to career” education policy pulled me in first. This model works to ensure that all children “receive enrichment so they can start school on a level playing field, parents have a choice of good schools in their neighborhood, and all graduates follow a clear pathway into college or a career,” according to his website. While I am lucky to receive my education at Horace Mann, that is not the reality for most children in NYC. In his campaign, McGuire focuses on making sure that all students receive a fully sufficient education from the beginning of their lives.

Additionally, music, arts and culture are a significant part of why I love the city so much. Sadly, because of the pandemic, live shows, festivals, and art exhibits were put on hold for a year. McGuire aims to revive the arts and culture aspects of the city by “revamp[ing] the Department of Cultural Affairs,” providing “support

to artists so they can stay in our city.”

McGuire’s countless business contacts and connections also work in his favor in his goal to work with the city’s 76 business investment districts to encourage them to support both arts education and local arts. There are just two of the numerous initiatives — among improving the quality of life and creating affordable housing — McGuire has within his Come Back Plan and are only two of the

reasons I decided to support him.

As a person, McGuire also inspired me. Earlier last month, I took part in a student meet-and-greet with Ray for a committee I am a part of, called “Students for Ray.” On this Zoom, students were invited to ask any questions they had. More than just hearing about his policies, we were able to see his personality, and what I saw was an incredibly lively, passionate, and personable candidate who genuinely loves New York City.

Courtesy of NY Daily News

RAY MCGUIRE Candidate for NYC Mayor.

Kathryn Garcia

Henry Owens I come from a family of New Yorkers. I don’t just mean that my family was born here — they are always tuned in to New York City politics, they advocate for local causes, and several even work for the city. So six months ago, when my cousin, who happens to be Deputy Director of Water Quality for NYC, emailed our whole family with a glowing endorsement of Kathryn Garcia, I started paying attention to her.

Garcia has experience. In my opinion, having worked for a city government should be the bare minimum for running to be in charge of that city’s government. However, in a field of candidates that includes a Wall Street executive, Ray McGuire, who thinks a Brooklyn home costs $100,000 (one-ninth the real price) and an entrepreneur, Andrew Yang, sailing on the name recognition of his failed presidential campaign, it’s necessary to highlight the significance of Garcia’s real, practical experience in New York City government.

I said that experience is the bare minimum, but Garcia surpasses that threshold by miles with her outstanding career in public service. She served six years as the Commissioner of the Department of Sanitation, managing thousands of workers, introducing new initiatives to make our city’s trash system more sustainable, and keeping our city streets clear during snowstorms. In addition to sanitation, she has frequently been assigned to other departments and been asked to lead task forces, so she is well versed in many areas of city government.

Because of her impressive ability to step in anywhere and help struggling city agencies, some in the media have colloquially dubbed her as “the city’s go-to fixer.”

As an example of her being a “fixer,” she was named an Incident Commander following Hurricane Sandy, effectively helping the city through the crisis. At this point in time, we certainly need a mayor accustomed to dealing with crises. In 2019, she was selected by DeBlasio to lead the city’s effort to address the widespread use of lead pipes, and the protocols she implemented led to a 21% decrease in childhood lead poisoning in just a year.

Most recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she was once again called on to aid in a crisis, and she took charge of the city’s emergency food program, delivering over 200 million meals to food insecure and sick New Yorkers.

We all know our city is in a crisis — some pessimists even proclaim that NYC is dead and will never come back.

We need someone as a mayor who has a proven track record and knows how to deal with catastrophe. Garcia’s impressive resumé in city government fills me with hope that she is the candidate capable of bringing us back.

With the m i n i m a l

been thrilled to see that more people are talking about her — she deserves all the good press she’s been having and more — but even if she weren’t a front runner, I still would have put her first.

That’s the beauty of the new rankedchoice voting system: no fear about your vote not mattering, no worries about a minority win.

Perhaps I haven’t persuaded you that Garcia is the absolute best in the race.

She certainly isn’t the most exciting — a long-term city employee won’t exactly be revolutionary, and her background is quite literally garbage. But you cannot deny that she will get the job done.

She isn’t a risk, unlike candidates with unproven political records like McGuire and Yang, or

Courtesy of bloomberg.com

KATHRYN GARCIA Candidate for NYC Mayor. attention Garcia received for the first month of her campaign, I admit to being skeptical about her viability as a candidate. In a traditional election, I would never have written down the name of a candidate polling at 5%, believing my votes would go to waste on someone who cannot win. I have

politicians with more controversial track records like Maya Wiley or Eric Adams. If you want someone as our mayor who is smart and incredibly capable, then you should mark Kathryn Garcia near the top of your rankedchoice ballot.

10

THE RECORD OPINIONS JUNE 7TH, 2021

Not just a weekend off: Honoring our troops

Clementine Bondor Memorial Day is observed annually on the final Monday of the month of May, honoring the thousands of men and women killed while serving in the United States military. However, this likely went unnoticed or even forgotten here at HM – it has been an otherwise distracting week; we’re in the midst of a testing period, and the weather has been gloomy recently, but that does not excuse the school’s disturbing and irresponsible lack of acknowledgement for the holiday and all of that for which it stands.

This would not be so shameful had the school done anything to honor Veterans’ day, or acknowledged the article subsequently published in The Record making the case to do so.

This is not an isolated incident.

This pattern is coupled with an upsetting and quickening shift away from respect for our troops in the country, even from those who lead it. Vice President Kamala Harris recently posted a celebratory picture of herself to her social media platforms with the caption “Enjoy the long weekend.”

For many, the “long weekend” meant another year without a close friend, parent, or spouse.

For many, the “long weekend” involved leaving a flag at the head of the grave of a loved one. For many, this weekend is a somber one, and Vice President Harris’ tweet is in stark and shocking contrast with the intention behind the holiday.

This is not, however, a criticism of Vice President Harris or her policy. Lack of respect for our troops is not a polarizing issue. It is not a matter of party. Universities across the country have released statements in honor of Memorial Day; even Orangetheory gyms, Veggie Tales, Halo, and Vineyard Vines have posted on social media. Horace Mann, however, has said nothing.

The school sends emails regularly with updates on current holidays and causes, eager to inform the community about ways that they can learn and get involved. Over the course of the year, for most holidays there have been festive treats during break time. For most current events, we have held space for conversation in classrooms, assemblies, or homerooms. And yet, this weekend, instead of keeping in our minds and hearts our fallen soldiers, we sit back and enjoy the

day off from school, barbecuing, watching TV, or at the beach.

Meanwhile, there are soldiers working tirelessly around the world, without those comforts, for our ability to enjoy them — many of whom might not make it home.

Approximately 700,000800,000 men died in the Civil War. According to the Defense Casualty Analysis System, 116,516 and 405,399 people died in World Wars I and II, respectively. 39,574 in the Korean War. 58,220 in Vietnam. However, this issue is not outdated. 11 US soldiers

Rachel Zhu / Art Director

Why you should play rugby

Catherine Mignone Last March I played in Los Angeles 7’s, a national rugby tournament. I arrived at the airport and drove to meet my academy team for a late-afternoon practice. I was nervous and excited for the next few days, during which I would be playing multiple rugby games every day. On the second day of the tournament, we played a team from Maui. My favorite moment from that game was scoring — I saw a gap in Maui’s defense and ran to the try zone. I felt so proud and accomplished — we had kept our focus as a team and continued to try to win even though the opposite team was bigger. That evening, we had a huge dinner by our training complex and celebrated each other’s successes.

I love that the sport is not just about playing a game, but also about the community you build as a result. After every game, the home team invites the opposite team to a short lunch or celebration and the players on each team make friends with each other and grow their rugby network. After five years of rugby, I have met players who live in South Africa, the UAE, England, and Ireland, as well as players from over fifteen states. I love playing rugby for the individual success, the team celebration and support, and the community I have built over the past five years.

I started planning a Horace Mann rugby team in the seventh grade, and by the eighth

grade, we established a high school program for the following year. 2019 was Horace Mann Girls Varsity Rugby’s inaugural season and we were extraordinarily successful for a first-year team. Though the 2020 season was canceled, we hosted explanatory Zooms all spring season so that girls new to the sport could learn the game. This year, we had a full season, playing three games and winning all of them. The biggest issue with getting rugby back up again this year was finding girls who wanted to play. There are currently eight people who play rugby on the school team.

While these numbers allow us to play full games, we would love more members so that we can have larger scrimmages in practice.

So, why should you join the rugby team?

First, it’s fun! We have dynamic practices where we focus on a skill or two and then play a game of touch rugby. I can confidently say that everyone is smiling during practice. We take a self-timer photo of us jumping after every practice as a way to take attendance, and we are flexible with students who want to partake in other extracurriculars while remaining on the team. Overall, the team is supportive and accepting — for example, we are one of the only teams that you can join with absolutely zero experience. Five girls on the team this year had never picked up a rugby ball and one had never played a sport in her life. Despite this, every single girl dedicated herself and her focus to rugby during practice

died in Iraq in 2020. 2,312 have died in Afghanistan since 2001, 1,534 of them since 2009.

In my free time, I work with Operation Shoebox, a nonprofit organization that sends supplies — anything from foot powder to beef jerky to Christmas cookies — to troops stationed around the world. I’ve sent packages to Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Afghanistan, and South Korea, as well as to naval bases within the U.S. I have formed incredible correspondences with many soldiers, by whom I continue to be inspired and amazed.

However, this kind of tangible work is not mandated to honor our troops. It is not difficult nor costly nor time-consuming to be grateful for the freedoms which we enjoy, and the sacrifices made to establish them. All that is required by Memorial Day is a moment: a moment of thought, a moment of respect, a moment of acknowledgement; sixty seconds of peace, perhaps, or a single line in an email.

For Veterans’ Day in 2019, HM invited four of its alumni to speak about their experiences serving in the military. Many in the community appreciated the assembly, and it showed students just one more amazing path they could choose for their lives after HM using the tools that they’ve learned here. It also, however, reminded the community the importance of respecting the soldiers who do so much for us.

This kind of action is completely within the capabilities of the HM, and the kinds of conversations that it started are within the wheelhouse of HM students. I

cannot understand why such action has disappeared.

I do not bear any immediate connections to the military.

Several of my father’s uncles served in the Pacific in the Second World War, but I never got a chance to meet them. However, I still consider them heroes of mine, and I do what I can to honor them. Serving in the military takes strength and determination and dedication like no other; these men and women routinely accomplish feats unfathomable to us here at HM. According to the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, however, the rate of veteran suicide is 1.5 times that of civilian adults. Despite increased federal funding, VA programs, and public awareness campaigns, the problem is ongoing. These are our heroes.

The least that we can do is to take one day, out of three hundred and sixty-five, to acknowledge them.

Please do not wish people a “Happy Memorial Day.” Please do not use the day as an excuse to eat hamburgers or sleep in without thinking for a moment of the millions of lives sacrificed for your rights and comforts and freedoms.

I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that this year’s activities — or, rather, a lack thereof — were a fluke, or a poor and inconvenient misalignment of schedules, and that Horace Mann will try its hardest to honor our soldiers starting now, or, at the very least, a year from today. For now, I, for one, have an American flag hanging in my bedroom, and honor the lives and service of those for which it stands.

from Women’s choice pg. 6 and it paid off: we won all three games against a team that has had an established rugby program for a number of years.

Second, it’s safe. When I was working on getting approval for a rugby program, one of the major blocks was safety and concussion protocol. Although rugby is a contact sport, the way rugby uses contact is different from the way football uses contact. In rugby, you learn how to fall properly after being tackled before being allowed to tackle. Coaches only allow players to tackle once the coach is certain that the player can tackle and be tackled safely. Furthermore, high school rugby referees call not only high tackles, but also other tackles that seem unsafe. I have played rugby for five years and have never gotten a concussion or any other injury; football players cannot say the same.

Third, rugby is a growing sport in the U.S. Women’s rugby is the fastest growing sport in the country, and after Title IX, collegiate women’s rugby programs significantly expanded. Women’s rugby Sevens is an Olympic sport and played professionally within the U.S. At many colleges, there are approachable rugby club teams that you can join to learn the sport, and at others, there are established varsity programs that win championships and send players to the Olympic women’s rugby squad. It is a privilege to be playing the sport as I watch it grow, and I hope that you join me.

Courtesy of Catherine Mignone

PLAY BALL Catherine Mignone (11) plays on the HM Rugby team.

our privilege, or lack thereof, combined with our personal experience has on our political opinions — even though access to safe abortions should not, in my opinion, be a political issue. Living in the tri-state area, our access to contraceptives, abortion clinics, and educational resources is a given.

Especially considering the experience of living or going to school in New York City, an extremely progressive and liberaldominated region of our country, we can sometimes forget that in some parts of the country not only is there suppressive legislation being enacted, but actual physical and geographical barriers stand between women and the right to choose. In 2019, there was only one abortion clinic in all of Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, and West Virginia combined. Fighting for a woman’s right to choose in a place with so much access sometimes blinds us to the reality that we are not only fighting to maintain what we already have; we are fighting for the women we do not know, that we might never know, but that simply do not have the access to the healthcare they deserve. This collective advocacy is even more important when we consider legislation like the Texas abortion bill, which specifically states that there are no exceptions beyond the six-week mark, even in cases of rape and incest.

I am terrified to mature into a woman in a country where older white men are constantly making decisions about my body and my autonomy, behind closed doors.

But this fear does not work to silence me.

Instead, it motivates me to fight harder for myself and my children and my friends and for the women across the country, in states like Texas, who I don’t even know. While laws like the one recently passed in Texas work to make women conform to standards outlined by the American patriarchy, the movement to protect a woman’s right to choose does not stop because of them.

Instead, it persists.

11

HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

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All art by Rachel Zhu/Art Editor

12

Futterman (12): foregoing college, fighting fires

Owen Heidings Staff Writer As many seniors step foot into a college classroom for the first time, Liam Futterman (12) will be extinguishing fires in California.

The job is a perfect fit for Futterman, who has always wanted to pursue a career that is mission-oriented and has a positive impact on society, he said.

Futterman will work with the Los Angeles Fire Department, one of the largest departments in the United States. He chose to move across the country because he does not want to stay in New York after he graduates.

Los Angeles is also convenient for him, as he has family in the city with whom he can live. Since he will live with family members, he will not have to worry about any housing expenses.

Futterman has not yet decided which division of the department he will enter, but he is considering joining the municipal department to quench fires in the urban areas of the city. He is also considering joining the park service department, in which he would put out wildfires.

The prospect of following orders also appeals to Futterman. “I like the idea of knowing why I’m doing something and what it is that I’m doing every day that I go into work,” he said.

Forgoing college to pursue firefighting was an easy choice, he said. “I’ve been having a hard time finding motivation in academics,” he said. “I think about college as an investment in time, money, and energy, and at this moment I do not think it would be a great way to manage my resources. If I find that passion later in life and want to go back to school, that would be a much better use of my time and money,” he said.

Futterman first thought of becoming a firefighter in tenth grade, as he believed it would be an engaging career that would also allow him to learn in a hands-on setting.

“It would be a very rewarding job,” he said.

“People in the field are very competent and they learn how to critically think through their experiences.”

Futterman draws a connection between firefighting and wrestling — one of his favorite activities at the school — because he enjoys being part of a team. “I think it would be great to spend time with people in high-stress situations,” he said. Futterman also knows the job will impact his worldview tremendously,

“My whole life I’ve been in school, and I always know exactly what’s going to happen next. Now, I get to be in the world, doing something that isn’t directed.” he said. “[After] a year or two [I’ll] be seeing the world in all of these cool, different, and intense ways,” he said.

Even before he can apply to become a firefighter, Futterman must attain EMT certification, which he will receive at the end of the summer, he said. He then must pass a physical test and a standardized written test, which includes answering questions on

THE RECORD NEWS JUNE 7TH, 2021

Kirshner (12) elected valedictorian for Class of 2021 Lucas Glickman Staff Writer Jaden Kirshner (12), whom the senior class elected as valedictorian, will deliver a speech at graduation.

Kirshner discovered that he won while on FaceTime with Jonas Jacobson (12), who told him to check his email, he said. “When I saw, I was absolutely stunned.”

Dean of the Class of 2021 Susan Groppi had sent out an email over spring break asking the senior class to pick candidates for valedictorian.

Three candidates — Nshera Tutu (12), Leyli Granmayeh (12), and Kirshner — received more than 10 nomination votes, so Groppi sent out a poll asking the class to vote on three of them.

Kirshner was shocked to be among the three finalists. He was very grateful to be recognized among the two other finalists, he said. “To be selected as valedictorian was an extreme honor, especially considering how brilliant Nshera and Leyli are,” he said.

Some of Kirshner’s friends weren’t actively campaigning for him, but had said that he would make a good selection for valedictorian, Kirshner said. “I think one of the reasons I was selected [was] because of my positive outlook, and I truly genuinely love HM,” he said. “HM feels more like a family than it does a school, and the friends I have made here will be people I talk to for the rest of my life.”

Kirshner is well-spoken and represents the senior grade well, Jacobson said. “He has great morals and stands up for what’s right,” he said. “There’s not a day I see Jaden not smiling or not talking to different people and learning something about someone else.”

There are both downsides and benefits to asking the class to elect its valedictorian, Kirshner said. “We don’t know who has the highest GPA in our grade, but I think that is definitely an accomplishment that should be applauded in some way,” he said. “The fact that we don’t have a valedictorian [for GPA] means that that person will go unnoticed, which

Courtesy of Jaden Kirschner

can definitely be disappointing.”

At the same time, having the Class of 2021 vote on the valedictorian means that the person chosen is the most accurate reflection of the senior grade, he said.

“To have such a high profile speaking tied to a grade point average doesn’t embody the ideals of the school in a way that we want,” Groppi said. “One person can never represent 180 kids, yet the fact that his classmates selected Jaden means there’s something about him that they feel says something about them.”

Currently, Kirshner is working on balancing different messages within his speech. “I want to thank the faculty, administration, Dr. Kelly, Dr. Groppi, Dr. Levenstein who contributed to making this year as normal as possible,” he said.

Kirshner would also like to inspire the Class of 2021 as its members move onto their college years. “My main goal is to communicate to [the senior class] that even in this unconventional year, so much was accomplished and we became better

GOOD SPORT Kirshner plays basketball on the HM team. people because of the challenges we faced,” Kirshner said.

One of his favorite memories at the school comes from last season during Buzzell, an annual basketball game between the school and Riverdale at Manhattan College when Kirshner scored a buzzer-beater that tied the game.

Although they lost in overtime, it was a thrilling back-and-forth game, Kirshner said.

Literary Fiction Crossword

by Features Editor Henry Owens

DOWN

ACROSS 1. Small insects 5. Inspiration 9. Poe’s 20 Across 14. Urgent (abbrv.)

15. Compulsively neat (informal) 16. Relating to 31 Down 17. Tutorial 18. Archaic address of respect 19. Ulcerative skin disease 20. Usual protagonist of 33 and 41 Across 23. Conjunction

topics such as fire science and first aid, for which he has already started preparing.

Because of the rigorous work he has done at the school, Futterman is not worried about the exam, he said. He will finally need to complete academy training, which lasts several

indicating avoidance 24. Yiddish slang for non-Jew 25. Home of pinball and skeeball 27. Christie’s 20 Across 31. Red octagon 32. Parietal, frontal, occipital, etc.

33. Stories where the culprit is revealed at the end 38. Israeli submachine guns 39. Not here 40. Run , lose control 41. Circumstances in need of solving 43. City of baseball Marlins 44. Trace of smoke

months, to be able to apply out to stations.

Many adults in Futterman’s life have tried to dissuade him from this path, he said. Although his parents have an appreciation for jobs in the field of service, they still wanted him to attend college after graduating. As part of an agreement with his parents, he intends to reapply to college in the

45. Doyle’s 20 Across 46. Unconscious 49. Gov’t agency in charge of flying 50. Boyfriend, old fashioned term 51. Use of inferences to reach a conclusion 56. Overthrow 58. Level in a hierarchy 59. Seat of honor 61. Gift recipient 62. Marginal advantage 63. Therefore 64. Hammett’s 20 Across 65. Surprise siege 66. Grayish

1. Evil 2. Well-worn 3. “The is afoot” 4. Notice 5. e.g. Mr. Met 6. Togetherness 7. Hindu women’s garment 8. Alternatives to stairs 9. Gov’t agency in charge of jobs 10. Dangly thing in back of throat 11. Decorated with icing 12. Occupied alternative 13. Bird home 21. Narcissists have large ones 22. Break down 26. Brains of a laptops 27. Sugar ___ fairy 28. Slimy 29. Egyptian bird 30. Silent note in music 31. Count to fall asleep 33. One who communicates with animals 34. Hammer’s victim 35. Muslim prayer leader 36. Large, scholarly book 37. Popular winter sport equipment 39. Attempted 42. A female 31 Down 43. Water-filled castle defense 45. Infiltrated technology 46. Famous teller of fables 47. Part of a spa 48. Drew in 49. Spore producing organisms 50. Pals 52. Mama counterpart 53. Lightbulb 54. Rowing tools 55. Almost, archaic 57. Urine 60. Milk substitute

Answers on pg. 28

fall of 2021, although he is unsure whether he will attend.

Since becoming a firefighter is such a long process, Futterman does not imagine himself completing training for months on end to drop the job entirely after receiving college acceptances. If anything, he would want to defer his admission for a year and then reconsider his choices.

Although Futterman is concerned about not knowing when or where he will have to fight fires, he is excited to make a positive difference in the world.

“My whole life I’ve been in school, and I always know exactly what’s going to happen next,” he said. “Now, I get to be in the world, doing something that isn’t directed.”

13

HORACE MANN NEWS JUNE 7TH, 2021

Devin Allard-Neptune Opinions Editor

Mia Calzolaio Features Editor

Jade Ciriello Middle Division Editor

Emma Colacino Features Editor

Vivian Coraci Art Director

Yin Fei Opinions Editor

Lucas Glickman Online Editor

Claire Goldberg News Editor

Liliana Greyf Managing Editor

Lauren Ho Lions’ Den Editor

Welcoming The Record’s Volume 119 Hanna Hornfeld Editor-in-Chief

Lauren Kim Art Director

Arushi Talwar A&E Editor

Purvi Jonnalagadda A&E Editor

Oliver Lewis Photo Editor

Katya Tolunsky News Editor

Rowan Mally Lions’ Den Editor

Riva Vig Art Director

AJ Walker Design Editor

Daniel Schlumberger Photo Editor

Ailill Walsh Photo Editor

14

THE RECORD NEWS AND FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

History Department and students reflect on first year of Speaker Series devin allard-neptune and emily sun Staff Writers “The Race and Ethnicity Speaker Series is probably the thing I’m most proud of that the faculty accomplished this year,” Head of Upper Division Dr. Jessica Levenstein said. “It was a huge amount of work, and I am so proud of the History Department.”

This year, the History Department organized and hosted a speaker series titled “How Did We Get Here?: The Past and Present of Race and Ethnicity.”

The year-long series of nine lectures, held as webinars over Google Meet and open to the whole school, focused on the historical roots of present social and political topics such as police brutality, mass incarceration, and environmental justice.

Each lecture had about 800 viewers, but there were fewer people in attendance at the end of the year than at the beginning, history teacher Dr. Emily Straus said. Most history teachers made attendance mandatory for students, and the department agreed to not give any history homework on the night of the lectures to bolster attendance, she said.

“That shouldn’t be the case, but that’s why it’s even more important for these students to get involved.”

The History Department created the series to provide context for the racial violence that sparked the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, Straus said. “As historians, we don’t think things just come out of the blue,” she said. “We firmly believe that there are causes and effects, and in order to understand a particular moment of time you have to look at the roots of it.”

Straus and history teacher Barry Bienstock brought their idea to the administration in June. Around the same time, Levenstein met with the school’s Black Students Demanding Change (BSDC) representatives about a monthly speaker series with similar goals in mind. “Since I was part of both of those conversations, I connected the two,” she said.

In early July, Levenstein organized a Zoom with members of BSDC, students chosen by the history department, and members of the History Department to brainstorm ideas for the speaker series. “Dr. Straus was moderating the meeting, but students were absolutely the primary voices we were hearing,” she said.

“Everyone is experiencing our country differently as a result of their race, culture, sexuality, or other identifiers.”

-Eli Scher (12)

Even though viewing was largely required, it was frustrating to see some students not take the lectures seriously, Tess Goldberg (10) said. Those with privilege can easily ignore oppression, but they have a responsibility to learn about the issues in the series and use their voices for change. “As somebody who isn’t oppressed in this society, your voice holds a bit more weight,” she said.

During the meeting, the committee created a list of topics that they wanted to cover, and members of the History Department contributed potential speakers. Bienstock and Straus then reached out to the professors and created an application form where students could apply to moderate the event.

The lectures showed Eli Scher (12)

the multitude of stories that exist in U.S. history but are overwritten by the dominant narrative of white men, he said. “Everyone is experiencing our country differently as a result of their race, culture, sexuality, or other identifiers.”

If people are allowed to stay ignorant about the racial history of systems, such as property ownership, they might put the blame on individuals rather than societal flaws, history teacher Dr. Ellen Bales said. “When you see the histories of these things and the structural reasons why groups of people have been marginalized, that explains a lot about the current struggles people find themselves in.

Samantha Tsai (12), who moderated the May lecture “The Past and Present of Asian America” with Dr. Ericka Lee and Dr. John Kuo Wei Tchen, appreciated how it revealed the long history behind the rise of anti-Asian hate since COVID-19 began. Without that context, people might treat racism against Asians like an isolated incident and fail to address the xenophobia that persists in the US, she said.

Policymakers often tackle societal ills without addressing their historical roots, which only perpetuates the problem and puts a band-aid on it rather than healing the wound, Ericka Familia (12) said. People need to see the full historical picture to make informed decisions about how to engage with current events.

Familia liked that many speakers were both educated in their fields and had a personal connection to the issue, such as Professor Ana Raquel Minian who immigrated from Mexico and spoke at the October lecture, “Exploring the History of Migrants, Migration, and Building the Wall.” “The personal component enhances our ability to connect to whoever is speaking and it makes the issues resonate more,” Familia said.

From Tuhin Ghosh’s (11) experience

as a moderator for the March lecture “Connecting Gender, Sexuality, Race, and Ethnicity”, talking to professors Maylei Blackwell and Imani Perry virtually felt personal, even though the call was in front of hundreds of people. “It seems like the professors are talking to just you, which fosters a nice conversation,” he said.

Courtesy of the History Department Speaker Series

The department brought two historians in conversation for most lectures because it mirrors how historians build knowledge and approach topics from various foundations, Straus said. The meetings might switch to Zoom next year so students can see that interaction.

Scher’s favorite moments in the lectures were when the speakers expressed contrasting views, or when they addressed a counterargument from the audience, he said. Those instances of discourse gave him a more nuanced understanding of the topic because he saw multiple perspectives, he said.

Even though the history itself was not political, many lectures brought up questions and current events that made it a political conversation, and most speakers had a left-leaning stance, Familia said. Students who disagree with them might pay less attention, so inviting historians with contrasting stances could encourage more people to engage with the lectures.

Students benefit from seeing historians interpret history differently from one another, which they might not realize from reading a textbook, History

A valedictorian in our midst: Adam Resheff ‘15 returns to teach in Upper Division Math Department Emma Colacino Staff Writer “When I first came to Horace Mann at the age of three, I had two goals in mind: to learn how to tie my shoes, and to one day become Valedictorian,” Adam Resheff ’15 said in his Valedictorian speech.

“Today, I am happy to announce that I have accomplished one of those goals.” Just six years after making his speech, Resheff returned to the school as an Upper Division (UD) math teacher.

Teaching at the school and joining the school’s community again has exceeded every expectation Resheff previously had, he said. “Everyone here is so engaged and super interesting in all different ways, and it’s such a great community,” he said.

“This was true when I was a student, and now I

Courtesy of Adam Resheff

can see it with all of my students today.”

Outside of school, Resheff enjoys taking walks, working out, and reading non-fiction novels.

Resheff played on the high school and middle school tennis teams during his time at the school, and in middle school he was even able to be a ball boy for Serena Williams during her match, he said. “Looking back on it, that was one of the craziest things that has ever happened to me.”

Resheff particularly enjoys watching Breaking Bad and The Office, and occasionally makes references to the shows during his classes, he said.

“At one point we were referencing the murder mystery episode of The Office, and all of the sudden everyone started speaking with a southern accent, and I could see a few people were like ‘what is happening.’”

During his time at the school, Resheff was a part of the Community Council (CC): in his sophomore and junior years of high school, he was the grade representative for his class, and in his senior year, Resheff became the CC chair.

The main projects Resheff worked on during his time on the CC was returning paper towels to the school’s bathrooms and creating a free SAT and ACT test material webpage.

In addition to the CC, Resheff was also an editor of the Review, the schools political-opinion publication, the head of the tutoring program in the Middle Division Mentoring Program, and a part of the Horace Mann Orientation Program (HMO). “I tried to keep myself involved in the school community, and I basically had my hands full with everything I was doing,” he said.

While he loved his math courses and his math

Department Chair Dr. Daniel Link said. However, the department will not seek out historians who have radically different views to argue because it is not a productive model that they want to emulate in classes. “This will not be a crossfire type program, it’s not about debate, it’s not

teachers, Resheff ’s favorite classes during his time at the school were his history classes. His favorite class was History Department Chair Dr. Daniel Link’s AP U.S History class, he said. “I really loved the class because [Link] structured the class like a college class,” he said. “We read serious historical papers and dove into them as a group and we spent basically the entire semester going through books on one topic and trying to dive into it.”

Resheff also enjoyed Barry Bienstock’s History Seminar class, which he took as a senior, he said. “I basically spent a year just writing about McCarthyism, which was awesome,” he said.

“Taking on a bigger paper was a great experience and a great kind of good preparation for college.”

At the end of his senior year, Resheff was elected to give the valedictorian speech during his classes graduation. While he is unsure of exactly why he was elected, he said he thinks he was elected to give the speech because he had given speeches in front of his grade before during his time on the Community Council and because he was known as a friendly person. “I felt honored, and I felt really appreciative that all of my friends voted for me,” he said. “It was an amazing opportunity and I really treasure that memory.”

Resheff ’s experience at the school prepared him for time at Columbia University, where he attended after graduating from the school, he said.

At Columbia, Resheff was a part of the student government for all four years he was at the school; specifically, he was responsible for distributing the student government budget to all the student see Adam Resheff on pg. 30

about entertainment, it’s about experts sharing their ideas in their interpretations of history,” he said.

Link’s students have had thoughtful conversations about the historians’ points that they disagreed with, such as Paul Butler’s January lecture “The Problems and Potential Reforms for Policing Today” that challenged ideas they may have previously held about policing. “For students who’ve grown up in environments where they haven’t had to interact with the justice system, or their interactions have been very positive, I think it’s hard for them to put themselves in the shoes of others whose experiences have been negative,” he said.

Faculty discussed how to teach students for the upcoming lectures and read articles by the speakers at an optional Zoom meeting open to all departments a week before each.

For Levenstein, this monthly reading group was one of the most fulfilling professional experiences of the year, she said. “It added an enormous depth to this experience for a lot of the faculty, so it was a really significant event for me.”

The selected readings for every lecture came with guiding questions available to all faculty, though history teachers could choose whether they assigned the readings or discussed the lectures in class, Straus said.

Alexa Turteltaub (10) hopes that the department will continue to make space for input from the student community on what subjects they are interested to learn about, she said. One topic she wished the lectures covered this year is antisemitism. “It is one of the most pervasive kinds of hate in the world, so the fact that it was ignored was upsetting because I think that it’s important to acknowledge.”

After the December speaker series “Reflections on Indigenous Issues and Communities,” students in history teacher Melissa Morales’ class said they struggled to keep up with professor Noelani Arista who specialized in Hawaiian history and colonization.

“Students felt like they were trying to keep up with her, but there was so much background information that we did not know about colonization and loss of language,” she said.

The department will continue the series with four lectures on intersectionality next year so teachers can introduce the concepts and language behind each before they occur, Straus said. “Different kids have different knowledge bases and interests, so we want to make sure everybody’s on the same starting point.”

Next year, because there will be fewer events, Morales plans to spend more time in the classroom preparing her students to listen, she said. “It might allow students to unpack even more from the speaker series because they’ll be able to probably respond to more things that the speakers are saying.”

15

HORACE MANN NEWS JUNE 7TH, 2021

THE RACE FOR DISTRICT ATTORNEY TWO HORACE MANN PARENTS RUN FOR OFFICE Liliana Greyf Staff Writer Out of the nine candidates currently running for Manhattan District Attorney (DA), two are parents of students at the school: Lucy Lang P ’32 ’33 and Diana Florence P ’19 ’22.

Lang and Florence are campaigning for an election on June 22. They are part of a group of Democrats running on moderate to progressive platforms, according to an article in the Manhattan Neighborhood Network titled “NYC Elections 2021: Manhattan DA Candidates.”

The incumbent Cy Vance, who has been in office since 2010, announced earlier this year that he would not be running for reelection.

The candidates — eight Democrats and one Republican — are contending for the four-year term.

In a recent poll of 1,003 likely Democratic voters, Lang came in second place and Florence came in third, following Tali Farhadian Weinstein, according to an article published in the Daily News.

The DA office is responsible for prosecution of crimes in the borough of Manhattan, according to their website.

PLATFORMS Lang’s campaign focuses on community engagement throughout the city, while Florence promises to prioritize prosecuting crimes of power. Both candidates are committed to reforming criminal justice policies and holding police accountable.

Lang has been a prosecutor for most of her professional life, and she is committed to providing a fair and safe New York for everyone — not just the victims she represents, she said. Her website states that she plans to “promote the dignity of every New Yorker, advance racial and gender equity, and support a safe city for us all.”

Although Lang hopes to achieve many goals during her time as DA, her platform centers

everyone equally, Florence said. “We have to hold people accountable — not just Black and Brown communities — but people that are powerful, including ourselves.” We have to build communities and be transparent with each other, she said. These ideas translate into an acronym: Power, Accountability, Community, Transparency (PACT).

Over a dozen labor unions endorse Florence.

“She has always put working people first and held powerful interests accountable,” President of Teamsters Joint Council George Miranda wrote on Florence’s website.

Prosecution of people in power can benefit those they are hurting, Florence said. “Criminal law can actually be used to empower people and not simply keep them in their place. I believe that when we empower people and we welcome them to come [to the DA office] and see us as a resource, that we can actually rebuild trust in government.”

their rent and not.”

Lang hopes to disrupt the way the penal system currently operates by no longer allowing prosecutors to treat perpetrators as if they are somehow inhumane. She recently ran the Institute for Innovation and Prosecution at John Jay College and worked with prosecutors around the country on issues of justice reform.

As a result of their passions for criminal justice reform, both candidates have made it a priority to address the policing systems in the city.

Lang promises to take a six-step plan that 5bd.org

CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM AND POLICING Criminal justice reform is a large part of both candidates’ platforms and a consistent topic of debate amongst almost all candidates, according to an article titled “What You Need to Know About New York’s District Attorney Races in 2021” published in The City.

Lang hopes to decrease the current mandatory minimum sentence for gun possession in New York State. In most cases, the state gives either three and a half years or two year mandatory minimums, even if gun possession is the person’s first arrest, she said. “We should be looking at folks who are choosing to carry a gun, and using it as a time to interrupt the cycle of violence rather than perpetuating it by enforcing these draconian mandatory minimums.” If people who are carrying guns are forced to endure a mandatory minimum sentence, the violence will not be interrupted, she said.

Lang plans to instate a fast-track gun court, meaning that a separate court would prosecute all

worth.com

DIANA FLORENCE Candidate for Manhattan District Attorney. includes ensuring a public-health approach to issues surrounding public health and improving NYPD training and policy to guarantee accountability and reform.

Her website states that she will “use her platform to advocate for the legislative decriminalization of crimes related to homelessness, poverty, and substance abuse — especially those that are known to result in huge racial disparities in arrests.”

Florence, on the other hand, would create an independent Police Accountability Unit staffed with lawyers, analysts, and community liaisons.

The Unit will proactively prosecute police officers that break the law by partnering with the CCRB to investigate the cases as soon as they are reported.

She will also advocate before the City Council to create a publicly searchable website that will contain NYPD and CCRB misconduct records, her website states.

EARLY LIFE AND CAREER

LUCY LANG Candidate for Manhattan District Attorney. around four primary objectives: “ending mass incarceration,” “prioritizing public safety,” “restoring community,” and “promoting accountability,” according to her campaign website.

Policymaking has traditionally been done in a top-down fashion that results in locking people away on an island and silencing voices of people who do not have access to resources, Lang said. “It results in backroom deals where people with access to resources get better outcomes than people who don’t have those things. This has to change.”

Florence, too, hopes to ensure that the DA office prosecutes all people fairly and equally. Her dedication to ending crimes of power stems from her 25 years battling financial crimes against large corporations that illegally defunded charities, she said.

Rather than overcriminalizing marginalized communities, the DA office must prosecute

been used, but it was clear that the needs of the community had not been met, she said.

Instead of giving up, Lang’s team put together a plan that included replacing the lights, doors, and other broken pieces of the facility and securing a donation of a jungle gym. At the time, this was an unusual additional step for a prosecutor’s office to take, but it has since become the model for what happens in Manhattan after prosecutions, Lang said.

Florence, on the other hand, did not realize she wanted to go to law school until she was

gun-related incidents. The judge, the prosecutor, and the defense attorneys would all be trained in trauma-informed best practices and relationships with a range of supportive services would exist, she said. “We would invest in a long-term solution.”

Florence’s criminal justice reform policies include diverting low-level offenses such as mental illness or drug abuse to community organizations that can offer resources. Her platform incorporates breaking silos between non-law enforcement governmental agencies like the Department of Homeless services, as well as coordinating with local mental health service organizations located in the city, such as The Bridge.

To decrease the amount of people who are sentenced for low-level misdemeanors and thefts, Florence plans to “have a holistic view of crime,” she said. “If a landlord is overcharging for an apartment as a result of fraud, that’s less money that the renter has to spend on necessities. If an employer steals an employee’s wages, that can be the difference between someone being able to pay

Lang’s legal career had a somber start. When she was studying at Columbia Law School, one of her closest friends was tragically murdered by their own brother. Lang saw the ways in which the traditional criminal justice response — a very long prison sentence, for example — did not leave the victim’s (and perpetrator’s, in this case) family with a resolution. She began to realize that as a prosecutor, she could help both the victims and perpetrators achieve some measure of justice, she said.

She started her career at the Appeals Bureau, handling post-conviction matters. She then moved into an All Purpose Trial Bureau and worked her way up from handling low-level misdemeanors to violent crimes such as homicides, domestic violence, and street violence.

Lang’s passion for community engagement began in 2012, when she was notified about a largescale Phencyclidine (PCP, a hallucinogenic drug) trafficking operation within a housing complex.

Lang — alongside the police department — built a long-term investigation into the narcotics trafficking within the area of the operation, she said.

Even after Lang had finished her work, the Tenants’ Association was not satisfied, she said.

They explained that responding to the crime had not been enough; the neighborhood had been left in disrepair and disarray. Lang was taken aback: the traditional tools of the prosecutor’s office had

midway through college at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, where she was studying to become a singer. After realizing that getting into college for musical performance was the apex of her theatrical talent, Florence decided to go to law school in hopes of becoming a public defender.

Florence took part in her law school’s defense clinic, representing people for low-level misdemeanors. She learned to speak fluent Spanish while studying abroad, and because the state did not provide translators, she represented all of the clinic’s clients who were immigrants from Latin America who did not speak English.

While the experience was rewarding, it made Florence realize that she did not want to be a Defense Attorney. “I was struck by the fact that no matter how clever my arguments, no matter how innocent my client was, that essentially all the power to do justice rested in the prosecutor,” she said. “And one decision by the prosecutor could make a difference between derailing someone or putting them back on track.”

Upon her graduation in 1995, Florence became a prosecutor in the Manhattan DA’s office, specializing in domestic violence cases.

From the beginning of her time in the DA office, Florence gravitated towards cases that involved crimes of power, specifically the illegal defrauding of charities. She started on the path that brought her to where she is today after 9/11, when major companies were rebuilding the World Trade Center, Yankee Stadium, and the Second Avenue Subway. The company that was in charge of testing the strength of the concrete for these projects was falsifying the test results, endangering the safety of these buildings. Originally, when these falsifications were discovered, a formerly incarcerated field inspector was blamed.

When this case was brought to Florence’s attention, she did not take it at face value. Instead, she looked deeper. Upon investigation, she discovered that the inspector was innocent and the falsifications were tied to a software system that automated fraud designed by top executives at the company.

“From that case, known as the Testwell case, I ended up prosecuting the entire industry and then partnering with not just other government agencies but unions, community organizers, community groups, and workers,” Florence said.

Ultimately, her vision for the DA’s office — working collaboratively with the public and private sector and the community to prioritize crimes of power — stems from this original case.

16

THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

All art by Gabby Fischberg/Art Director

up, up, a

California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES Sonja Cooper UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Ben Feldman Garrett Hah Avi Kapadia Jaden Kirshner Daisy Smith HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE Carmel Pe’ er Marina Kazarian OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE Kate Bown Alecia Daley-Tulloch PITZER COLLEGE

Illinois

Evann Penn Brown UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Connecticut WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY Eli Bacon Henry Owens Natalie Sweet Zoe Swift YALE UNIVERSITY Bradley Bennett Nina Gaither Leyli Granmayeh Ana Maria Melian Alex Oh Sarah Sun Annabelle Xing Rachel Zhu

Abby Beckler Henry Bloom Annabelle Chan Ermeen Choudhury Jack Crovitz Karina Iman Billy Leung Mandy Liu Madhav Menon Nina Mussa Celine Owens Will Owens Aidan Resnick Max Resnick Ryan Rosenthal Sam Schuur Spencer Shelton Emily Shi Maxwell Shopkorn Oliver Steinman NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

District of Columbia GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY Kareena Gupta GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY Rosy Arora Max Dauer Emma Djoganopoulos Yana Gitelman Sofia Jiang Livy Steinberg Kristin Yung

Lara Hersch Annie Wallach Talia Winiarsky

Indiana INDIANA UNIVERSITY Sully Smith PURDUE UNIVERSITY Kush Malhotra

Louisiana

BOSTON COLLEGE David Orloff BOSTON UNIVERSITY Devin Hirsch

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

Garo Amerkanian Elyse Gay Armaan Kakodkar Amanda Katiraei Catherine Zhang

John Mauro HARVARD UNIVERSITY

TULANE UNIVERSITY

Georgia

Eli Scher

EMORY UNIVERSITY

Maine

Nora Balidemaj Galahad Caer Max Migdon Ahaana Shrivastava Ryan Webb

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Missouri

Sam Chiang Hunter Kim

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS

New York

COLBY COLLEGE

Kimberly Dutta

Ryan Mark Chloe Stewart

BARNARD COLLEGE

TUFTS UNIVERSITY

Sofia Allinson Lowell Finster Lauren Gay David Puckowitz

Gabby Fischberg Haley Watson

Massachusetts

WILLIAMS COLLEGE

AMHERST COLLEGE

Julia Goldberg Sasha Snyder

SPELMAN COLLEGE Nya Marshall

Adrian Arnaboldi Alex Gerstenhaber Ericka Familia Sabrina Freidus Danielle Paulson Aaron Shuchman

New Jersey

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

GEORGIA TECH Ryan Peng

Michigan

Jaden Richards

New Hampshire DARTMOUTH COLLEGE Jolie Nelsen

Tess Abraham Mikayla Benson Alexis Fry Sofia Subramaniam COLGATE UNIVERSITY Mehraz Karim Arya Patel

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HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

and away

Texas RICE UNIVERSITY AJ Shin TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY Mitchell Yu

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS, AUSTIN Ryan Wolfberg

Vermont MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE Teyonce Allison

Virginia Ohio CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND Nic Moreira

Abigail Morse OBERLIN COLLEGE

Washington

Rhys Shepherd UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND Janet Christian

Pennsylvania BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY Leah Rakhlin Kelly Troop LAFAYETTE COLLEGE

Wisconsin UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, MADISON Yotam Hahn

Anthony White THE HILL SCHOOL Harrison Winter

Canada

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

HAMILTON COLLEGE

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Adam Frommer Freddie Germer Chris Kaiser Vivien Sweet ‘25 Frank Yang CORNELL UNIVERSITY Daanyal Agboatwalla Berk Balkir Lindsey Cheng Julia Isko Jonas Jacobson Eddie Mantz Jonathan Mong Ari Salsberg Samantha Tsai Nshera Tutu Joshua Underberg Pascale Zissu

Alison Isko Hannah Lipskar THE NEW SCHOOL

SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY

Shreya Sarkar

Chris Robinson

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Eden Plepler RENSSELAR POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE Jack Hart

North Carolina Jacob Schorsch DUKE UNIVERSITY

Sadie Hill

Amishi Desai Ethan Irushalmi Rebecca Rosenzweig

Natalia Mason

CULINARY INSTITUTE OF AMERICA

SUNY BINGHAMTON

Peter Arvanitis

Erin Zhao

Rhode Island

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO Sophia Brothers

England OXFORD UNIVERSITY Harry Qiao Sonia Shuster

France

BROWN UNIVERSITY DAVIDSON COLLEGE

UNION COLLEGE

ST JOHN’S UNIVERSITY QUEENS

Ally August Maurice Campbell Stella Cha Jake Federman Andie Goldmacher Jack Klein Emily Marks Charlie Shapiro Sam Singer Lexi Stein Hunter Willoughby-Spera

Isabella Abbott Lita Crichton

Tennessee

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY IN PARIS Mabel Runyon

Ireland

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY Jackson Feigin

Jolie Horowitz Yesh Nikam Elijah Shaham

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN Vivien Sweet ‘23

Students’ mental health suffers during the pandemic

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

Claire Goldberg Staff Writer “At the risk of sounding brutal, I’ve sometimes compared this year and the pandemic to the slowest moving car accident in history,” psychologist Dr. Ian Pervil said. “It’s very hard to step back and see the damage that has been done to everyone’s mental health because we’re still in the middle of it.”

From isolation to unprecedented safety concerns, COVID-19 has taken a toll on everyone’s mental health, psychologist Dr. Elizabeth Westphal said. “People who were doing ‘well’ before the pandemic are now okay,’ and people who were struggling before the pandemic are now really struggling,” she said. “It’s bumped everyone’s mental health down a notch.”

As a result, the Department of Counseling and Guidance has been busier than ever, despite its virtual format during HM Online 2.0. In a recent Record poll, 26 out of the 163 student respondents said that they started therapy during the pandemic.

For many students, the pandemic compounded existing mental health struggles. Ethan Waggoner (11) had surgery right before the pandemic began, so he spent his recovery in isolation, he said. “COVID slowed down my recovery exponentially, which caused a lack of progress that was really frustrating and depressing,” he said. “The pandemic just made all my personal issues, like my recovery, a million times worse.”

During quarantine, most people had to adapt to new forms of living, Pervil said. “These environmental changes then brought with them a great upheaval of the usual conventions and structures that offer stability, like waking up in the morning and going to school,” he said. “This dramatic reshuffling of norms forced people to find new routines, which for many, meant adopting a much lonelier or more isolated way of life. This change can be a shift that is deeply stress-producing.”

The pandemic compromised some of the elements of Maya Nornberg’s (11) life that made her happy, she said. “The pandemic took away a part of my life that gave me motivation and happiness every day, which was being able to go to school, see friends, or even just have a basic routine,” she said.

“My mom is also really scared of diseases, so the pandemic definitely affected our ability to wake up in the morning and

“

“How can someone talk about your family life when your family is next door? How can you talk about your schoolwork when you’re sitting at your work desk?

It’s just not as appealing because you don’t have that sense of distance.”

-Dr. Elizabeth Westphal feel as secure.”

Quarantining because of the pandemic has also resulted in the loss of friends, Piper Wallace (11) said. “The pandemic can make you fall out of contact with people or feel like no one wants to hang out with you anymore, which is really depressing at times.”

After losing two family members to COVID-19, Wallace also found it demoralizing to see friends not adhere to pandemic protocol seriously, she said. “There are people that I no longer want to hang out with because I saw them not take the pandemic seriously. It was hard to forgive [these people] after it [COVID] killed two people close to me. ” Consequently, COVID has made Wallace feel “incredibly alone” at times, she said. “I didn’t go into the pandemic with a solid friend group and I then experienced those two deaths, [so] I just really wanted to have someone there and not feel like I was burdening anyone with my struggles.”

The pandemic has compromised many support systems that students rely on throughout the year, Westphal said. For example, students often turned to their friends for help before going to Counseling and Guidance, and during the pandemic this option was less accessible, she said.

Due to extended periods of online school, many students have struggled to maintain a sleep schedule. Out of the 163 responses in a recent Record poll, 96 students said that the pandemic disrupted their sleep schedule.

Oftentimes these abnormal sleep schedules come at the detriment to students’ mental health, Westphal said. “The structure of in-person school is very anchoring and stabilizing for students and faculty alike,” she said. “The lack of structure makes people much less efficient with their school work, and also messes up their sleeping and eating habits. When people’s sleeping habits become out-of-whack, that definitely knocks down their physical and mental health.”

Tomoko Hida (11), who has spent the year living abroad, has struggled to maintain healthy sleep and eating habits due to the pandemic and the time difference, she said. “I shift my sleep schedule from sleeping before school to sleeping right after school, and sometimes I break up my eight hours into four hours and four hours,” she said. “Because of that, I’m either awake for two days at a time, or accidentally I’ll eat five

meals in a day without realizing it.”

As a result, Hida has experienced weight gain over the course of the year, she said.

Waggoner has also experienced weight gain due to a lack of motivation, he said. “I’ve struggled a lot with staying motivated to exercise or even just get out of bed,” he said.

“There are days where I feel so unmotivated to do anything, so I just sit in bed and watch TV as the day flies by.”

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Because the pandemic compounded mental health struggles, therapy has played a more prominent role than ever, Westphal said. During the pandemic, the majority of therapy has shifted to a virtual format. At the school, Counseling and Guidance sent out emails to the student body with the link to a Google Form through which students could schedule virtual meetings.

Despite having more scheduled meetings than ever before, Counseling and Guidance had fewer “drop-ins,” or unscheduled meetings with students during virtual school, Westphal said. “I think there were a lot of students who really could have used our support, who might have stopped in, but were stopped by needing to find the link or the Google form,” she said.

Having to hold virtual meetings with Counseling and Guidance from students’ homes also likely decreased the number of sessions online, Westphal said. “When students come into Counseling and Guidance, they’re looking for a space that is removed from their daily lives,” she said. “How can someone talk about your family life when your family is next door? How can you talk about your schoolwork when you’re sitting at your work desk? It’s just not as appealing because you don’t have that sense of distance.”

It is likely that students chose not to schedule a counseling session at all because of a lack of privacy, Westphal said. “I imagine that there were students that did not reach out to us because they felt that they had no place to talk to us.”

Quinn (11)*, who chose to be anonymous because she did not want her peers to think differently of her on behalf of her struggles with mental health, said that she felt like each session of virtual therapy was a waste. “I felt like I couldn’t talk as much because my parents were right outside my door,” she said. “They’re going to listen, especially if I’m talking about them. I felt like I lost the freedom and agency I had when I spoke with my therapist in-person.”

Because of these obstacles of online school, the department had to become more inventive to continue to supply support for students, Pervil said. “Major societal events, like pandemics, have a way of opening our eyes to a fuller range of human experiences,” Pervil said. “For every student with whom it was easier to meet online, there was a corresponding student with whom it was harder. This newfound knowledge made me sort of more aware of the range of ways we may be able to reach out to students and help them. If we are willing to break outside of our traditional mold, we may then be able to reach more people in different ways.”

However, counseling students in their own homes created a less formal atmosphere, which was sometimes beneficial, Upper Division Director of Counseling and Guidance Dr. Daniel Rothstein said. “Sometimes you get a glimpse of someone’s cat or you get to know their pet, and in these moments there was something nice.”

During online learning, Westphal has focused on reaching out to students who are struggling, she said. “A lot of what I did on Zoom during the pandemic was work with some of our really most fragile vulnerable students,” she said. These were students who were struggling before the pandemic to engage with their school work, feel good about their relationships with their peers, or feel capable of being part of the school’s community, she said. “These students were most devastated by the pandemic. This trend cut across all grades, grade levels, gender, socio economic status, and race,” she said.

One of the main focuses of the administration and Counseling and Guidance during the pandemic has been to reach out to students who are struggling, Dean of Students Michael Dalo said. “The deans have been especially attentive to students that we have been concerned about,” he said.

“The deans have been more proactive to connect with these students and make sure that they can connect with a trusted adult.”

Quinn, who goes to Counseling and Guidance almost every week, said that she did not schedule a meeting once during the virtual period. “I didn’t feel inclined to go during quarantine because I got super depressed,” she said. “I didn’t care enough to ask for some help because I just didn’t want to leave my bed. It just felt like too much effort, especially because I wouldn’t even be able to speak freely with my parents nearby.”

There are more distractions during virtual therapy, Wallace said. “I’m definitely guilty of multitasking while on the phone with my therapist, whether it be doing my nails or scrolling on Instagram,” she said. “It’s only harming myself because they’re there to help me, but at certain times it’s really hard to sit down and have a productive session. There are times when I just don’t feel like talking and opening up, and online, it’s easier to do that.”

On the other hand, having counseling sessions from her bedroom during the online period has made Westphal more focused, she said. At school, Westphal’s duties include counseling with students, crisis management, and the Horace Mann Orientation (HMO) program, she said.

“Being at home was like a dream, because I was sitting in a corner of my room, facing a computer, and no one was going to walk by or knock on the door,” she said. “I was more engaged with the counseling work that I was doing.”

For Tess Goldberg, (10) the virtual format has made therapy more accessible, she said. “I no longer have to wake up an hour before to get ready and commute,” she said. “My therapist is also on her computer more often, so she’s always checking her email and available to talk now.”

To facilitate his recovery process, Waggoner began meeting with a sports psychologist via Zoom, he said. “I honestly didn’t find it that helpful, which might have been because of the therapist or maybe the virtual setting,” he said. “It became very repetitive and it felt like all she could do over Zoom was tell me, ‘Wow, I’m sorry.’”

Westphal also found that there was added difficulty connecting with and counseling people via Zoom, she said.

“There’s a whole host of nonverbal stuff that is going on that you miss, like a person’s posture or how they’re sitting,” she said. “Sometimes there’s a feeling in the room when you’re sitting with a student, which you just don’t get on Zoom.”

At the same time, virtual therapy has also opened new avenues for discourse and connection. On days where Hida finds it too difficult to talk out loud, she has been able to use the chat function on Zoom to type out her feelings, she said.

Throughout the pandemic, Wallace has not visited Counseling and Guidance, she said. “I have definitely fallen victim to the whole stigma surrounding Counseling and

see Mental Health on page 30

Based on an anonymous survey of 163 UD students.

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HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

LOST FOREVER ?

COVID-19 HALTS CLUBS & TEAM TRADITIONS

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Although the Debate Team could Members of HMTC have a not attend in-person tradition of giving roses to tournaments, seniors to wish them luck debaters still for the journey ahead, took part in Taub said. “It’s always traditions like a really emotional Confidential and special event,” Chanukah she said. In addition, Fairy (CCF), a actors usually go to twist on Secret the Riverdale Diner Santa in which before performances to 11th and 12th spend time together and grade members of celebrate. “I remember the team give each being a freshman and feeling Julia Goldberg/EIC other both gag and so much better about going out genuine gifts, Wasserberger and doing the performance after said. having that moment with the cast.”

The Cancer Awareness Club held its two This year, the bond between members of biggest yearly events — Cycle for Survival the Swim team seemed weaker to Mauro, a n d Relay for Life but swimmers made an effort to increase — online team spirit in spite of this change, he said. t h i s Gaither organized a week of swim team spirit in the team’s Facebook group, Mauro said.

On the second day of Ivy championships, members of the swim team would wear togas to school, and Gaither wanted to carry the tradition on in spite of the championships’ cancellation.

“When I was a freshman, everyone always said, ‘The swim team is the closest family,’” she said. “Putting on something funky is a really easy way of saying, ‘You are my team member, and we are going to somehow distinguish ourselves from the rest of the community,’” she said. year.

Despite the team’s efforts to connect this Abby Beckler/A&E Editor B e y o n d year, Gaither predicts the energy will be affecting t h e i r very different next year. “I’m a little afraid fundraising efforts, the events’ overall that some of our traditions will fall out of energy was weaker, said Rosenzweig, who is use, but of course it’s still the Swim team co-President of the club. “You have to walk and I’m sure that the brilliant sophomores into that event with so much positivity and and freshmen will be able to come up with so much energy and determination, and to their own,” she said. really be there to celebrate life,” she said.

Although ninth graders have not In past years, every week before their experienced many traditions this year, games, the Varsity Football Team used Mignone said she and her peers are to eat bagels together in the locker room, looking forward to learning about them team member David Puckowitz (12) said. and carrying them on in the future. “You Puckowitz worries that the bagel tradition don’t want to be the grade that gives up on a may die out because ninth and 10th graders tradition just because you didn’t experience have never experienced it. He hopes that if it freshman year,” she said. “If there’s the tradition ends, future grades will come something that I learn about next year, I’ll up with new ones. “It’s extremely important be just as invested in it as I would have been to have something to bond with each other this year.”

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“If I were to be a senior next year, I would have no clue what was going on,” Swim team member Jojo Mignone (9) said. “I’d just get in the pool and swim, and other than that I wouldn’t know how the team worked.” Because Mignone has not had the opportunity to interact with many upperclassmen on the Swim team, she has not experienced most in-person traditions team members normally participate in for fun, she said.

For example, swimmers missed out on John Mauro’s (12) favorite team tradition because of the rule prohibiting outside food on campus. At every swim meet, a member of the Swim team used to bring “Bliss Brownies” — baked according to a secret recipe that graduating seniors have passed down over the years — for the team to eat, Mauro said.

COVID-19 restrictions prevented many clubs and teams from engaging in popular traditions. Seniors have worked to replicate normal club dynamics, but it was often challenging to bring together students across grade levels without in-person activities, Nina Gaither (12) said.

For members of Model UN (MUN), bus rides to and from conferences served as crucial bonding experiences, MUN Secretary General (SG) Becca Rosenzweig (12) said. “On the bus ride back, if we win, the SGs pour Lucky Charms into everyone’s mouths, we have lots of snacks, play music, and talk.” Each bus ride, team members have to share their favorite “MUN Moment” — a funny or sentimental memory from their time on the team.

MUN Director-General and Head General Assembly Delegate Charlie Shapiro (12) worries that current sophomores and juniors will struggle to maintain traditions because they missed a year and a half of the normal MUN experience. “It’ll be very hard for freshmen to understand and really get into a lot of these clubs,” Shapiro said.

“What made it so great is the upperclassmen are normally so passionate about it that it really rubs off on the underclassmen. With a lot of clubs now, there isn’t that passion.”

Next year’s sophomores and juniors in the Middle Division Mentoring (MDM) program, for example, will not have experienced the traditions that take place during their

over,” he said. “It’s not just a game that you play together and practices that you have together, but the overall camaraderie that [traditions] generate.”

Once a year, the Girls Varsity Basketball team comes together outside of school for a bonding activity, team member Sareena Parikh (11) said.

Two years ago they had a sleepover, last year they went out Julia Goldberg/EIC for a team dinner, and this year they had a picnic.

Because the activity is different every year, Parikh did not feel as though the pandemic changed this tradition significantly, she said.

Although members of the Horace Mann Theater Company (HMTC) were not able to do most of their usual traditions this year, HMTC co-President Sarah Taub (11) does not believe this change will negatively influence the group’s future. “If anything, this will just make these traditions even more special and meaningful,” she said.

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Hanna Hornfeld Staff Writer

annual Dorr training, MDM leader Michael Shaari (11) said. The training usually takes place over the course of three days in August, during which many of these traditions occur. Last year, it was held over Zoom, and this year, the program held a one-day training in early June on the school’s main campus.

One of the main traditions involves mentors being split into groups and tasked with building a raft on which to race around the lake. “The energy is usually high,” Shaari said. “Usually everybody ends up falling in, having a lot of fun, having to basically swim the entire way.”

Because the Dorr staff runs the raftbuilding activity, Shaari is confident that this tradition will continue in future years, he said. However, he is not certain that students will carry on other traditions they would normally have learned from upperclassmen. For example, during their free time at Dorr, older students usually teach younger students to play Signs, a game special to MDM training and Upper Division Orientation. “There’s no explicit handbook of things to do during break or lunch,” Shaari said.

Although Giselle Paulson (10), who will be an MDM leader next year, has never gone to Dorr for MDM training, she has experience with MDM traditions in other contexts, she said. Because of these experiences, she understands and hopes to preserve MDM training traditions. Paulson also plans to work with old leadership and with the Dorr staff to ensure that future training sessions look similar to past ones.

Divya Ponda (10) joined the Saturday Morning Tutoring Program (SMTP) this year and has only experienced the program online, so she has not heard about the club’s old in-person traditions, she said. In future years, she hopes to speak with the program’s former leaders to learn about and carry on those traditions with her peers.

Members of SMTP used to make buildings out of marshmallows, tape, and pasta, and ate waffles for breakfast before the last day of the program.

“The little things we did foster a sense of community,” Gaither said.

Zahra Motwani (10) hopes to preserve SMTP traditions if inperson tutoring is possible next year, she said. “As years go on, more traditions will be made, but the old ones will be kept intact too to keep the club bonded over those shared experiences.”

Rosenzweig is generally optimistic about MUN’s future because the team and its traditions always change over time, she said. “This is a team that’s been around for 60 years at the school, so I have no doubt that we’re still going to be going to as many away conferences as possible, that people will still be passionate about it, and that the MUN family will still exist,” she said.

Jordan Wasserberger

(11), who will be the Debate team’s Middle Division Head next year, is confident that Debate traditions will continue in the future because next year’s leaders have been heavily involved in the club since their freshman year.

“If circumstances allow it, we’ll be able to replicate the usual feel,” he said. “If external circumstances change, we’ll do our best to have the new kids experience a large part of what we all love about debate.”

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

In Memoriam: A trib

I had the privilege of coaching Allen all four years of his varsity swim career. He was the ultimate teammate; his impact was bigger than his swimming ability. Allen went out of his way to make the younger swimmers feel welcomed, and his sense of humor and charismatic personality drew his teammates to him. Allen was the first to run up to a teammate and congratulate them when they hit their best time. He was also there when they didn’t have their best swim. Allen was always willing to give up his spot if it meant another swimmer would have an opportunity to race. He always swam at his best when the team needed him to, and his spirit and legacy will carry on. Allen will always be a part of the Horace Mann swim team family. We will cherish the memories and carry ourselves in a manner that would make him proud.

— Coach Michael Duffy Courtesy of Eli Scher

Allen was one of my favorite soccer players. He truly cared about his teammates. Allen would play any position we needed him to play, and he always gave 100 percent effort with a smile on his face.

— Coach Gregg Quilty

Courtesy of Eli Scher

Allen was a friend and a goofball. I first really got to know him in Ms. Siegel’s 7th grade biology class, where we would have side conversations during lab. One of my most striking memories with Allen was when Allen, Lynne, and I accidentally got lost from Ms. Siegel’s class in the Bronx Zoo because we got too distracted watching the baby gorilla. We spent an hour together running around the zoo trying to find anyone from Horace Mann. I, a 13-year-old who hadn’t yet even been trusted by my parents to ride the subway myself, was freaking out massively the whole time. I think Allen realized that, and maintained a goofy attitude to lighten the mood for the three of us. Allen’s sense of humor and cheeriness made me laugh, calmed me down, and gave me courage when I was scared, in this circumstance and later instances. To Allen, thank you for helping me when I was afraid and panicking, and thank you for all the laughs since then. I miss you, and I’ll hold you in happy memory.

— Emily Yu ‘19

Courtesy of Mannikin

Courtesy of Eli Scher

Like all of us, I knew Allen for too short a time. I taught him in his 9th grade year. He was one member of a spirited class of fourteen students, but among that group Allen was a brilliant light whose luster never dimmed. Needless to say, Allen was a keenly perceptive young man whose talents were of great value to me and to his classmates. He was a gifted reader and writer. But that’s not what I remember most vividly about Allen, and it isn’t that which gives me the sense that I just saw him sitting in 152T, A period, only yesterday. No, what stirs my heart and saddens me in this moment are the memories of Allen’s joyful leadership in the classroom. He was a young man who led not only by the strength of his example but by the depth of his character. As anyone who knew Allen will attest, he loved to laugh, and to joke, and to dribble his ever present soccer ball through the hallways (every hallway!) and into the classroom, and to share a smile. Allen’s warm smile is what I remember. Allen’s instinctive enlivening of the perennially sleepy A period mood, his way of using his wonderful (and wonderfully silly) sense humor to forge meaningful bonds with those around him.

As much as Allen loved to perpetrate a good joke, he could take one, too. On the last day of the 2015-16 school year, a classmate who had enjoyed a running joke all year with Allen made him the “butt” of the joke for one final time.

Allen laughed at himself, but he was also a little quiet afterward. I worried that this moment of mild embarrassment might be Allen’s lasting memory of our time together as a class. So I spoke with him after the other students had left.

As soon as I asked if he was OK, Allen smiled and told me he was not only fine but actually happy that his friend had “gotten” him at least once that year. Allen felt pride on his good friend’s behalf.

These are the things I remember about Allen Park. Luckily, I won’t really miss them. They stay with me, a comfort and an inspiration, just as all of our vibrant and indelible memories of Allen will remain with us forever.

— English teacher Vernon Wilson

I write this knowing that I cannot begin to describe what the loss of Allen means to our community, to his teachers, friends, family, and to the world, so, instead, I will focus on what he brought to us and some of the many ways he made our school and everyone around him better.

Almost always, when I think of Allen, I think of the first time I saw him play soccer at homecoming his junior year. The team was down two or three goals with only a few minutes left in the game and almost no chance of winning. But there was Allen, darting across the field, racing to get the ball, dancing it towards the goal and between players, trying with every bit of himself to will something magic to happen. He was playing with such heart and tenacity. He never gave up. I was lucky enough to be his physics teacher that year. I still remember thinking in that moment how fitting it was that he was that kind of player on the field, because even then, less than two months into teaching him, I could tell that he was that kind of student in the classroom as well. I went to many of their games over the next two years, and every time I was so proud of Allen’s ability to give his absolute all, for himself and, most of all, for his team.

He truly left everything on the field, not just in soccer, but in everything he did.

Two years ago almost to the day, I wrote a letter to the graduating class of 2019. In it, I mentioned one of my favorite quotes, from runner Steve Prefontaine who said: “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” Allen had a rare ability to always give his best, at all times, in all situations, joyfully and without any sense of burden. As a student, athlete, musician, classmate, and friend, Allen poured all of himself into whatever he was doing. He seemed to know that whatever his best was, was enough, and he found a way to push himself at every turn while doing so with such lightness and happiness. He also brought out the best in the people around him. He lifted up his peers, and he championed his friends.

Allen was a brilliant physics student, who excelled in our course, consistently demonstrating the incredible depth of his intellect and the creativity and freedom of his mind. But what stood out the most about Allen in our class was his kindness, warmth, and compassion. Physics came naturally to him, but he felt that his greatest strength was not that he could understand that material so quickly and deftly himself, but rather, that his understanding allowed him to help his peers. He told me that he hated feeling good about a test while others did not, so he would study by trying to help his classmates understand any topic he already had a strong grasp of. Allen cared about everyone. He cheered on his peers and never left anyone behind. His thoughtfulness and kindness set the tone for the way our class operated and his humor and joy made it a place where play and learning could work together seamlessly. He filled our class with life and laughter and placed importance on every voice in the room and what they had to offer.

I can still see his smiling face wandering through the halls. Most of all, I see him darting around the soccer field with his friends, celebrating the victories of his swim teammates’ and comforting them in defeat, playing music with his band, dancing with a crew at Asia Night, joking with everyone as he passed them in the hallway, and laughing with his classmates at the start of class as they prepared to hand in a problem set. Allen is at the center of all these images, but he is always surrounded by friends, and he always was. He had a way of bringing people together — seeing the best in them, looking out for them, and making everyone feel welcome.

Allen left every place better than he found it. He cared about the common good. He embodied the life of the mind and took advantage of every opportunity he was given. He lived every moment to the fullest, exploring his passions with drive, curiosity, and creativity, sharing them joyfully, and encouraging everyone around him to do the same. I was lucky to teach him, and we were lucky to have him at Horace Mann. We will carry him with us. I hope we will all learn from the way Allen lived his life and the kindness, compassion, and heart he brought to everything he did.

— Science teacher Catherine Crowley

HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

bute to Allen Park ’19 Allen was the first upperclassman on the swim team to say hi to me outside of the pool. I don’t think we even knew each others’ names yet, but I remember him acknowledging me with a head nod as we passed each other in the hall. Small gestures like that made me feel so comfortable on the swim team around all new teammates and faces, and these were just the start of a friendship that highlighted my swim experience.

Not only was he the perfect teammate and leader, but he brought me in as a friend in and out of the pool. Starting on the Hawaii trip and spanning through my tenth grade school year, I felt like I had become an extension of his group of friends, now the cool seniors. He never once made me feel like an annoying underclassman, and he treated me like a peer even though I saw him as more of an older brother that I never had.

Allen was truly the glue that held our team together, and he embodied so many traits that his friends and younger teammates clearly admired and strived to emulate.

As I’ve heard many of his friends recount over the past few days, he always put others first and got a true sense of joy from seeing others feel happy and included and watching them succeed. That’s what made him truly special.

— Eli Scher (12)

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Courtesy of Mannikin

Allen was a pleasure to know and such an amazing person. I met him in 10th grade when he was a senior on the soccer team. He was such an amazing captain and one of my closest senior friends that year. There was a point during the season where I was so sure I was going to quit the team. However, Allen took the initiative to sit down with me and talk about how I was such an important aspect to the team and, more specifically, the back line of defenders. I hadn’t played soccer at that competitive of a level before and I didn’t think I was cut out for it, but he made me keep going. The memories I made with the team that year are all credited to him. The memories I made with him will forever live on in my brain. We all miss you Allen, and I will never forget the impact you made on not just me, but the entire upper school.

— Christopher Robinson (12)

Courtesy of Eli Scher

Allen brightened every room he entered with charisma and his infectious humor.

In classes, he made classmates feel welcome even and especially when most vulnerable.

Allen truly was an incredibly kind, warm, sweet, respectful, passionate, wonderful person, classmate, and friend. His memory will forever be a blessing.

— Sophia Reiss ‘19

Courtesy of Eli Scher

When I joined the swim team, Allen was a really welcoming voice; he made me feel valued and included. As the season progressed, Allen consistently took time to give me tips and help coach me. He was invested in my improvement and celebrated my accomplishments with me. He was extremely generous and I hope we can all continue to honor him by paying that kindness forward.

— Nader Granmayeh ‘19

Courtesy of Mannikin

Courtesy of Mannikin

Courtesy of Mannikin

I am so honored to have known Allen. When I think of him, I see a perfectly well rounded “kid” who was smart, hard-working, respectful, gentle, and fun to be around. I was Allen’s Chemistry teacher in 10th grade and enjoyed every minute of it! I can still picture him in our classroom, on the 3rd floor of Pforzheimer, with a soccer ball at his feet, sitting next to his buddy, Michael, known to us as “Sunny.” Allen was truly a model student who loved to laugh and made everyone comfortable in the classroom. Allen could “connect” with anyone. His senior year, Allen joined my advisory. At that time, I only had seniors (“Sunny,” Yoseph, Ashna, Schuyler known to us as “Skye,” Philip, and Ryan) so right before advisory, most of them would grab lunch from the cafeteria and bring it back to “our” classroom on the 3rd floor of Lutnick. We would eat together, talk about nothing and everything, and often play Uno. That’s also when “Skye” would play some beats and one day, Allen figured out, I did not know what K-Pop was. He was like, “What? Dr. Diop-Bove does not know what K-pop is?” so Allen played songs on his phone and he started singing along and dancing to the music. So now, anytime I hear BTS on the radio, I think of him and many fun memories come back to life. Allen’s wonderful and gentle soul will forever be with me.

Words fail me to describe the pain I am feeling and I can only imagine the sorrow Allen’s grandparents, parents, sister, and Sunny are feeling. It has been a great loss for the HM community as Allen touched so many of us with his beautiful and contagious smile, whether it be on the soccer field or in the swimming pool, or in class, performing at Asia night, singing, or on a trip. It has been an honor to have known him so THANK YOU ALLEN. — Science teacher Dr. Ndeye Diop-Bove

Courtesy of Eli Scher

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

Frank Cabrera Courtesy of HM Mannikin

Ayesha Sen Staff Writers When Associate Director of College Counseling (CoCo) Frank Cabrera was not offered admission to Horace Mann in ninth grade, he never imagined joining the school as a faculty member, he said. “It’s always fun to think about how life has come full circle, because I could not have been happier with the way things ended up.”

Cabrera will leave the school after five years of working in the CoCo office to become the Director of College Counseling at the Brooklyn Friends School, he said. For the 2021-2022 school year, Cabrera will be the sole person in the office, after which Cabrera will work with the school to hire two more members of the department, strengthening the College Counseling Department.

Prior to joining the school, Cabrera worked as an admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania, he said. At the time, he was happy with his position at UPenn and was not planning on leaving. However, after Executive Director of College Counseling Canh Oxelson announced the opening in the CoCo department, Cabrera decided to look into it, he said.

After an initial conversation with Oxelson about the CoCo and his vision for the department, Cabrera knew that the office was the right place for him, and he decided to apply, he said.

Cabrera began working at the school in September of 2016. “It was one of the best decisions I could have made for myself personally and professionally,” he said.

Cabrera will apply his experience and knowledge from the school to his new role at the Brooklyn Friends school, he said. He has learned that while college counseling typically only includes a student, their family, and a counselor, there may be moments where a counselor reaches out to other figures in a student’s life as well, such as a grade dean or an advisor. “It’s one of those things I didn’t necessarily get trained to do, but has now become a frequent occurrence each year,” he said.

What makes Cabrera special as a college counselor is his incredibly student-centered approach to college counseling, Oxelson said. “Most college counselors think about how a decision is going to affect the parents, the family, the entire senior class or the junior class — all these different people who are part of the admission process,” he said.

“But the bottom line is, when it comes down to it, [Cabrera] is focused on the students, and what’s going to be best for each individual student.”

Sonia Shuster (12) said that Cabrera’s balance of focusing on the student’s desires and realistic outcomes made him an effective mentor. Cabrera understands how nerve-racking the admissions process can be, so he takes specific actions to try and make the process more

Faculty

bearable, Shuster said. He shares what he believes a student’s probability of getting in somewhere is given their application. This is especially helpful in keeping a student’s ambitions in check and makes for a more strategic approach to college admissions, she said.

Cabrera also knows how to push a student to reach their full potential in a kind and supportive way, Alexander Cox (12) said. Cabrera helped Cox improve in his creative writing, he said.

“Mr. Cabrera pushed me to express myself and my interests more in the college process, and because personal writing isn’t necessarily a focus at Horace Mann, that was definitely an eye opening experience.”

While highly knowledgeable in navigating the college process, Cabrera also took the time to understand the kids he worked with on a deeper level, Aidan McAndrew (12) said. “I was not just another kid to him, but rather someone he personally rooted for and wanted to succeed.”

McAndrew felt like he could talk to Cabrera about anything, as their conversation dynamic was always fluid, he said. “He’s such a relaxed conversationalist that the topic subject would gradually transition from lighthearted things like his relationship to Pokémon games to institutional problems with the way colleges talk about the communities situated around their campuses,” he said.

Although Cabrera and the CoCo department

Farewel

Ronald Taylor Emily Sun Staff Writer Over his four years at the school, Associate Director of the Office for Identity, Culture and Institutional Equity (ICIE) Ronald Taylor has aimed to make the school more actively anti-racist through its history curriculum, Students Together Empowering People of Color Successfully (STEPS) program, and ICIE. He is leaving to become the Head of Middle School at Browning, an all-boys private school in NYC. Taylor joined the school as a seventh and eighth grade history teacher in 2017. He wanted to teach the subject ever since he took AP U.S. History in 11th grade. “I was tired of being told a single story,” he said.

In his first year teaching the history of New York to seventh graders, Taylor realized that the course centered on the white experience of the city and that other racial groups served as accessories, he said. In his second year, he introduced the lens of intersectionality and social constructions such as race and gender to push students towards a more nuanced understanding of history, which the curriculum continues to use.

History became more meaningful through this framework because students could see how historical patterns o f

oppression showed up in their lives, said Rose Korff (8), who was in Taylor’s seventhgrade class. The class also discussed their own intersectionalities and how it would affect them if they were alive in the past, making historical events more personal.

More than just telling students how to write an essay or cite a source, Taylor said his most important job is to remind them that they are loved. People learn best when they are comfortable and know that their teacher cares about them, he said. “If students don’t get those good vibes in my classroom, then fire me — I’m not supposed to be there.”

In 2017, Taylor became the Co-Director of STEPS because he wanted to help students of color be able to be their full selves, he said. “A young person should never go to a school and not feel like they don’t belong, so I wanted students to realize how amazing and wonderful and gifted they were.”

STEPS connected Nia Huff (9) to other students of color who shared her experiences as a Black person at the school, she said. “You can feel really alone, but STEPS made me realize that it’s not only me. So many others are also going through similar situations.”

Taylor helped grow the program from under 10 students to over 80 in three years. One of his proudest moments at the school was when he saw STEPS members fill up the atrium at their first meeting this school year, he said.

In 2019, Taylor started studying for his master’s degree in independent school leadership from Columbia University while teaching full time.

He learned how to set a vision for an institution, bring other people on board, and guide them to carry it out effectively, he said.

Those skills came into use when Taylor became

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as a whole take their work seriously, they are also a tightknit group, Oxelson said.

“He brings his fun loving personality, his love of 90s pop star Mariah Carey, and if you haven’t noticed, he also brings his serious sneaker game too,” he said. “It’s these little things that make [Cabrera] such a unique and amazing member of our CoCo community. We’re really going to miss him.”

Outside of the CoCo office, working with affinity groups has been one of Cabrera’s most cherished experiences at the school, specifically the LGBTQ+ affinity group. “Students and teachers have collaborated and created a space where we can just be ourselves and there are no expectations beyond that,” he said. “It’s always been the thing that I look forward to, no matter what.”

Cabrera said the LGBTQ+ affinity group has been an incredible way to give back to the school community. “HM has always felt like such an amazing place for me to be in as an adult, so for me to be able to model what I wish I had at that age in high school has been amazing,” he said. To Cabrera, stressing the importance of living authentically is incredibly important. “To be out, to be proud, and to be living your full truth — that is my vision for the HM LGBTQ+ community.”

Emily Lombardo, co-advisor to the LGBTQ+ affinity group, describes Cabrera as a thoughtful and caring

“

ls...

“A young person should never go to a school and not feel like they don’t belong.”

- Ronald Taylor the Associate Director of ICIE last summer. He became Acting Director shortly after because Director Candice Powell-Caldwell was out this school year. His goal for the office was to help the school become an inclusive and actively antiracist institution through its programs, policies, and practice, he said.

As Associate Director of ICIE, Taylor led the school’s collaboration with Black Students Demanding Change, responses from the administration to racial incidents in the country, Seminar On Identity (SOI) for sixth and 11th grade, and ICIE events for faculty and parents.

He started two new initiatives: drop-in “equity chats” for teachers on how to make their classes more inclusive and Parent Institute events on racial justice that mirrored the SOI curriculum.

Taylor also wanted to equip students with more skills to be active in their social justice work, he said. ICIE created two units for SOI: one unit teaches students how to engage in difficult conversations, and the other teaches how to identify problems, leverage resources, and engage with players to spur change. ICIE also added equity trainings on top of the Student Diversity and Leadership Conference and the Diversity Awareness Initiative for Students, such as the Close Up Conference and an anti-racist incubator program.

The most impactful part of Taylor’s job was when students came to the ICIE office and had conversations with him, Taylor said. “Our purpose is to support and care for

advisor, t h e y said.

He always remembers to check in with the affinity group about how they are doing and how they are engaging in self-care, which was a much needed contribution to the space. “No matter what we talked about, I always felt heard by him.”

Cabrera’s sense of humor also makes him an amazing mentor to students in the affinity group, Lombardo said. “I remember our first in person affinity group meeting when he poetically described his love for RuPaul’s drag race and how it was getting him through quarantine,” they said. “His loving description made me go home and start watching it immediately.”

Leaving the school will be bittersweet for Cabrera, he said. While he is excited about the opportunity, leaving behind his colleagues and students will be difficult. “But, I like to think that’s a good sign,” he said.

“It means that I will always hold my memories from HM very close to my heart.”

Annabelle Chan/Art Designer

students, especially when they are in a moment of distress and need to know that they are seen and heard and loved,” he said.

When Louise Kim (10) felt burnt out from activism work, Taylor told her to take care of herself first and focus her energy on actions and conversations that will have the most impact, they said.

ICIE Program Associate Jaquan Shaw said Taylor extended his compassion to his colleagues.

“He would tell me, ‘that was a great email you sent,’ ‘great job with the newsletter,’ or ‘thank you for being you,’” Shaw said. “Small recognition like that really meant a lot to me because it showed that my work never went unseen.”

At Browning, Taylor hopes to use his position to shrink educational disparities for Black, male students, a topic on which he wrote his undergraduate thesis. “Those who identify as Black boys tend to disproportionately receive suspension, expulsion, and underachievement markers,” he said. “I’m excited to build on the infrastructure there to make it more equitable for Black boys in particular to succeed.”

Taylor also looks forward to the smaller school environment, as Browning has only 135 boys from fifth to eighth grade, he said. He enjoys working with that age group because it is a crucial developmental period, he said. “It is wonderful to see students find their identity and grow from being unsure of themselves to knowing ‘this is who I’m going to be.’”

Because middle schoolers are more impressionable, Taylor said he hopes that his identity as a Black man in a leadership position will change some narratives for the students at Browning, which is predominantly white.

“I’m very excited to help them see what the possibilities are when we have a more inclusive world.”

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HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

Jeremy Leeds

A pioneer in ethics, activism, and service Courtesy of HM Flickr

IN HIS ELEMENT Leeds speaks during annual Service Learning Day.

Yin Fei Staff Writer When Dr. Jeremy Leeds ’72 reflects on his time as a freshman, his most vivid memory is his journey to the school: “When you get off the subway, from anywhere in the city, and you just walk up the hill, it feels like a whole different world,” he said.

After spending a total of 24 years working at the school as an ethics teacher, founder and former Director of the Center for Community Values and Actions (CCVA), and former Director of Counseling and Guidance, Leeds will retire at the end of the 2020-21 academic year.

In addition to the numerous faculty and administrative titles he has held, Leeds also attended the school as a high-school student. In his senior year, Leeds became the first Student Body President after the school introduced a new governing system. At that point, the school had a smaller student body, allowing the governing council to have more significant responsibility in influencing the community.

Amidst a time when the Vietnam War was raging and the antiwar movement was growing, Leeds and his council’s first resolution was to host a “Teach-In on the Vietnam War,” Leeds said. “We had workshops, we had speakers, and it was a time when there was a lot of tension and conflict, so it was definitely a controversial idea.” The day’s activities also included a debate between pro-and anti war representatives, and a speech by John Kerry, who was then the head of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. The new student government also let students vote on more extensive decisions such as curricular requirements and whether or not to close the school on a given day, Leeds said. “Being Student Body President was the first time that I remember having a sleepless night. It felt like we got a lot done, but there was always a sense of, ‘What have you done lately?” he said. “It was hard to tell what you were accomplishing, but it was also a time when students felt like it was possible to make changes around Horace Mann, around the city, around the country, and around the world.”

As the first Student Body President, Leeds defined the role, he said. “I was already known as an activist, and I think, to some extent, people wanted to see what I would do,” Leeds said.

“I was trying to put forward my own beliefs but also represent those who had very different points of view.”

Leeds was deeply involved in political action and public service both in and out of school from an early age, he said. Since he was 15, Leeds spent his summers working as a counselor at an Upstate New York sleepaway camp affiliated with University Settlement house on the Lower East Side, where he worked with kids from ages eight to 14,.

There, Leeds first practiced cultivating

the balance between academics and community involvement that he has carried with him past his high-school career.

After graduation, Leeds attended Yale, but left after three years to pursue political organizing in Ohio.

Despite being initially uncertain that he would receive a diploma, Leeds managed to accrue all the necessary credits for graduation by attending courses at Yale’s summer school and at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Since then, Leeds has also acquired a Masters degree in History, a degree in Counseling, and a doctoral degree in Clinical Psychology. He had also worked as a drug prevention counselor and a dropout counselor in public NYC high schools. Prior to returning to the school, Leeds worked as Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University (NYU). The position included providing training for the inaugural AmeriCorps program, and developing NYU’s first service-learning courses.

In 1997, Leeds saw the opportunity to work at his high school Alma Mater.

“There was actually an ad in the paper with Horace Mann that was looking for a new Director of Counseling, and I was ready to do something more hands-on,” Leeds said.

For nine years, Leeds served as Director of Counseling and Guidance to counsel students, invite speakers, create a library, and transform the department into a space for students to feel welcome to visit. “One of the things we really had to address with people is how do you make such an important department feel like it’s central to the institution,” Leeds said. “I wanted to give people the sense that the Counseling and Guidance office was there, not just when you’re in crisis, because it needs to also be so woven into the school that it’s something people just come to because they feel, in a positive way, that they want to add to their flourishing.”

Although he returned to the school to assume the Director role, Leeds was also eager to dive back into the ethics and service learning he had previously engaged with in high school and beyond. In 2006, Leeds pitched the idea of an Ethics class to the Head of the School, Dr. Eileen Mulady, who quickly approved of its mission to bridge the gap between themes of morality, education, psychology, and social change.

“Everybody talks about the Horace Mann bubble. But I think we always have to ask ourselves, ‘how much do you want to be in a bubble, and how much do you want to participate in the rest of the world?,” Leeds said. “One of the issues that I’ve seen ever since I came here was ‘how do we fit within the wider world?,’ so I am proud to be able to participate in answering that question that never goes away.”

Ethan Irushalmi (12) values Leeds

for the open-minded approaches and standards he employs for their Ethics class, as they challenge him to explore perspectives beyond his own, be said.

“Dr. Leeds is always questioning people,” he said. “Sometimes I might not like certain ethicists or might not agree with their views or ideas, but instead of him saying ‘okay that’s fine,’ he really pushes us to say why we do not agree.”

Leeds’s ability to mediate nuanced ethical debates compliments his constant demand for students to engage with multi-faceted topics, Kelly Troop (12) said. “In talking about ethics, people disagree a lot, and there’s a chance for a lot of tension and bad negative energy in the classroom, but he always makes sure the conversation is controlled.”

Ethics student Spencer Rosenberg (11) admires how the course teaches the benefits of giving back to the world, he said. “If there is one word I could use to describe Dr. Leeds, it’s that he is a leader. He definitely knows how to gain the respect of a crowd and he does a great job of listening to others and taking peoples’ ideas and implementing them,” Rosenberg said.

Before Leeds came to the school, the CCVA and Service Learning Team also did not exist. “I thought to myself, ‘How does ethics get translated into something, not just that you read about in the book but something that you do every day and also something that will affect your life past Horace Mann?’” Leeds said. “Service Learning was something that I had already been involved in, and it was a perfect way to do that.”

In 2006, Leeds then proposed the interconnected programs of the CCVA and the Service Learning team to Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly, with the goal of promoting real-world application and action that would pair with the newly instituted Ethics class, he said. At that time, the community service requirement at the school was centered on completing a required number of hours of volunteer work.

“In the past, you were left on your own to really define things,” he said. “You could do an hour here and 45 minutes there and bring in a piece of paper that said you had done this and that, but it got to be pretty cumbersome. Some students did amazing activities, but there was wide variability in the program’s effectiveness.”

Leeds, in partnership with former language teacher José Leonor, devised a model in which students could conduct weekly visits at local centers, along with hosting meetings on campus during the athletics period afterschool. To this day, the volunteers still follow the same Service Learning Team schedule.

The structure of the programs remains unchanged, but Leeds has been pleased to witness the growth of the Service Learning team’s size and impact on the community. “It started from Kingsbridge and grew, grew and grew and grew. We expanded to agencies like Riverdale Senior Services, the Henry Ittleson Center, and Mosholu-Montefiore Community Center. The program reached about 400 people weekly, both from the agencies we worked with and from Horace Mann,” he said.

Leeds was also integral to the first Service Learning Day, hosted in 2008. After seeing how each of the school’s divisions and students’ parents increasingly demonstrated interest in community service, Leeds and the parents decided to hold a big day in the spring for everybody to

participate.

The central goal of the first Service Learning Day was to create a public area for the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center. With the help of hundreds of volunteers and the Maintenance Department, the school worked with the organization to build an amphitheater and vegetable garden in an unused piece of land behind the center. “It struck a chord here and in the wider community, as it was a great start,” Leeds said. “The amphitheater is still there, and the garden has become a central part of Kingsbridge.”

Service Learning Team member Emily Marks (12) said that Leeds has definitely set the bar for the way in which the school values giving back. “He has created this service learning community that will always stay at Horace Mann and that a lot of the kids, both alumni and current students, have really valued,” she said.

Leeds’s legacy will be preserved in the ethics program, Troop said. “It’s very important, especially in the time we are living in, to continue to hear and understand all points of view through having these meaningful conversations,” she said. “Having an ethics class where you are discussing very intricate and complicated topics is something that just defines Horace Mann.”

Kelly wrote that although there is no doubt Leeds’s legacy is inextricably attached to the CCVA and all that it represents — the Ethics class, the Service Learning Team, and the school’s annual Service Learning Day — his true gift is the work he has done with individual students in follow up conversations and meetings outside of in-school programs. “He knows when to step up and in, and there are hundreds of students who are better off because of this reality.”

When Andie Goldmacher (12) began seeking service learning opportunities targeted towards literacy education during the summers, Leeds wrote her a letter of recommendation to a program she was applying to, she said. “[Leeds] would even come to an out-of-school service learning event that I was hosting with a few other people on the team,” she said. “It was literally a Saturday afternoon, and he was there supporting us, which no teacher ever has to do.”

Lutie Brown ’18, a former member of the Service Learning committee, received guidance from Leeds when she founded Sunshine Mail, a project which sent letters and books to students with cancer. “As a sophomore, I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence navigating the space.

But he told me that my idea mattered, and that it’s very possible for us to turn this into a really successful project and club,” she said. “From there I worked with Mr. Do, made the club happen, made it a project, and met some of my closest HM friends through that entire endeavor, all because Dr. Leeds believed in me.”

Having had the privilege to teach both Ethics and AP Psychology with Dr. Leeds for the past 16 years, Kelly will miss seeing Leeds on campus, he said. “ W h e t h e r discussing Rawls’ Veil of Ignorance, or Piaget’s developmental stages, or a particular student’s interest in Peter Singer’s work, I’ve always enjoyed

hearing Dr. Leeds’ perspective and admire his skills as a teacher and advisor,” Kelly said. “He’s one of the most approachable and affable people I know. He’s also brilliant without an ounce of arrogance, privilege, or entitlement. He has the unique ability to see the good in everyone.”

Kelly often refers to Leeds as the ‘good doctor,’ a nickname which he finds rings true in all the qualities Leeds embodies, Irushalmi said. “He has a good heart, and he obviously wants the best for everyone and for everyone to feel equally represented,” he said.

Goldmacher believes that she would not have gotten as much out of her involvement with the CCVA if Leeds had not been there to guide her along her Service Learning journey, she said. “Dr. Leeds has been, honestly, one of the greatest mentors that I’ve had at Horace Mann,” Goldmacher said. “He really just wants each individual to use the CCVA as a resource and to find their passion in Service Learning, no matter what their niche may be.”

In light of these strong relationships, even before officially saying goodbye, he finds himself already missing the students and faculty members he has had the honor to interact with over the course of his many years at the school, he said.

“This past year, while putting together all the materials and going back over photos and the written material that we had, and looking at back-up programs, I realized how many people have been involved, and how people I have come in contact with, both at Horace Mann and in the Bronx community,” he said. “It’s been a great feeling to know that there are so many people who I’ve been able to affect and who’ve affected me.”

Although he has not yet established a retirement plan, Leeds wants to take time to reflect on the lessons he has learned at the school and to consider the ways in which he can carry them into his future endeavors. “I have a lot of writing to do, a lot of thinking to do, but I also want to stay involved in ways to build on what I’ve done here,” Leeds said. “I hope I’ll come back at some point, like I always ask students to do, and show where I have taken it and what I’m doing with them next.”

When Leeds spoke at the closing ceremony of the first Service Learning Day, he asked the audience members to think about what they were going to take with them from that day on, in addition to what they wanted to leave behind. “That’s how I’m thinking about the end of this chapter in my life,” Leeds said. “I hope I’ve left behind a lot for people to build on, and I know I’m taking with me a lot of support and just a general feeling of gratitude for the people who I worked with who let me learn about myself and the rest of the world.”

Courtesy of HM Flickr

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021

Goodbye Glenn Sherratt

Reflecting on 48 years at John Dorr Nature Laboratory Emma Colacino Staff Writer As director of the John Dorr Nature Laboratory, Glenn Sherratt has a hand in every part of the division, Dorr teacher Kate Kerrick said. “There’s no part of Dorr that is uncared for and unguided by Glenn,” she said. “From coming here in the middle of the night to deal with water alarms to everything else, he cares for this place and stewards this place from big picture to small picture.”

After 48 years of working at Dorr, Sherratt will retire at the end of the school year. Nick DePreter will become the Director of Dorr, and Kerrick will become the assistant director of Dorr.

Given the many years Sherratt has spent at Dorr, he is considered to be Dorr’s “storyteller,” he said. “I have seen thousands and thousands of students going through here, and each of those students has left a part of themselves as each teacher has left a part of themselves,” he said. “[Being the storyteller] is knowing the history of how things have developed, and remembering those people who have contributed to what we have today, because it’s been an incredible cooperative effort by so many people.”

Sherratt first came to the Dorr campus because of his interest in experiential education and using the outdoors as a medium for personal growth after graduating from Appalachian State University, he said. “There were few programs around the country that provided an opportunity to do that, and Horace Mann was one of the few places with those programs.”

While Sherratt was interested in using nature to educate students, he did not learn about the school and its Dorr campus until he heard about a 32-day teacher-training program run by the National Outdoor Leadership School.

After participating in the program in 1973, Sherratt visited Dorr for the first time. At the end of the program, former head of Dorr Alan Breckenridge invited Sherratt to stay on campus as a part-time teacher during the fall. Upon receiving the offer, Sherratt left his teaching position in Virginia and eventually became a full-time teacher at Dorr.

In 1974, after Sherratt had worked at Dorr for a year, Breckenridge offered him the position of director.

Sherratt’s earliest memory of Dorr is the beauty of the surrounding nature, he said. “I remember the sights, scents, and sounds of the forest, fields and streams and the sense of mindfulness they created in me; how they touched every primordial emotion and nurtured every distant hope.”

When Sherratt first arrived at Dorr, the program and the division’s purpose differed significantly from the current Dorr program, he said. At the time, Dorr only had two teachers and served as a small working farm.

Students only used the campus for six eighthgrade trips that the formerly all-boys school

programs, he said.

“We have worked hard at expanding what we do at Dorr into what is happening at the school,” he said. “The integration of Dorr into the total school is something that I feel very good about and is something that I think we have been successful at doing.”

Initially, Dorr only had programs for eighth grade students, but when the school merged with the Barnard School and started an elementary school, Sherratt and the Dorr teachers created programs for the fourth and sixth-grade, and then expanded more programs into all of the other grades in nursery, lower, middle, and upper divisions.

While Sherratt has worked with Dorr teachers and the administration to grow the Dorr division and programs, he has also maintained fundamental parts of the Dorr experience.

Specifically, he has maintained the eighth-grade Dorr trip, Kerrick said. “The program used to look really different in a lot of ways, but the thread of that program has carried throughout the whole history of Dorr,” she said. “[Sherratt] has really advocated for the program.”

Sherratt has had a role in creating nearly every program Dorr provides. Sherratt’s predecessor Alan Breckenridge started what is now known as the Searchers program, and student schedules and priorities have contributed to the program’s changing over the years, but Sherratt has been present through all the change to ensure that students had an opportunity to partake in it.

Additionally, all the Lower Division Dorr programs have come to fruition under Sherratt’s leadership, DePreter said. “Whether it’s searching for frogs with 4th graders at dusk or climbing the CAT with 8th graders in a blizzard, Glenn’s vision made those experiences for kids come to life.”

“Glenn built this wonderful, peaceful collection of ideas and people that integrates into the most intense high school and middle school you could possibly imagine,” Emily Spector ‘17 said. “That’s incredible.”

In addition to increasing the number of Dorr programs that different grades participate in and maintaining key programs, Sherratt has also engaged with different student groups that use the Dorr campus as a way to foster bonding, Head of Admissions Jason Caldwell ‘97 said.

Specifically, when Caldwell was the head of the Union, the organization used Dorr’s campus for retreats every year, he said. “Glenn really did adapt to that, realizing that Dorr could continuously teach kids lessons, even if those lessons came as a result of other activities,” he said. “Glenn engages with every single group while still doing the seventh grade program, the eight grade program, and orientations.”

Noah Shapiro ‘17 witnessed Sherratt’s ability to teach students lessons based on their experiences in other activities. When Shapiro was a Searcher, the group often went on different expeditions. When they returned to Dorr’s campus, they would discuss their experience in context. “We were always able to either learn about some greater lesson about environmentalism or community building, or Courtesy of Nick DePreter

WEEEEEEEEE Sherratt sleds down a hill on a snowy day. held. In addition to those programs, other independent schools would use the campus for outdoor activities, while universities and colleges used the campus for teacher training

connectedness with one another that I hadn’t really seen before, and Glenn was always there to show us that, which I was really thankful for,” Shapiro said.

Courtesy of Nick DePreter

ZIPPING AWAY From the heights of the Odyssey, Sherratt zip lines back to the ground.

When Kerrick first met Sherratt in her interview to become a teacher at the school, she saw his passion for the Dorr program and its role in educating students, she said. “He doesn’t need to necessarily direct all of what they’re learning, but that their own learning happens in different and really unique and beautiful ways.”

While Sherratt is involved with all the workings of the Dorr campus, he still cares about fostering a caring environment through small details, Kerrick said. For example, Sherratt works every year to assemble hanging flower baskets along the porch and waters the flowers every day in the summer. “He shows his love of Dorr in all these small little ways,” she said. “It’s part of creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere.”

When Sherratt leads, he attempts to do so in a cooperative manner and attempts to be as inclusive as possible, he said. “It’s important for me to hear other people’s ideas and values so we can come to a common understanding as a faculty of what we want to do and what we want to create,” he said. “It is a respectful weaving together of individual visions into a thoughtful and meaningful learning environment.”

Head of the Upper Division Dr. Jessica Levenstein has seen Sherratt’s calmness when working with those around him, she said. “He is extremely patient if the people he’s talking to don’t understand what he’s trying to get at, and he’s patient as he tries to understand other people’s perspectives,” she said.

Sherratt was always an “incredibly calming presence,” for Eric Schwartz ‘17, he said. “I always thought it totally captured the spirit of what we were trying to learn at Dorr.”

In addition to being calm, Christina Cho ‘17 also noticed Sherratt’s organization when leading Searchers meetings, she said.

“Whenever he came to Searchers, every single meeting was so thought out, so well planned.

Everything had an intention.”

Sherratt’s leadership taught Caldwell and his peers to listen to and trust one another, he said.

“When you have a job as a supervisor, you have to be able to communicate, and I learned that at Dorr.”

In addition to learning from Sherratt’s leadership style, Caldwell also admired Sherratt’s flexibility as a leader. When

Caldwell’s group could not complete a threeday backpacking trip during the eighth-grade program due to harsh weather, Sherratt and the other Dorr teachers quickly pivoted the plan, allowing the students to return to campus and climb the CAT again. “Glenn’s not going to stick with something just to stick with something,” he said.

Leading by example is another key aspect of Sherratt’s leadership at Dorr, DePreter said.

“Glenn knows that leading by example is the way to go, and as far as I would say, that’s probably the most important aspect of his tenure.”

Sherratt would never ask anyone to do something that he would not do himself, Caldwell said. “That’s something that all leaders should do, but that they don’t always do, so that’s something special [about Sherratt].”

Specifically, Sherratt leads by example when climbing the CAT and doing the Odyssey with students, participating in discussions, and dancing, he said.

Watching Sherratt climb the CAT during her eighth grade Dorr trip taught Spector a valuable lesson about practice and devotion to specific tasks, she said. “He clipped in, and he crushed the CAT in two minutes, and then when [we] got on the CAT, it was completely impossible,” she said.

Levenstein witnessed Sherratt’s ability to encourage learning and incorporate lessons into fun experiences when she watched him encourage her daughter to learn, draw, and write about a snake they saw on the road at Dorr, she said. “That was really the key to Glenn, it was watching him interact with a young person around nature,” she said. “I understood what the magic of Glenn was at that moment.”

Kerrick said Sherratt is a “wonderful” leader because of his generosity, she said. “He’s willing to give people help, or balance where they need it, or time,” she said. “As a teacher I feel really cared for here, and that makes it easy to put in a lot of time and energy and thought, because I feel like it’s reciprocated.”

Kerrick saw this generosity when Sherratt once told eighth-grade students about an old small mica mine on Dorr’s campus. After the students requested to see it, Sherratt committed to fulfilling his promise. “On the last day of the program, despite a tight schedule and low

25

HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNE 7TH, 2021 energy, Glenn, with three or four students, walked out to find and explore the mine,” she said. “The students were so excited and found a number of cool relics left behind that they brought back to show the rest of the group.”

After Schwartz had to leave in the middle of his eighth-grade Dorr program because of the passing of a loved one, he returned to Dorr’s campus after the other students had already left on their backpacking expedition, he said. Late in the night, Sherratt took Schwartz to meet the rest of the group so that he could finish the trip with his group, he said. “He knew that I was going through something pretty hard, and he took the time to still help me have that normal Dorr experience,” Schwartz said. “It was kind of amazing.”

Spector also believes that Sherratt is an amazing leader because he leads by example, she said. “To me, Glenn is such a role model in what he has devoted his life to.”

The mindfulness aspect of the programs at Dorr reflect Sherratt’s leadership, Livia Mann ‘17 said.

“When Glenn was in the room leading activities, you could tell that everything that went on at Dorr really emanated from him as a whole, the whole attitude of the place.”

“

“Right away, I felt like Horace Mann was my school home, because of Dorr and because of Glenn.”

- Emily Spector ‘17

A unique aspect of Sherratt’s leadership is that he has a deep understanding of the meaning of each program because he has seen them evolve and grow, Kerrick said. “He understands their development in a way that not everyone can from just one or two years.”

Sherratt has also seen students and generations of families grow up through the programs and through their years at the school.

Brian Song ‘17 appreciated that he was able to interact with Sherratt through all the Dorr programs he took part in during his time at the school. “Glenn has always been the guy who you trust and look up to, he’s the one who’s always there since middle school, and since you were first at Dorr as a small child, and you feel that kind of wonder, and he was the one that guided you through the process.”

Given that Schwartz went to Dorr through kindergarten all the way to the Searchers program, Sherratt is a part of all of his memories at Dorr. “I’ve been going to Horace Mann from kindergarten through senior year, and every time we went to Dorr, he was always leading the charge there,” he said.

Caldwell built a relationship with Sherratt during his time at Dorr, and then saw his daughter form a relationship with him during her time at Dorr. “To watch my daughter go to Dorr and build that relationship with Glenn has been incredible,” he said. “Three of the four people in my family that have attended and graduated from this school have been significantly impacted by Glenn Sherratt.”

Throughout Sherratt’s years as director of Dorr, practices at Dorr have become incorporated into life at the school, DePreter said. Specifically, 60 Seconds of Peace and instances of experiential education that originated at Dorr and are now used in the Bronx campus.

After first learning about 60 seconds of peace at Dorr, Spector has used it in her daily life for an undirected pause, she said. Spector even shares the practice with friends. For example, after hiking to the top of a mountain with friends, she will suggest that they all partake in 60 seconds of peace, she said. “And of course, I always think of Glenn when I do that because I know exactly where it came from.”

Levenstein has also witnessed Sherratt’s ability to encourage students to care for the earth, she said. “Horace Mann students are doing the best they can, but we’ve all seen the field or the cafeteria after a group of kids have been there and nobody’s cleaned up, and that would never happen at Dorr,” she said. “I am really impressed by the way he just makes personal responsibility a part of the culture of being at Dorr.”

In addition to creating an environment in which students take personal responsibility, Sherratt also fosters an environment that is as comfortable as possible for every student that arrives with and without exposure to outdoor activities, Levenstein said.

Cho did not grow up camping or partaking in any other outdoor activities, but Sherratt exposed her to the outdoors and taught her lessons that she

keeps in mind during her backpacking and hiking trips today, she said. “He genuinely changed my life in the sense that I did not grow up camping, but he opened up all of that to me,” she said. “I am so truly thankful to him for just opening my life to my love for the outdoors and my love for adventure.”

Like Cho, Mann did not grow up with outdoor experience and joined Searchers on a whim, so Courtesy of Nick DePreter

THROWBACK Photo from Sherratts early years. she was nervous about partaking in the program, she said. “The way Glenn structured the Searchers program was very much about what we as individuals can bring to the table,” she said. “He really allowed me to feel like I was contributing as much as my fellow searchers, even though I was less experienced in some of the more traditional outdoors hard skills.”

Levenstein has also seen Sherratt creating this environment through his dedication to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), she said.

“I’ve noticed that around gender, he’s been really deliberate and thoughtful around the way gendernonconforming students might experience Dorr,” she said. “Which is just part and parcel with Glenn’s general approach to students, which is to recognize their diversity and want to create an environment where everyone feels seen and valued.”

Within the Dorr environment, Sherratt is able to motivate and encourage students to move outside their comfort zone, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly said. “Glenn is an expert motivator and a master at making people feel comfortable when undertaking nontraditional or even anxietyprovoking tasks,” he said. “Not only can he get you to take a healthy risk when you’re three stories off the ground, he has an uncanny and thoughtful way of making you feel like he’s up there with you and that life on the ground and in the air is going to be just fine.”

Sherratt motivated Adam Resheff ’15 as he

kindness, his ability to bring people together was something that I’ll always be appreciative of,” he said. “Right away, I felt like Horace Mann was my school home, because of Dorr and because of Glenn.”

Like Caldwell, Cho was also welcomed to the school community by Sherratt during her ninthgrade orientation, she said. “He was just the sweetest guy ever,” she said. “I remember he would always wait outside the entrance to the mud room to welcome us to Dorr with a big hello and a slapping high five.”

While Cho first met Sherratt at the ninth grade UDO, she got to know him much better during her time in Searchers, she said. She was not only astounded by Sherratt’s dedication to driving from Connecticut to New York every afternoon, but also by how much energy he had during the program. “Every single thing we did, he was hands on the ground, doing it with us, and that’s actually something I really appreciate about him.”

Cho specifically appreciates that Sherratt was not just administering their program and Dorr overall with a top down approach, she said. “I felt like he was really in it with us, doing Dorr, and that goes for everything from the rock climbing wall to Dorrmores.”

When Song took part in the Searchers program, he did not see Sherratt as often as in other Dorr programs because many Searcher activities take place at the school’’s main campus, but Sherratt still inspired members of the program during their outdoor expeditions, he said. “He’s an inspiration to a lot of people who are interested in the outdoors and whose first real big experience with [the outdoors] is at Dorr.”

Given Spector’s love of the outdoors, she often saw people around her with urban careers, she said. “I love having access to someone who is unbelievably smart and accomplished and thoughtful, and an amazing teacher, who is not an urban career person.”

Shapiro has also learned lessons through Sherratt’s leadership of the Searchers program. For example, after a particularly bad trip canoeing, with many students capsizing, Sherratt gathered the students around and explained to them the three different kinds of fun.

He explained that type one fun is where you have fun in the moment and enjoy the experience, and type two fun is where the experience was not as enjoyable but you look back on it and realize that it was enjoyable and fun. “And then he said, ‘the experience we just had was type three fun, where it’s not really that fun, you look back on it and you’re like, no, that still wasn’t that fun, but you tell other people about it and you realize it’s a great story.’”

Furthermore, Sherratt showed Shapiro that there is always a silver lining or a way to look at an experience in a positive light, he said. “And I remember, that was one small chunk of wisdom from several lessons that he taught us that I really enjoyed and appreciated and still take with me.”

Courtesy of Nick DePreter

ON THE GROUNDS Sherratt poses outdoors at the Dorr campus. scaled the CAT during his eighth-grade Dorr trip.

When Resheff was two thirds of the way to the top, he doubted that he could make it all the way up.

Sherratt encouraged Resheff to continue climbing.

“I said I couldn’t do it, but [Sherratt] said, “Adam, yes you can,’” he said. “Sure enough, I made it to the top.”

Sherratt has helped Spector discover what she is capable of, she said. “I’ve definitely felt frustrated when Glenn did not just give me the answer, but it has helped me so much more.”

Sherratt also helped to welcome students not only to the Dorr campus, but to the school as a whole, Caldwell said. “When I arrived to Dorr in the middle school, Glenn was one of the first people that I met at Horace Mann and his

Throughout his entire time at the school, Sherratt’s greatest contribution to Dorr was Dorr itself, Kelly said. “We would not have the John Dorr Nature Laboratory we love and celebrate today if not for Glenn and the countless number of faculty and staff members who made Dorr a priority in their lives.”

“To me, Dorr is Glenn, all of Dorr is Glenn,” Spector said.

Sherratt feels fortunate that Dorr has given him a place to express his values and his interests, he said. “I think that all of us at whatever age we are, try to find places and environments that nurture us and that allow us to express ourselves and our values in growth-enhancing ways. And Dorr has done that for me.”

DePreter to take over as Director of Dorr Zachary Kurtz Staff Writer Following Director of John Dorr Nature Laboratory Glenn Sherratt’s retirement, current Assistant Director of the John Dorr Nature Laboratory Nick DePreter will take over as Director of the program this fall, and Kate Kerrick will become the new Assistant Director.

“We made the decision to bring Nick DePreter back several years ago with the intent of having him serve as the program’s first Assistant Director, ultimately to succeed Glenn Sherratt upon retirement,” Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly wrote in an email. “Mr. DePreter has performed admirably since his return and, as such, it made sense to give him the opportunity to lead at the John Dorr Nature Laboratory.”

The Director of Dorr both teaches and oversees the other Dorr faculty, DePreter said. “I’ll get a chance to enjoy the fruits of teaching, but also do my best to make sure that our very talented and hardworking faculty here are put in the right position to do their job.”

Furthermore, DePreter will be responsible for all of the administrative work that occurs at the Dorr facility. He will also communicate with families of students and maintain Dorr’s image as a necessary part of the HM journey, DePreter said.

DePreter, who has a Masters Degree in Education, started his teaching career as a fourth grade teacher. He also worked at Echo Hill Outdoor School in Maryland.

After volunteering for the Peace Corps, he was looking for an outdoor school where he could teach and found an advertisement online for a job opening at Dorr. He was offered a job and joined Dorr during the 2004-2005 school year.

After meeting his wife, he left Dorr in 2005, but then returned in 2011 with his family.

DePreter enjoyed working at the outdoor school, which is what initially drew him to Dorr. “When people work in outdoor education, a lot of times it’s seasonal and a lot of times it’s with a group who shows up, you work with them, and they leave,” he said. Dorr, on the other hand, is the same group of kids year-in and year-out, which allows DePreter to see the students he works with grow and develop, he said. “[Working at Dorr] was a chance to really know a school and be in a community.”

Inheriting the position from Sherratt, who has handled the job exceptionally for years, will be daunting for DePreter, he said.

Nonetheless, DePreter knows he will have the tools to deal with whatever problems he faces. “[Sherratt has] prepared me to do the job, and so I do appreciate him for that.”

There will be many tweaks and changes made to Dorr’s programs, but the framework of those programs will remain, DePreter said. “My vision for Dorr is to continue to maintain a safe place for kids to grow and take risks and learn something about themselves.”

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THE RECORD ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT JUNE 7TH, 2021

Taking their last bow:

“Oh golly — I haven’t said golly in a long time — I’m going to miss the students and my colleagues and maintenance and security and Flik,” Theatre, Dance, and Film Studies Department Chair Alison Kolinski said. “There are so many nice people that just greet you with a smile, and I’m gonna miss them.” This year, after 25 years of working at the school, Kolinski announced her retirement.

Kolinski joined the faculty in 1996 after the former Theatre Department Chair, Woody

Courtesy of Alison Kolinski

THE GREAT OUTDOORS Kolinski & DiRenzo.

Howard, reached out to her to help with the school’s production of “42nd Street.” “I had moved to Riverdale, and when Howard heard that someone from the original company of 42nd Street on Broadway was living in Riverdale, he found me and said, ‘Would you want to do it?’ and I said, ‘Absolutely,’” Kolinski said.

In 2000, Howard realized that there was a need for a dance program at the school to complement the already well-established theater program. Kolinski readily accepted the offer to bring dance to the school, creating the dance program that continues to exist at the school today, she said.

W h i l e Kolinski loved performing, she was just as excited to teach dance at the school,

Alison Kolinski she said. “Teaching is such a different game,” Kolinski said. “I love sitting back and watching my students perform. When the spotlight and the attention is on them, I feel like a proud mom.”

Courtesy of Alison Kolinski

JAZZ HANDS Kolinski and the crew.

Given her career as a dancer before coming to the school, Kolinski set a precedent of professionalism for the dance company, theatre teacher Benjamin Posner said. “We will always be looking for professional dancers to fill those positions because that’s the standard that she set: professionals working with children.”

As a dance teacher and choreographer, Kolinski is supportive and welcoming, Julia Grant (11) said.

When Grant first joined Kolinski’s dance class in her sophomore year, she was nervous because the class featured ballet and contemporary dance, and hip-hop dancing was Grant’s strong suit. However, Kolinski embraced Grant’s hip-hop background and supported her throughout the class, she said.

Kolinski’s guidance was not only extended to her students in dance class, but to her colleagues as well.

Theatre teacher Haila VanHentenryck, who began working at the school three years ago, sees Kolinski as her “school mom,” she said. “She took me under her wing the first year and helped me navigate this crazy place that I knew nothing about.”

Posner similarly thought of Kolinski as his “rabbi,” he said. “I don’t know if that translates, but it’s like somebody who mentors you but also shows you the way a little bit,” Posner said. “She’s always been there when I have had questions.”

Kolinski’s classes were always fun, Yana Gitelman (12) said. Gitelman remembers having dance classes on Zoom with Kolinski where Kolinski would do dances from different decades and ask her students to follow her. “It was really cute, and it was kind of surreal to just be [dancing] in my room and in pajamas,” Gitelman said.

Kolinski also started an initiative in collaboration with the Lower Division (LD) — for the past seven years, she has visited the kindergarten class during their penguin unit and taught them different penguin dances, including dances from the movie “Happy Feet.”

The penguin dance initiative was a testament to Kolinski’s kind and caring spirit, VanHentenryck said.

“That’s the kind of special thing that Ms. Kolinski brought to the department,” she said. “She’s willing to go above and beyond and donate so much of her free time to the school.”

Kolinski’s dedication to the school throughout her time here was generated by her love for her work, she said. “I love to dance — I always have, since I was three years old — and just passing on that joy and passion to the students is just thrilling to me.”

Kolinski likes to think of her life in thirds, with her time at the school occupying the second third of her life, she said. “The first third of my life was performing, and it felt adventurous and exciting and different,” Kolinski said. “And then I got this job, and it felt so good to have something consistent and steady and reliable.”

Deciding to leave behind the stability of her job at the school this year was partially inspired by her feeling that it was time to hand over the dance program to a new generation to take over and reinvent, Kolinski said. “I just thought it’s time to turn over the reins. It’s time.”

Kolinski hopes to return to the freedom that characterized her years before teaching dance at the school. “I didn’t want to walk out of here with a cane,” she said. “I wanted to walk out so that I could travel and start the next third of my life healthy and raring to go.”

Looking ahead toward the next third of her life, Kolinski is looking forward to unexpected adventures, she said. “I was always very spontaneous and wherever the wind took me, I felt I would go, and I loved that.”

Den DiRe

“I don’t plan that far in advance — that’s just the way I’ve always lived my life — so it came as a surprise when I was being presented teaching jobs right at the time when it was perfect for me,” dance teacher Denise DiRenzo said. Now, 15 years later, DiRenzo has announced her departure from the school to begin the next chapter of her life.

After performing on Broadway and in national and international touring companies, DiRenzo joined the school’s dance department in 2006. Her journey at the school began when Theatre, Dance, and Film Studies Department Chair Alison Kolinski reached out to her regarding an open position to teach dance at the school, she said. “[Kolinski and I] have been good friends for over 40 years, so I would say that made this job extra special because I was working with my best friend,” DiRenzo said.

Prior to coming to the school, DiRenzo worked as a dance teacher and a choreographer. “I actually had my own dance studio when I was a teenager — Ms. Denise’s Dance Studio — and so I was sort of my own entrepreneur,” DiRenzo said.

DiRenzo’s professional history and skill set as an artist made her a special dance teacher, theatre teacher Benjamin Posner said. “She can basically do everything: she’s been an actor, singer, dancer, all of these things professionally,” he said. “It’s just incredible to have that kind of person in the department to pitch in and be a really creative spirit.”

In her professional life, DiRenzo performed in a number of shows including “A Chorus Line” both on tour and on Broadway, “Cats” on Broadway, and “42nd Street” on Broadway, as well as her own cabaret shows. While helping his parents move, Manager of the Department of Theatre, Dance, and Film Studies Jonathan Nye said he found a poster of “A Chorus Line” from when he was a junior in high school, and he thought he recognized DiRenzo among the cast. “I showed it to her, and she said, ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ and I thought that was really cool,” Nye said.

Yana Gitelman (12), who was in DiRenzo’s dance class when she was a freshman, appreciated DiRenzo’s attitude regarding her professional achievements, she said. “She uses her knowledge that she’s gained throughout her career to help us be better, but she never talks about her actual experiences, which I think is very humble.”

In her time at the school, DiRenzo’s responsibilities have expanded beyond that of a dance teacher. DiRenzo served as director and choreographer for Middle and Upper Division (UD) productions, a homeroom adviser in the Middle Division (MD), and adviser to East Wind West Wind and the Service Learning Team.

Julia Grant (11), who had DiRenzo as an adviser when she was in the MD and as a dance teacher and choreographer in the UD, appreciated DiRenzo’s commitment to establishing a strong sense of community, she said. “I didn’t have that many friends in my homeroom, and I wasn’t so comfortable, but she really made us branch out and become friends with everyone, and she created a bond between a lot of us that we wouldn’t have had otherwise,” Grant said. “Some of my best friends right now were friends that I’ve had from musicals and dance class, and she really created that.”

One of the most impactful experiences DiRenzo has had in her time at the school was participating in a program called Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity (SEED), where she facilitated workshops for faculty members and families to emphasize the richness that comes with

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HORACE MANN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT JUNE 7TH, 2021

Lauren Kim/Art Director

nise enzo

Joseph Timko

welcoming diversity among community members, she said.

DiRenzo’s work with the SEED program influenced the Theatre, Dance, and Film Department as a whole, Posner said.

“She was really involved in the marriage between art making and the idea of being more socially conscious and aware of being an activist, being an ally.”

After her SEED training, Direnzo opened up discussions surrounding the racial makeup of the department. “We are a very white department — we have very few students of color, very few Black students in particular — and that has been troublesome for us,” Direnzo said.

“We talk a lot about how we can expand our program in a way that will bring more diversity to it — all kinds of diversity — and we will definitely keep moving in that Courtesy of Mannikin

“[Horace Mann] is a little bit like Hogwarts,” theatre, dance, and film studies teacher Joseph Timko said. “I don’t think that there are evil forces at work, but it’s a very fun atmosphere — joyful — and I’ll miss that.” After working at the school for 34 years, Timko will be retiring.

“It’s certainly the longest time I’ve ever spent working at one place,” Timko said.

“I really had to think about the fact that I wanted to stop, but at some point it’s like, ‘Okay, I’ve done it.’”

Timko began his career at the school teaching Physics and Chemistry. A few years later, he moved to the Theatre, Dance, and Film Studies Department, teaching several preexisting classes and eventually developing some of his own film studies classes.

Timko had an article or book for everything, theatre teacher Halia VanHentenryck said. Working with Timko was “lovingly chaotic,” she said. “You don’t often have a science person that is also into theater.”

“He really brought that feeling of absurdity and fun to the theater,” Matthew Peeler (11) said. Peeler took part in several productions that Timko directed. “Mr. Timko has really helped me broaden my horizons of theatre.”

DiRenzo, Kolinski, Timko retire from Theatre, Dance, Film Department

point,” Chin said.

Timko was always introducing new ways of thinking, Va n H e n t e n r y c k said.

“He believes that education is about encouraging people’s creativity, and he was strongly against any cookiecutter design of education.”

Timko has directed shows for almost 30 years. “The last show I directed was Comic Potential, and Courtesy of Henry Owens

THROWBACK! DiRenzo smiles in Mannikin. direction.”

Out of all of the work that she has done for the school, DiRenzo is most proud of introducing yoga and mindfulness to the school, she said. She initially started doing yoga with some of her seventh grade students before moving the program to the eighth grade and, eventually, into the UD as a half-credit course. “It should be mandatory,” she said.

Given how rigorous the school’s academics can be, DiRenzo wanted to give students the tools to navigate feelings of stress, she said. “There are so many studies now that prove that [when doing yoga] even academics go up because you learn to focus better, and you learn stress control, stress management,” DiRenzo said. “If that is the only legacy I have, then I will be happy with that.”

After leaving the school, DiRenzo plans to move to the Catskills and work on short-term projects, she said. “I have some creative projects that have been on the backburner or stuck in a drawer for years that I’d like to pull out and see if they have any life left or if it leads to something else.”

She is particularly looking forward to writing a memoir, she said. “You have to look back at all parts of your life, some that are pleasant and some that are difficult, and it is quite an amazing process.”

Theatre teacher Haila VanHentenryck is going to miss working with DiRenzo, she said. “She’ll let other people take the spotlight and then when she contributes, it’s like, ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking.

Thank you for saying it perfectly,’” VanHentenryck said. “She’s just lovely, she’s very caring, very calming, and a really good collaborator.”

DiRenzo is appreciative of everyone she has had the pleasure of meeting during her time at the school, and she will greatly miss the sense of community at the school, she said. “Just thanks for a beautiful 15 years,” DiRenzo said. “I am so grateful to have had this job for 15 years.”

BEHIND THE SCENES Timko sits with Dylan Chin ‘20 and Kyra Mo ‘20.

Monitor Dylan Chin ‘20 always enjoyed participating in Timko’s productions, which were called “Timko shows,” and has been in one for every year of high school, he said.

“If he was walking down the hall or talking to you, he always had a very unique tone of voice, a unique brain — you could tell that there was so much depth to him and wisdom.”

“He really brought that feeling of absurdity and fun to the theater.”

- Matthew Peeler (11) When Chin was in ninth grade, he acted in “An Experiment with an Air Pump,” a show that Timko directed. The play was daunting, as Chin was a freshman working alongside upperclassmen. “But [Timko] didn’t treat me any differently than the students he had been working with for four years at that Courtesy of Mannikin

DIRECTOR’S CUT Timko in 1993 Mannikin.

it was a great deal of fun,” Timko said.

“When you teach, you study things, and so you know them, but you want to be able to do something with them, not just talk to yourself or the cat.”

Timko felt this year was the right time to pursue something different, he said. “I continue to read, and watch films, and I do this little bit of mentoring, once a week, and that’s just enough, frankly, for this phase change.”

There are many projects Timko would like to work on at home that he will have time for once he is no longer teaching, he said. Timko bought an electric piano a little over a year ago, and has recently gotten back to practicing and playing.

Timko is appreciative of all of the opportunities that the school has given him. “I don’t think that I could have done all of the things that I have done at Horace Mann at a university or college,” he said. “I would have had to take this or that — whereas this way, I was able to work both in the Science Department and the Arts Department.”

AJ Walker and Divya Ponda Staff Writers

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THE RECORD ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT JUNE 7TH, 2021

Stella Cha (12) to pursue violin at UPenn Katie Beckler Contributing Writer At the University of Pennsylvania, where she will attend college, Stella Cha (12) plans to explore topics such as music history, music production, and the effects music has on different cultures. “I’m so excited to be going to a school with so many resources for learning and exploring music,” she said. “I’m excited to form relationships and meet people who can teach me more about subject areas I’m interested in and introduce me to potential figures who can guide me in the music industry.”

When Cha began taking violin lessons at age five, she detested the amount of time and energy it took to play an instrument well, she said. “Playing any instrument is such a time and energy consuming activity, and if you plan on being serious about an instrument you need a deep level of dedication to it.”

Years later, Cha would return home from school in eighth grade to practice for her

Juilliard pre-college programs, sit down, and practice the violin for five to seven hours. “Naturally, I grew a pretty strong dislike towards the violin.”

At the age of 13, she switched from playing the violin to the viola, which reignited her passion for music, she said.

“I loved the deep and rich register of the viola.” Her favorite pieces to play include the Clarke Sonata for Viola and Piano, Hindemith Viola Sonata Op. 11 No. 4, and Monti Czardas.

In 11th grade, Cha decided that she wanted to pursue music in college. “I didn’t want to give up all those years of my life so carelessly just because I didn’t like practicing, because there were so many more parts of the music world to explore aside from the routine practice and performing side,” she said.

“The reason why I have a much better relationship with music now than before is because I don’t feel like I am being forced to practice hours on end,” Cha said. “Performing now feels more like an exciting experience rather than a chore.”

Courtesy of Stella Cha

CONCERT HALL Cha (12) performs a piece on the viola.

Alex Oh (12) to audition for Yale Symphony Orchestra Mira Bansal Contributing Writer After dedicating 12 years to playing the cello, Alexander Oh (12) will audition for the Yale University orchestra.

When he was six years old, Oh’s sister played the piano, and his mother wanted to give him a chance to play an instrument, so he chose the cello, he said. However, he only began taking the cello more seriously at 13, when he sustained an injury that did not allow him to play sports and as such forced him to shift his energy elsewhere.

Oh has played in the New York Youth Symphony’s (NYYS) chamber music program for five years, and he has also played in the NYYS orchestra for the past two years. Outside of the NYYS, Oh mostly plays in summer music festivals.

“I wanted to pursue music in some way,” Oh said. “It would be a waste if I didn’t

because I had played for so long.” Oh thought about applying to a conservatory, a university that specializes in music.

However, a conservatory setting would have been a large commitment since it is difficult to have a career as a full-time classical musician, he said. Instead, Oh plans on continuing cello as a hobby after he graduates from college and eventually teaching children to play.

“Yale has a great orchestra program, so I thought this was a good opportunity to not fully commit to playing music, but a great way to keep on going and meet other people who are really interested in music,” Oh said.

Oh is nervous to be in a new environment with unfamiliar people because he does not know what their skill sets will be, but he is still excited to make new connections, he said. “It’s just another group of people that you’re able to meet and able to connect with.”

Courtesy of Alex Oh

STRING INSTRUMENT Oh (12) focuses on his cello performance.

Courtesy of Jacob Schorsch

SCENES FROM THE PLAYBOOK Schorsch (12) acts in a piece of theater.

Jacob Schorsch (12) to study acting at Davidson Neeva Patel Contributing Writer After performing with the same theater company for 11 years, Jacob Schorsch (12) has decided to continue his artistic journey in acting at Davidson College in North Carolina, where he will double major in theater arts and political science. “The ultimate goal is pursuing a career in the performing arts,” he said. “Attending a college that will teach me how to become a better actor is something I definitely want to do in order to achieve my goal.”

Schorsch’s involvement in theater first began when he was three years old, when he saw his older sisters performing at his local theater company.

“From that moment on, I became obsessed,” he said. “I would go to see every show of theirs, and eventually, I joined that same theater company in hopes of following in their footsteps.” Schorsch still considers his older sisters to be his biggest inspirations in the arts field.

For his whole career, Schorsch has remained at his theater company “Riverdale Rising Stars” with the same director and cast. “It has been really amazing because I have formed a level of continuity and familiarity with these people since I have been performing with them for so many years,” he said.

Schorsch has also pursued theater outside of this program. “I have taken classes separate from the ones my program offers, and I’ve done a few shows at camp, and a few shows here at school.” In total, Schorsch has performed in more than 25 different

shows, including Horace Mann’s production of “Pippin.” He was also set to perform in last year’s production of “Urinetown,” but it was canceled after classes went online.

Before committing to Davidson, Schorsch briefly considered attending school for sports journalism. However, he decided against this idea because he would have to halt his progress in the theater arts. “Having performing arts as one of the constants in my life is something I love, which is why I want to continue my journey with it even outside of high school,” he said.

Schorsch has decided to pursue a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in theater instead of a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA). “Earning a BA in the performing arts allows you to take other academic classes along with your theater ones, while a BFA solely concerns the performing arts,” he said.

Schorsch chose Davidson because the theater department has a wide breadth of classes at many varying levels as well as many skilled teachers. “I am able to expand in other directions, while at the same time improve as an actor,” he said. “It’s a winwin situation.”

Davidson’s location was another positive factor for Schorsch, he said. He has lived in New York his entire life and wanted to attend college outside of the city, he said. “New York is a mecca of arts, so who knows, I might find myself back here in the future,” he said. “As for next year, I’m excited to experience more rigour in the arts at a college level so that I can form a deeper connection with what it means to be an artist.”

Courtesy of Eden Plepler

SOLO SINGER Plepler (12) sings on stage.

Eden Plepler (12) to study vocal performance at NYU Ava Westreich Contributing Writer Eden Plepler (12) will follow her musical aspirations to New York University (NYU), where she will pursue a Bachelor’s degree in music. Contrary to Horace Mann’s traditional academic setting, Plepler’s college experience will be focused on the arts. She will take classes such as ballet music theory, acting, and English fiction.

At NYU, Plepler will study vocal performance with a concentration in musical theater. “I wanted to study theater but didn’t want to compromise on classical musical training, and this is what [NYU’s] specific program allowed me to do,” she said. Plepler also chose NYU because she’ll be in New York City, “with Broadway and all the people in the industry at [her] fingertips.”

From an early age, Plepler has attended arts camps and taken voice lessons. “It’s been something that I’ve been passionate about my whole life,” she said.

Toward the end of eighth grade, Plepler began regular voice lessons out of school as well as performing in the Horace Mann Theatre Company spring musicals.

However, Plepler’s music journey has been “all over the place” recently. Until two years ago, Plepler was unsure whether music was simply a hobby or a serious pursuit. Then, Plepler did not know whether she wanted to pursue a Bachelor in Fine Arts, which is more focused on theatre,

or a Bachelor in Music, where she would be able to study music more broadly. With the help of her voice teacher, Plepler chose to pursue a Bachelor’s in Music and now knows that she wants to pursue a career in either music or musical theater.

“So much of high school is about focusing to have the perfect grades and the perfect scores to get into college, and I think it’ll be a real relief to be able to study what I want,” Plepler said. She is excited to be surrounded by teachers who are well-versed in the music industry and students who are also pursuing similar interests. “It’s about learning about music, but also finding my community.”

Answers to crossword from p12

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HORACE MANN ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT JUNE 7TH, 2021

A FEW OF the cast ’ s F AVORITE MOMENT From the show S Courtesy of Cheer Films

“ “ “ “ Courtesy of the HMTC

“My favorite memory is when we were doing warm ups together before our first day filming.”

- Mikayla Benson (12)

“My favorite memory is when we recorded “Sing” on the stage with everybody, because we were some of the first people who got to film using our own audio, and that was really cool.”

- Etta Singer (9)

Courtesy of Cheer Films

“

Courtesy of Cheer Films

“

“

“My favorite memory would definitely be that we all got to watch it together for the first time. That’s not something you usually get to experience in theatre, obviously, because you’re on stage, so how can you watch it off stage. To be the first ones to see it as just the people in it was super special.”

- Dalia Pustilnik (11)

“

“

“

“My favorite memory was seeing everyone in their costumes for the first time, because so much of the show was put together separately.

But then those four days, we were all filming together, and we finally had a whole cast moment, and it felt very nice.”

- Athena Spencer (10)

“My favorite part was that day when we were there an hour late. Everyone was grumpy and it was terrible, but it wasn’t terrible because we finally felt like a cast.

Because a lot of the time when we were recording solo, the show felt less together, but in that rehearsal, it was very much together. It felt very much like we were actually a cast working on a show, and it felt great.”

- Dylan Chin ‘20 Sarah Sun/Art Director

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THE RECORD MIDDLE DIVISION JUNE 7TH, 2021

Coming to terms with coming out

Adolescents grapple with queer identities

Riva Vig / Staff Artist

Mia Calzolaio Staff Writer When Gayle* (11), who is anonymous because she is not publicly out, was in middle school, the concept of queerness was foreign to her. “It never even entered into my brain that I could be queer,” she said. “I had nothing to name myself. I just thought I was straight. I was a straight person that got nervous around girls.” It was not until eighth grade, when Gayle began reading books with queer characters, that she recognized and felt validated in her own queer identity.

Growing up in the hostile environment of the 1980s without any queer role models, history teacher Dr. Daniel Link was dissuaded from coming to terms with his identity. As a result, he attempted to move any thoughts about his sexuality into “a box that was not to be opened.” While this tactic was not beneficial for his wellbeing, it helped him through middle and high school, he said.

Once Link’s friends began to show interest in dating girls, Link sensed a feeling of difference. “That just was not of interest to me,” he said. “I did start to think about why that was the case and tried to feign interest in dating girls.”

Although she did not recognize her queerness until a later age, history teacher Dr. Alicia DeMaio also recalls a strong sense of othering that defined her time in middle school. At her Catholic school, students had the option of wearing a sweater or a sweater vest with their uniform, and DeMaio always chose to wear the sweater vest.

She realized that she was the only student who chose to wear this piece

became ill and passed away, certainly shaped the way I thought about my identity, and certainly reinforced the messaging I saw around me that associated queerness and sicknesss.”

In more recent years, students would hear negative sentiments about queerness from their family members and then relay those messages to others in school, Tonya* (11), who is anonymous because she is not publicly

“To me that felt like, well, even if I did come out maybe people would say, ‘Oh, she’s just trying to be different.’”

- Tonya*

“Trying to conform was probably the most dangerous thing for me to do to my own mental health, but that was just something I had to do to get by and get out.”

- Emily Lombardo For many middle school students, a lack of understanding from fellow classmates and presence of visible role models can inhibit a student’s recognition and acceptance of their own queerness.

Angelique* (11), who is anonymous because she is not out to her family, did not perceive her queerness in a negative light in the Middle Division (MD), but she felt distinctly isolated from her peers — aside from one person in her grade, she knew no other queer kids, she said. When she thought about her queerness, she felt ostracized, and, since she had recently transferred schools, she felt it was better to suppress her identity. “[My queerness] didn’t really carry much weight, because I just put it off for a long time. I didn’t really need to think about it, so I didn’t.”

Suppression of their identity functioned as a method of survival for Studio Arts Manager Emily Lombardo.

Upon entering middle school, Lombardo found that restrictions surrounding gender expression became much tighter — when they engaged in role playing games with their friends at a young age, they always assumed a male role, but at a certain point that type of play was prohibited. Without a support system, Lombardo felt the need to conform for her own safety, she said.

“Trying to conform was probably the most dangerous thing for me to do to my own mental health, but that was just something I had to do to get by and get out.”

of clothing, and she slowly became proud of this choice, she said. While she could not pinpoint the reason behind her difference, she could recognize and accept that she carried “an outward marker of difference.” Looking back, she views this moment as an early sign of her queerness.

Even before he came out, Alex Nagin’s (11) peers bullied him for his differences, including his higherpitched voice and lack of male friends.

However, this experience motivated Nagin to come out and be more outspoken about the harassment he faced, he said. “I don’t think I ever viewed being gay as a negative thing, but I think I was frustrated with the fact that everyone else around me seemed to think it was a negative thing.”

Decades ago, any representation of gay men in public was contextualized by illness and the stigma that surrounded HIV and AIDS, MD English teacher and faculty leader of the MD Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) James Brink said. During his middle school experience, there were no openly queer people in Brink’s life, and the only time he became aware that he had met a queer adult was when the head of his middle school developed HIV and stepped down.

This initial experience played a key role in Brink’s negative perception of this identity, he said. “For that to be my first experience with having known a queer adult, somebody who then

from Adam Resheff page 14 groups and helping to plan the school’s spring concert.

At Columbia, Resheff decided to explore courses he had not taken in high school, including some in computer science. “It felt similar to writing history essays, where all the pieces had to come together to make something,” he said.

Resheff ’s growing interest in computer science motivated him to take more math courses. “I came to really appreciate how everything in math just fits together,” he said. “I still liked my history classes, but when it came time for homework, I’d be looking forward to my math homework.”

After graduating from college, Resheff worked for

Since they came out as nonbinary in second grade, they have become more educated on queer-related topics, and, as a result, they are more aware of sentiments from their peers that might be problematic, they said. “There are people at school who still don’t use my pronouns, and they’re new people coming in who are getting my pronouns from one [of those people] or just assuming what my pronouns are.”

Amira Dossani / Staff Artist

out, said. After an assembly during which an MD student came out as pansexual, Tonya remembers her classmates invalidating the girl’s identity and saying she only came out for attention. This rhetoric was especially damaging for Tonya to hear at the time, she said. “To me that felt like, well, even if I did come out maybe people would say, ‘Oh, she’s just trying to be different.’”

Similar to Tonya, Gayle feared judgement from her peers in response to any display of queerness. During lunch, Gayle would pass the office in which MD GSA meetings were held and feel envious of the bonding she saw inside, she said. “They were all laughing and it just felt to myself, ‘Wow, I really want to be doing that,’ but I just kept on walking because I could never even open the door and go in, because I’m so afraid that, ‘What will they think of me?

What will the people on the outside that are not in that room think of me?’”

Desmond Singer (6) does feel comfortable expressing their identity at school, but as they have grown older, they have noticed a lack of exposure to and understanding of queer issues.

a tutoring company where he ]taught SAT and ACT preparation, as well as biology, computer science, and history. When he began tutoring, he did not envision that it would eventually lead to teaching, he said. “I was starting [tutoring] this year, but then there was an opening here that was presented to me and I thought, ‘Yeah, I want to try this.’”

Resheff had kept in contact with Upper Division Library Department Chair Caroline Bartels, who knew that Resheff was tutoring, so when the opportunity to teach in the math department became available, the school reached out to him, he said.

Before teaching his first class at the school, Resheff was excited, terrified, and overall looking forward to the experience, he said. “It’s great seeing the school from the

Middle school can often be a difficult place to grow into a queer identity because of the budding development students undergo, Link said. It is the first time that kids are thinking romantically about other people, a new and awkward experience, and there is a large emphasis placed on conformism.

“If you are expressing interests that don’t seem to fit the norm, then that is threatening, strange, worthy of shaming or shunning on the part of the majority of the population,” he said.

The MD GSA works to combat any feelings of negativity that might result from this environment, Brink said. “It’s a space where people know that they’re going to be accepted for who they are, whatever that means to them at that point in time.” Even if students do not attend the meetings, knowing that GSA exists and that there is a group willing to support them can be valuable, he said.

Even though Gayle did not attend GSA meetings in the MD, she felt a sense of affirmation in her identity when a girl on her bus came out as bisexual. After the girl first came out, Gayle simply felt congratulatory, but as middle school went on, she began to wonder whether that identity could apply to her as well, she said. “When you see [queerness] reflected in your community, it gives you the strength to be like, ‘Oh, it’s not just a phase. This is not just something that will pass or something that is not valid.”

Nagin experienced similar validation while watching YouTube videos with queer representation, he said. The videos did not contain explicitly queer content, rather, they exhibited visibly queer people in an average way. “It was like, ‘maybe this isn’t a totally isolating thing and maybe there’s a world out there where I may be able to live normally.’”

While Brink did not have many positive representations of queerness in his life at a young age, he has seen the situation change for the better — people are now more open about their queerness and there are queer faculty members at the school. “I’m certainly glad that has happened, that people

from Mental Health page 18 Guidance,” she said. “I feel like people feel the need to tiptoe around you if you go to guidance because they will think that you are always on the verge of a breakdown. I also try to put my best foot forward at school, and sometimes that means doing everything I can to make it seem like I am okay, even if I’m not.”

The pandemic has inspired Goldberg to be more active on social media, where she tries to destigmatize mental health issues, she said. Before the pandemic she worried about judgment she could receive from her peers if she were more vocal about her passions.

During the pandemic, however, she has gained confidence and began using her Instagram platform to raise awareness about mental health and prompt discourse over the subject, she said.

The pandemic has also resulted in more prominent sensations of “burnout” at the end of the school year. “I feel like school is giving the same level of intensity work-wise as a normal year,” Goldberg said.

“After a year that has been very difficult for everybody, I think people have reached a point where they can’t keep up anymore.”

Because of the negative impacts of the pandemic on mental health, Dalo decided to use the quarantine as an opportunity to invest himself in self-care, he said. “I generally don’t do well when we’re remote, so it forced me to find strategies to make sure that I was taking care of myself,” he said. “I’ve gained an appreciation for outdoor space that I didn’t have before, which has had a really positive impact on my mental state.”

Goldberg has also increased her self-care efforts, she said.

This year, she has prioritized her well being over her school work, she said. “Normally I would tell myself, ‘You’ve got to finish these assignments and then you can go to sleep,’ but this year I have learned that while there are consequences to not finishing homework, the consequences of pushing yourself too hard are much bigger.”

Quinn worked on her ability to feel comfortable being alone, she said. “COVID made me really comfortable being by myself,” she said. “I used to feel really sad if I didn’t go out one weekend, but now I actually enjoy staying in. I’m definitely more introverted now.”

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know that they’re not alone in a way that I didn’t know when I was in middle school.”

other side of things,” he said. “I always felt supported and challenged by my teachers in high school and seeing things from the other side has more than verified what I always thought was the case.”

Resheff has also especially enjoyed becoming colleagues with teachers whose classes Courtesy of Adam Resheff he took, he said. “It’s funny because teachers call each other by their first name, and so there was this moment where I did not really know what to call them, but it brings back fond memories because I enjoyed all of their classes.”

HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNES 7TH, 2021 All art by Rachel Zhu/Art Director

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