The Horace Mann Record, Issue 10

The Horace Mann Record HORACE MANN’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1903

NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018 || VOLUME 116, ISSUE 10

RECORD.HORACEMANN.ORG

EWWW and Union host affirmative action forum John Mauro Staff Writer

Members of East Wind West Wind (EWWW) and The Union invited the school’s community and the two other hilltop schools, Riverdale Country Day and Ethical Culture Fieldston, to discuss affirmative action and college admissions on Thursday in the Black Box Theater.

EWWW is club dedicated to promoting discussions about Asian American identity and diversity within the school’s community. The Union is a club that strives to strengthen the bonds between those of different races, religions, genders, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic classes both inside and outside of the school’s community.

The clubs collaborated with each other because they thought that it was appropriate way to address this topic that affects everybody, EWWW Board Member Faijul Rhyhan (12) said.

The summit featured a presentation about the history of affirmative action and a panel, consisting of Director of College Counseling Initiatives Beth Pili and Associate Director of College Counseling Frank Cabrera, who informed the body of college admissions and affirmative action, Rhyhan said. “[The Union] reached out to us, and we thought it would be a good discussion to have, because when we talk about affirmative action with each other it can get out of hand. It’s a good space to have conversation and keep it under control,” EWWW Board Member Analisa Gagliardi (12) said.

The students did most of the work organizing the event while the advisors mostly oversaw logistical needs, The Union co-advisor Benjamin Kafoglis said.

“Affirmative action is a sensitive issue, politically and personally, for a lot of people. There’s a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding it, such as who benefits more from it and why it was necessary in the first place,” The Union co-advisor Dr. Rachel Mohammad said.

“It’s important for people to be informed about what’s going on and recognize and hear other people’s opinions on the issues” EWWW Board Member Daniel Lee (11) said.

After the Q&A, the forum broke into small groups to discuss what they found interesting.

Tomoko Hida (9) found the college counselors’ explanations relieving, she said.

“Although I’m only a freshman and I won’t need to worry about college for a while, I’m glad they explained the process of selecting applicants and that that there was no need for us to worry about getting rejected due to our race or ethnicity,” Hida said.

It was surprising to learn that only 6% of Americans identified as Asian, said Samantha Tsai (10). “I don’t really think about it because the city, and Horace Mann especially, is a very diverse community, and I’m grateful for that,” she said.

In light of the discussion on privilege, Nyle Hutchinson (12) shared his personal experiences about privilege.

“I came to realize that going to Horace Mann was a privilege regardless of the reason I got in. What was more important were the reasons I should stay. Going to HM was already a way for me to get other people through the door,” Hutchinson said.

“We shouldn’t think of our privilege as a burden, but a tool for us to elevate people past their own burdens.”

EWWW wants to host a follow-up meeting to discuss what happened during the forum, Gagliardi said. “I think it’s our responsibility as an Ivy League prep school to make sure we give [students] the facts surrounding [affirmative action], and from there you can form your opinions around correct information,” Mohammad said.

The Union Co-President Yasmin McLamb (12) loved how well received the panel was in terms of educating people or the history of affirmative action and how colleges look at applications in general, she said.

“I’m glad that there is an effort being made so that students are looked at holistically through a light that considers what their background is, regardless of if they come from a public or an independent school,” McLamb said.

“I thought it went really well,” The Union Co-Vice President Eric Ohakam said. “It took a month to organize, so it really felt like it payed off. I learned something, and but I was especially proud that I heard a lot of other people say they like it.”

Daniel Lee/Staff Photographer

PRODUCTIVE DISCUSSION College counselors facilitate forum discussion.

School travels to SDLC to discuss identity, culture Bradley Bennett Staff Writer This Wednesday through Sunday, six students and numerous teachers travelled to Nashville, Tennessee, for the 25th annual Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SDLC), a multiracial and multicultural gathering of upper school students from around the country.

“The conference is for students at independent schools who want to discuss topics such as identity, justice, and community,” ICIE Associate Sharina Gordon said.

“This year, the theme is listening for the grace note, which means building cross-cultural communication that students can apply back at school,” she said.

Courtesy of Jessica Thomas

According to the SDLC website, participating students learn strategies for practicing social justice through dialogue as well as how to be an ally.

The school has attended the conference for over five years, and each year about 1,600 students attend the conference in total, Gordon said.

The conference began with “empowering” speeches from guest speakers, Jayla Thomas (11), who attended this year’s conference, said.

According to the SDLC website, such speakers included Lisa Ling, a CNN correspondent, and Marian Wright Edelman, the founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund.

Students were then split into both “family groups” of about 50 people as well as racial and cultural affinity groups over the course of the conference in order to allow each student’s voice to be heard, Gordon said.

“Conversation during the affinity groups was so natural because everyone shared similar values,” Eunice Bae (12), who attended the conference last year, said.

“There is also a separate adult portion of the conference called the People of Color Conference (POCC) that happens at same time but includes different workshops,” Gordon said. “Over 6,000 educators from around the United States attend the POCC conference.”

At the conference, students have the opportunity to “discuss subjects such as social politics, gender, identity, race, and many other aspects of people’s experiences in life,” Jack Eagan (11), who attended last year’s SDLC conference in Anaheim, said.

“This should be mandatory,” Charles Simmons (11), who attended the conference this year, said. “It’s essential to take time for opportunities like this where you get to learn more about your peers and yourself,” he said.

Topics discussed included critical core identifiers like race, gender, sexual orientation, age, family structure, and socio-economic status, Thomas said. Students shared how such factors affected them both at school and at home, Thomas said.

“I was able to meet a lot of individuals across the country, and we had hour-long presentations from social politicians, which I really enjoyed,” Eagan said.

Eagan decided to attend the conference last year because “we live in a very tight-knit community, but there are so many people across the country who I hadn’t met, and I wanted to hear about their experiences as individuals from different backgrounds,” Eagan said.

“It’s been nonstop talking and reflecting and sharing,” Thomas said. “I think it’s so great to be surrounded by people who have very similar experiences because many of the students here are people of color from predominantly white institutions,” she said.

“Although I do come from a school that is very accepting of different races and cultures, the conference was eye-opening,” Bae said. “It made me wonder if there are people at the school who have similar problems but feel afraid to discuss them,” she said.

INSIDE

WE ARE FAMILY Students in a family group from last year’s conference pose.

Artistic alumni

5

An actor, jazz musician, and stand-up comedian all started at this school.

Climate change

6-7

Students and faculty grapple with a rapidly changing world.

Senior stars

9

The captains who led their fall sports teams to victory.

@hm.record @thehoracemannrecord Horace Mann School 231 W 246th St, Bronx, NY 10471

2

THE RECORD OPINIONS NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

From cuts to the finish line

Claire Goldberg On my first day of high school I got cut from the volleyball team. After an intense and exciting two weeks of tryouts, I had grown fairly attached to both the sport and the people on the team. As the first day of school approached I did my best to push the looming thoughts of cuts out of my mind. I was starting high school, after all, and had a lot of other things to worry about. I told myself I had to see the bigger picture; making the volleyball team was not everything. But the moment came, and names got called, and I was cut. In just two weeks, my high school volleyball career had both taken off and come crashing down.

I came home upset, thinking that my participation in HM sports was over. When my mom brought up trying out for the cross country team, I shot it down instantly. I didn’t see how running around in the hot sun for three hours a day would ever be for me. My experience with running did not go beyond the dreaded mile on the track each year for gym class. But, I decided one practice couldn’t hurt.

Amidst my first lap around Van Cortlandt Park and surrounded by new faces, I understood that I had found a special community. I felt incredibly welcomed and connected to the team after that first practice, and throughout the season my interest in the sport grew into a passion. The Cross Country team ended up being an environment where I found some Volume 116 Editorial Board Editor in Chief Managing Editor Lynne Sipprelle Betsey Bennett

of my best friends and became a varsity athlete.

At Horace Mann there seems to be a huge taboo around failure. It’s so intense that I know some students do not even try out for teams in the first place because of the chance of being cut. This fear also manifests in other parts of our community, in trying to get into selective debate teams, school plays, Student Council, and even in classes. In an environment where everyone strives for perfection, the thought of rejection in front of our peers is mortifying, so much so that it becomes a substantial reason to “play it safe.”

From my experience, however, I’ve learned that rejection should not prohibit risk taking. When students begin to feel like the consequences of taking a risk is too great, they face the even bigger likelihood of missing out on an opportunity to find new interests.

As cross country came to an end this past month, I was able to reflect on the season. Through joining the team, I met people in different grades and also coaches that I grew incredibly close to. I even ended up placing in a few of my races. It’s not like getting cut from the volleyball team wasn’t embarrassing or frustrating, because it most definitely was, but if I hadn’t gone out for the team, I would never have been pushed to find something that I’m really passionate about.

All HM students should be more willing to try new things, not because rejection isn’t that bad, but because it puts you in a position to find new things that you love. This is especially true in an environment like Horace Mann, where there are opportunities in every direction you look.

Students should consider that rejection doesn’t always mean you’re doing something wrong. In fact, when you make yourself vulnerable, that’s when you can learn about yourself and what you’re interested in.

As a community, we focus on only potential failure rather than the possibility of finding success through failure. We should foster relationships where people feel comfortable to take risks. To this day, most of my friends don’t even know that I went out for the volleyball team in the first place. After all, I did not want to be known as the girl who got cut. But this experience taught me that I am that girl, and there is nothing wrong with that.

The long journey home

Features News Megha Nelivigi Surya Gowda Abby Kanter Katie Goldenberg Lions’ Den Natasha Stange Brody McGuinn William Han

Opinions Abigail GoldbergZelizer Rebecca Siegel

Design Editors A & E Allison DeRose Jeren Wei Caroline Kaplan Peri Brooks Art Directors Photography Juli Moreira Abigail Kraus Jackson Roberts Ahaan Palla Jake Shapiro Issues Editor Middle Division Sadie Schwartz Sandhya Shyam Faculty Adviser Online Editor David Berenson Henry Wildermuth Staff Writers Malhaar Agrawal, Laura Bae, Andrew Cassino, Mayanka Dhingra, Victor Dimitrov, Amelia Feiner, Mark Fernandez, Nelson Gaillard, Leonora Gogos, Jude Herwitz, Edwin Jin, Spencer Kahn, Samuel Keimweiss, Suraj Khakee, Gabrielle Kepnes, Madison Li, Noah Phillips, Eliza Poster, Julia Robbins, Kiara Royer, Abigail Salzhauer, Ranya Sareen, Nishtha Sharma, Griffin Smith, Benjamin Wang, Robbie Werdiger, Simon Yang, Isabella Zhang, Bradley Bennett, Sogona Cisse, Jack Crovitz, Jackson Feigin, Adam Frommer, Andie Goldmacher, Marina Kazarian, John Mauro, Henry Owens, Emily Shi, Samuel Singer, Sasha Snyder, Vivien Sweet, Joshua Underberg, Talia Winiarsky Staff Photographers Eva Fortunato, Iliana Dezelic, Griffin Smith, Harrison Haft, Andrew Cassino, Julia Isko, Julia Robbins, Daniel Lee, Ava Merker Staff Artists Elizabeth Fortunato, Alexandra Crotty, Gabrielle Fischberg, Annabelle Chan, Julia Roth

Editorial Policy ABOUT The Record is published weekly by the students of Horace Mann School to provide the community with information and entertainment, as well as various viewpoints in the forms of editorials and opinion columns. All editorial decisions regarding content, grammar and layout are made by the editorial board. The Record maintains membership in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association and National Scholastic Press Association.

EDITORIALS & OPINIONS Unsigned editorials represent the opinion of the majority of the senior editorial board. Opinion columns are the sole opinion of the author and not of The Record or the editorial board.

NOTE 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. The Horace Mann School is not responsible for the accuracy and content of The Record, and is not liable for any claims based on the contents or views expressed therein.

LETTERS To be considered for publication in the next issue, letters to the editor should be submitted by mail (The Record, 231 West 246th Street, Bronx, NY 10471) or e-mail (record@horacemann.org) before 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening. All submissions must be signed and should refer to a Record article. Letters may be edited for grammar, style, length and clarity.

CONTACT For all comments, queries, story suggestions, complaints or corrections, or for information about subscribing, please contact us by email at record@ horacemann.org.

Claire Yoo Eight people in a school bus. Seven hours for a 40-minute drive. Three intact tires.

One journey I’ll never forget.

8:01am: I receive an email from Dr. Kelly saying all after school events are canceled, and there are no late buses. I will get home early tonight.

4:00pm: It’s snowing a little heavier than before, but it’s so calming. I get on the bus.

4:15pm: The two vans in front of us drive down the hill.

4:36pm: We discover that the two vans and another bus got stuck at the bottom of the hill. We see a swarm of fifty people walking up in the snow. We also discover that there’s a 20-car collision on the GWB. Some of us contemplate taking an Uber.

Ubers are $156. Lyfts are $226. Three kids get off the bus to take the subway into the city.

Someone: “We should just walk at this point. It’ll be faster.”

Everyone: “Haha, we’d get home at like 11pm.”

We were so naïve to say that. So foolish.

5:09pm: Since we can’t go down the hill, we back up and leave campus the other way.

5:18pm: They have closed the upper level of the GWB. Parts of the Henry Hudson are also closed. We go through local roads. The bus gets stuck and swerves around a lot.

5:24pm: We can stop if someone needs to pee. People need to pee.

5:26pm: Just kidding. We cannot stop even if people need to pee.

5:30pm: We hear through different sources that people are being allowed to stay at school and possibly sleep over. We are all insanely jealous because they have food, bathrooms, and outlets. It’s truly survival mode out here.

5:36pm: NEWS HEADLINE: Worst traffic jam in history of GWB. 5:37pm: We are watching a video of the jam on the bridge. Trucks are smashed into trucks, car parts are flung around the bridge, people have left their cars and are walking around. I wonder if the 2012 Apocalypse just came six years late.

5:54pm: The bus driver plays the radio through the speakers, which are not inside the bus, but on the outside of it. Very useful. We hear it faintly over the sound of the world falling apart outside.

Person 2: “I can’t hear. Is this Cardi B or Nicki?”

Bus driver: “Don’t disrespect me like that… It’s Cardi.”

5:57pm: We make it onto the West Side Highway! Someone says the ETA from here is an hour.

6:14pm: Food rationing begins.

Person 1: “Oh, I have a Kit Kat!”

Everyone: “I WANT SOME. I WANT SOME.”

Person 2: “Cut it and we’ll share. Each person can get a piece.”

Person 3: “No, you don’t get any. You got a piece of gum.”

6:18pm: “Does anyone watch The Good Place? Well, you know how the bad place is tailored to each person? This would be my bad place.”

6:19pm: An ambulance rushes past. Some people on the bus contemplate driving

Editorial

Over the past couple weeks, we as a board have enjoyed the opportunities we have had to interact with Horace Mann’s alumni. Whether it was engaging in a conversation about journalism with Marc Fisher during his I period visit to the school, bonding with members of the Classes of 2017 and 2018 over lunch in the cafeteria, or learning about alumni in the arts through an Arts and Entertainment article published in this issue, we have found the time that we have spent connecting with Horace Mann students of the past to be valuable and invigorating.

Often, we tend to confine our vision of the Horace Mann community to the people we see on a daily basis in the halls of Tillinghast, but it is important to remember that our presence extends far beyond that. We are connected to a vast alumni network that stretches across the whole world and into every professional field.

Although these people may seem far removed from our lives right now, they all started here at Horace Mann, and we share that common experience.

In the spirit of connecting with Horace Mann alumni, we on The Record have started a new alumni journalist speaker series, the first of which took place on November 15th with Marc Fisher. With so many Record writers going on to inspiring careers in journalism, we felt that these alumni were a resource we needed to tap into. We hope that this initiative becomes a Record tradition, and we hope that we can inspire others in our community to reach out to alumni in their respective area of interest.

Pay attention to and celebrate what your classmates accomplish after high school. Whether you want to contact a peer regarding a job opportunity or just find out what they’re up to, we hope the alumni network will always play an important role in your life.

behind it to move faster. But that’s illegal.

6:42pm: I have finished reading Beloved.

6:52pm: Remember when ETA was an hour? An hour ago? We haven’t moved in the past 30 minutes. Time isn’t real anymore.

6:53pm: Some of us start talking to the driver of the Eyewitness News van next to us.

EN Van driver: “You going to New Jersey?”

Everyone: “Yep.”

EN Van driver: “No, you’re not.”

7:20pm: Another Supertrans van rolls up next to us. Both vans open all the windows. We scream and wave as if these are the only other people we’ve ever seen.

A girl from the other bus tries to throw a granola bar to our window. It’s a failure.

We separate.

8:19pm: A man in the car next to us pees in a cup. When nature calls, you answer.

It’s something we have all learned today.

9:15pm: Dr. Kelly sends out an email telling us to use our socks and shirts as toilet paper. We nervously eye each other.

9:30pm: School is closed tomorrow. After three and a half hours on the highway, we are finally on the ramp to the bridge. Glory!

9:50pm: We have crossed the bridge, and we are all screaming.

10:00pm: After getting permission from Supertrans to stop for bathrooms, we make it to the first gas station. The gas station is my holy grail.

10:06pm: We are back on the bus. Going home. Life is so beautiful. We are all beaming.

10:07pm:

Bus driver: “I don’t want y’all to panic… but we have really

low tire pressure…”

Someone: “How low?”

Bus driver: “Um… 5 psi.”

5 psi is literally nothing. That’s an asthmatic person lamely blowing into a bunch of rubber around a metal cylinder. My seat is above the tire. This is life, I guess.

10:18pm: After just driving around on the flat tire, we make it to the next gas station. It’s closed. Perfect.

10:19pm: MUN is cancelled. Some people are more devastated about this than the fact that we have a flat tire at a closed gas station. Horace Mann.

10:20pm: Two students are outside the bus, trying to fix the flat tire. I give two quarters so they can use the air pump machine to see if the tire is just low on pressure but intact, or really blown out. I repeat: two students are trying to fix the flat tire. Horace Mann.

10:21pm: The tire is really blown out.

10:32pm: It’s all hopeless. We’ve called our parents to pick us up. No one knows what will happen to the bus, but we know that it’ll be better than what it has just been through.

10:40pm: The bus waves me off as I leave. This must be what Odysseus felt like.

11:09pm: After a better-than-Dorr, seven-hour bonding experience, I am home.

Annabelle Chan/Staff Artist

3

HORACE MANN NEWS NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

Flamenco dancer visits school during workshop Abi Kraus/Photo Editor

Sam Keimweiss Staff Writer

¡OLÉ! Thomás strikes a pose during Flamenco workshop.

The Flamenco Dance workshop hosted on Thursday by the Dance department and Theater, Dance, and Film Studies Department Chair Alison Kolinski was filled with stamping feet, rhythmic clapping, and students’ desires to learn the unique style of dance.

The workshop, led by visiting instructor Rebeca Thomás, focused on developing a general understanding of what is involved in Flamenco and then “to get students to move in a different way than they are used to moving,” Thomás said.

Thomás found Flamenco dance as a college student on a semester abroad in Spain. She studied the dance on and off for seven years before devoting her time to it, and now works in Flamenco dance full time.

“There’s this emotional, intense quality to Flamenco which I don’t think you find with a lot of other dances,” Thomás said.

Kolinski scheduled the workshop as part of a series of unique genres of dance. This semester, there were also workshops in Capoeira and Afro-Trinidad Soca, dance student Yana Gitelman (10) said. The workshops focus on types of dance that students may not have studied, Kolinski said.

“The goal is to expose students to a culturally specific form of dance and art and to the culture that it’s from,” Thomás said.

Flamenco dancing is a complicated

form of rhythmic dance that originated in Southern Spain. It uses a unique style of heel work and clapping to add percussion into a proud, emotional dance that conveys confidence, beauty, and power, Spanish teacher Susan Carnochan, who attended the workshop, said. Unique Flamenco guitar and singing usually accompany the dance, she said.

“The thing with Flamenco is that it is very sophisticated in the rhythm,” World Languages Department Chair Maria del Pilar Valencia said. “It moves me in a kind of weird, mysterious way because it’s really powerful,” she said.

The workshop began with an introduction to Flamenco, and then focused on palmas, or rhythmic hand clapping, as a way of familiarizing students with Flamenco rhythm, Thomás said.

After establishing a basic understanding of Palmas, Thomás used the rhythm to teach basic footwork patterns and motions.

Towards the end of the workshop, the students put together their dancing, clapping, and new understanding into a brief choreographed dance combination.

Gitelman chose this workshop because she had taken classes in Flamenco when she was younger but wanted to improve, she said. Although the workshop was open to all students, Dance PE students, such as Gitelman, are required to attend one workshop per semester, she said.

Isabel Mignone (11) found the skills she had learned in Dance PE useful in the class. “It was an excellent opportunity for everyone involved,” she said.

Poetry assembly postponed

Jackson Roberts/Art Director

Eliza Poster Staff Writer

Women in Science club hosts young women in STEM from neighboring communities

Gabby Kepnes Staff Writer

After being one of three girls in her honors math class as a freshman, Janvi Kukreja (12) started the club Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) during her sophomore year as an initiative to support aspiring girls interested in science and engineering.

Every Wednesday from 4-5:30 p.m., WISE hosts meetings through HM 246 for girls interested in STEM. The club first started as Saturday workshops for Middle School girls, but it wasn’t until Director of the Center of Community Actions and Value Dr. Jeremy Leeds reached out to Kukreja suggesting the possible opportunity of bringing the club to girls in the surrounding Bronx communities, Kukreja said.

“This club was made to encourage younger girls, more specifically middle division and elementary students to feel more confident in their STEM classes when they get to high school,” Kukreja said.

As a Middle Division mentor, Kukreja has encountered scenarios in which she sees doesn’t see the confidence MD girls should have.

“One day, one of my mentees mentioned she qualified for the math team but didn’t want to do it because she was the only girl,” Kukreja said. “This [was] ridiculous because [the] cycle will just continue where there are no girls on the team, therefore they won’t feel supported.”

Abi Kraus/Photo Editor

Isha Agarwal (11) believes that especially in this day in age, there’s a gender disparity for women in STEM, she said.

“I joined WISE because I wanted to help little girls in and outside of the school and to let them know there’s a place at HM for women in the STEM field,” Agarwal said.

Science has always been a favorite subject for Diana Shaari (11), she said.

“Since the science field is primarily dominated by males, I joined to help encourage girls who were interested at such a young age,” she said.

Before each meeting every week, Kukreja meets with K-5 Science Specialist Mrs. Katie Diaz to discuss and prepare the lesson for the upcoming session, Kukreja said.

Other members, like Shaari and Agarwal, help facilitate experiments during the meeting as well as help Kukreja lead the workshops.

WISE is a refreshing experience to see how the girls participating aren’t embarrassed by their interests nor do they try to hide them, Agarwal said.

Throughout clubs fair, many people mentioned to Kukreja how important they thought the issue that WISE works on was, Kukreja said.

“It’s never been an official club until this year,” she said.

WISE helps to stop these crucial issues in life by encouraging the people from younger generations to never hide their passion, Kukreja said.

Renowned poet Brenda Shaughnessy will be addressing the school about her writing during the assembly on Tuesday, December 11, after postponing her visit to the school due to a sudden medical problem.

Shaughnessy’s awardwinning work is characterized by their juxtaposing subjects and styles and has appeared in publications like the Yale Review and Best American Poetry. She has published several poetry collections, most recently Our Andromeda and So Much Synth.

Although Shaughnessy’s illness required rearranging of the division wide schedule, replacing the planned assembly with an advisory period, finding another opportunity for her to come speak was not challenging, Chair of the Library Department Caroline Bartels said.

In addition to talking to the student body during the assembly, she will also join English classes during D and F periods on December 11, Bartels said.

Bartels and English Department Chair Vernon Wilson plan to invite poets to speak at the school every other year, she said. She aims to expose students artists like Shaughnessy and poet Yusef Komunyakaa, who addressed the school two years ago, she said.

“I think it’s important for students to think about that bigger life where art fits into your world,” Bartels said.

Bartels was insistent on scheduling the assembly within the first trimester, when many classes’ curricula aligns with what Shaughnessy will discuss,

she said.

“If we had done it later in the year it wouldn’t make sense.

People are in the moment of reading some her poetry and actually doing their own poetry anthologies,” Bartels said.

English teacher Harry Bauld has been exploring Shaughnessy’s poetry with his 10th and 11th grade classes, he said.

“We’re trying to see what she’s interested in, what she’s up to, what her obsessions are, what her poetic voice on the page is, in preparation to meeting her and asking her interesting questions about the work,” he said.

Courtesy of Poets House

POETIC GENIUS Poet Brenda Shaughnessy poses with work.

Bauld’s classes have been analyzing elliptical poetry, a style of writing characterized by ambiguity, which specifically Shaughnessy’s early work in the collection ‘Interior with Sudden Joy,’ he said.

“They speak with metaphorical indirection about issues of the self and identity.

It’s poetry that’s very allusive and illusive,” Bauld said, “What is left out is as powerful,

oftentimes, as what remains, and what remains is shifting and equivocal.”

His class has also focused on the confessional quality of her later work in collections Our Andromeda and So Much Synth, poems in which Shaughnessy gives personal insight to readers because she “bears uncomfortable details,” Bauld said.

“She incorporates a lot of her personal experience with it, with being a woman of color, but also queer,” Claire Yoo (12), head of Poetry Outloud, said.

In ‘So Much Synth,’ Shaughnessy writes apostrophe poems, or poems addressed directly to an object, idea or person, speaking to herself in different stages of her life. Bauld plans to assign students to write apostrophe poems, he said.

“It’s way more interesting than finding an object and writing abstract foolishness about it.

It feels more like I know who she is,” Teyoncé Allison (10), a member of Bauld’s class, said.

“It’s not relatable but it’s a more digestible type of poetry.”

Priyanka Voruganti (11), who reads Shaughnessy’s work both in and outside of school, particularly admires the poet’s authenticity, a quality she tries to mimic in her own poetry, she said.

“I like that she’s really frank.

She uses funky language and experiments with words and isn’t afraid to be a woman and emulate womanhood in her work,” Voruganti said.

“I’m really looking forward to her coming because I love hearing poets read their own work because I feel like they know best what they want to say and how they want to say it,” Yoo said.

4

THE RECORD NEWS NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

CRACKING DOWN ON MEDIA Former editor of The Record Marc Fisher discussing media’s influence on journalism.

Abi Kraus/Photography Editor

Behind-the-scenes journalism: Marc Fisher ‘76 talks news Madison Li Staff Writer

Marc Fisher ‘76, a senior editor at The Washington Post, spoke two weeks ago at an event hosted by The Record, discussing his experience in journalism and the role of media in today’s world.

Fisher has worked at the Washington Post for over 30 years.

In 2016, he won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting and in 2014 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, according to The Washington Post website. Fisher is also the author of four books, including the bestselling Trump Revealed: An American Journey of Ambition, Ego, Money and Power.

Over the summer, Managing Editor of The Record Betsey Bennett (12) and Editor-in-Chief of The Record Lynne Sipprelle (12) looked through the “Notable Alumni” section of the school’s Wikipedia page in search of a few journalists that could possibly visit the school to speak, Bennett said.

“We gave the Alumni Office a list of the people we were interested in, and they were able to get in touch with them and see if they were available,” Bennett said.

“There are so many accomplished Horace Mann alums in the media, and we’d think it be really great if people who are on The Record can see alums

just like themselves that have now gone on to work in the professional journalism world,” Sipprelle said. The event was open to all Upper Division students and faculty. During the meeting, Fisher talked about a wide range of topics, including the role that media plays in politics. Fisher wants people to understand that ‘media’ is a very vague term, he said.

“The more people lump all news organizations into one basket, the more confused they may be about the proper role of the news and the way in which it gets reported,” Fisher said.

It is vital for all people to understand how they get their information, who they can trust, and how changes in technology are changing the way they learn about the world, he said.

Nelson Gaillard (11) found it interesting to learn about how the culture of media has entirely changed since President Trump was elected; there are people who work for The Washington Post whose sole job is to fact-check Trump’s tweets, he said.

One of the concerns that comes with digital media is the loss of ‘serendipity’ while reading through a newspaper or magazine, Fisher said. “When you’re paging through a newspaper and you turn the page, you don’t know what’s going to be there, and you read about something that you didn’t know you were interested in. That, to us, is the ideal, but it’s very difficult to recreate that experience

online,” he said.

“The role of a journalist today is to help people figure out what to trust, what to believe and to have a foundation of information that you need in order to have an intelligent view of the world,” Fisher said. It is crucial for people to be knowledgeable about their government and about the world around them in order for them to make good decisions as voters, he said.

When he left high school, he was more interested in pursuing politics or law than journalism, Fisher said.

However, during his time at Princeton University, he wrote articles for several newspapers, which made him realize journalism was the career path he was most excited about, Fisher said.

“The Horace Mann and college experiences fine-tuned a lot of my skills, made me interested in different kinds of reporting, and set me on the path to doing the internships that led to jobs and the rest of my journalism career,” he said.

Fisher’s experience so far in the journalism industry has been terrific, as he’s had a very varied and rewarding time, he said.

“I’ve done several stints as an editor, as well as working a lot as a writer, in newspapers, magazines, and books, and it’s been an extraordinary opportunity to try different forms of writing,” he said.

Because The Record is not as much in the public eye as other clubs are, holding the event was also a way of having students who are not a part of the club become more involved and learn more about it, Bennett said.

“I’ve always wondered what it takes nowadays to get so much important information out to the public in an accurate and unbiased way while also facing so much mistrust from the public,” Tiger Lily Moreno (11) said. Hearing from an editor of The Washington Post was an incredible opportunity, she said.

Bennett is hoping that this event will be the first of many journalist speakers invited to speak with the school, she said.

“We’re hoping to start a tradition where every year, we’ll have a couple of speakers that come in,” she said.

“Hopefully, for people on The Record, the event will be both a club bonding activity and an activity where they can take away lessons they can then apply to make The Record a better paper,” Sipprelle said.

Kiara Royer (11) said that her favorite part of the talk was learning about Fisher’s time on the Record in high school and how that played a part in his later life as a journalist, she said.

“While I found Fisher’s experiences of writing his book about Trump very interesting, I wish we had more time to speak and discuss his time on The

Record because as a writer for The Record, I feel like that’s where I could learn from and relate to the most,” Royer said.

History Department Chair Dr. Daniel Link thought hearing about how there are so many people who read opinion articles for news coverage over traditional unbiased news sources was very interesting, he said.

“I think that there is a perception, even among many of our students, that certain news sources are biased, and what a lot of students have a hard time understanding is the difference between the news section of a newspaper and the opinions section,” he said.

The most vital work for journalists these days is to help people overwhelmed by the wildly confusing flood of information that we all deal with every day, whether it’s on social media or email, Fisher said.

“The role of a journalist has become definitely more important in a much more challenging time and environment, where news organizations are struggling to survive and people are less and less willing to pay for journalism. Figuring out the answer to that puzzle has become the central challenge of journalism today,” he said.

ICIE hosts workshop to educate parents on race discussions Kiara Royer Staff Writer This Saturday, the Office for Identity, Culture and Institutional Equity (ICIE), in collaboration with the Center for Racial Justice in Education, will host a follow-up session to an event held last spring for parents to learn about how to discuss race and racism.

According to its website, the Center for Racial Justice in Education aims to “train and empower educators to dismantle patterns of racism and injustice in our schools and communities” by providing professional development trainings and consultation services.

The center held two sessions last February – one for school faculty and one for parents – to discuss how to have conversations about race and racism with young people, Co-Director of the ICIE John Gentile said.

The parents that attended the training last spring asked to bring back the center’s facilitators for a continuation of the first discussion, Director of the ICIE Patricia Zuroski said.

Keila Soto P’24 said she attended the center’s event last February because “as a family of color at Horace Mann, I thought it was very important to jump at the opportunity to get together with other Horace Mann families to discuss this very uncomfortable yet necessary topic of race in a safe environment,” Soto said.

“My daughter had had a few racially charged experiences last school year both in and out of school and I thought that this event could not have come at a more opportune time so that I could learn more about how to discuss race and racial issues appropriately and intelligently with my child at home,” she said.

On Saturday, “a dozen of the people who attended the first meeting came together for a

refresher course on race and it’s systemic impact in our society, school and homes,” Soto said.

“The parents will do some small group work that will lead into practicing responses to different scenarios, so it’s a little bit of a discussion but also some actual acting, performing and roleplaying,” Gentile said.

Soto’s favorite part was the role playing because it was a great way to learn strategies on how to better

conversations,” Gentile said.

“This kind of thinking is about being able to talk about things that you may not be that familiar with or comfortable with, so the role-plays help get you to a place to feel comfortable to step into the conversation,” Zuroski said.

While some parents have previously gone to the center’s public workshops, the February workshops were the first time the ICIE brought the organization

Wilder Harwood/Contributing Artist

address racial topics with children, she said.

Roleplaying and storytelling are quick but efficient ways to contextualize the experience of having these conversations, as parents will be able to see how scenarios regarding race and racial identity play out in a practical application, Gentile said.

Danielle Stennett-Neris P’19, who attended the event in February and will be attending on Saturday, believes that open dialogue is the best way to discuss challenges as it allows everyone the opportunity to share real life stories and experiences, she said.

“We’re holding the follow up because we know that the language around this topic is moving quickly and shifting constantly, and it’s important to build people a toolbox to be able to have these

to the school, Zuroski said.

“We’ve been interested in bringing the center to the school for many years, so it was great knowing that the workshop was so well-received by the parents that they even wanted a follow-up,” she said.

Having an outside perspective working with us was very helpful as it was good to have a separate viewpoint on how to listen to and help build the community, Zuroski said. “[The center] was really great because they listen to people’s concerns and often help people understand why they might be anxious about this kind of conversation, what you might be afraid of when you’re not sure, what other people might say, and how they will respond to it,” she said.

Zuroski hopes that parents can come away from the workshop with not only a greater sense of awareness but also with some sense of the role that they can play in combating racism, she said.

By thinking about their own experiences and building empathy between others who may experience race and racism differently, parents will hopefully leave the workshop with a greater sense of trusting others in the school community so that everyone can continue to have these conversations together, Zuroski said.

“As a person of color I already know the experiences that a black woman goes through, but I learned last time that some people didn’t quite understand these experiences, and some were shocked, disappointed, or upset when they heard them, because now they are able to grasp the intensity of what we go through even if they don’t go through it themselves,” Stennett-Neris said.

“The most important takeaway from this meeting for me was that we have much to learn, and that we need to continue having these meetings on a much more consistent basis in order to help educate ourselves, our children, and our community as best we can to fight the battle against systemic racism,” Soto said.

Saturday’s discussion was only three hours long as compared to the all day event held last February, and Soto wishes that this event was longer as everyone wanted to continue talking and learning, she said.

“This was a great workshop and I wish it could have been longer, like a three or four day event, because I can take back what I learned to my community, my neighborhood, and my family,” Stennett-Neris said.

There were only a dozen participants at this event while there were many more at the first meeting. “I prefer the cozy setting, as being in a smaller group allowed for more individual participation,” Soto said.

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HORACE MANN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

Art Director/ Jackson Robert

Beyond the high achieving alumni in the fields of business, politics, journalism, and science, many former students of the school dominate in the arts and entertainment industry as comedians, actors, and musicians.

Of the many alumni who have pursued the arts, Scott Rogowsky ’03, a stand-up comedian and primary host of HQ Trivia, began his career in comedy in high school by founding the school’s comedy publication The Roar in his junior year.

Art Director/ Juli Moreira

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MUSIC TO MY EARS Jazz pianist Peter Cincotti casually plays piano at the beach.

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ARTIST AT WORK Cincotti attentively produces music in his studio

HQ? ME TOO Comedian and HQ host Scott Rogowsky poses with logo.

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“I poured my heart and soul into [the publication] for two years,” Rogowsky said. He also earned plenty of stage time to reveal his wit as Student Body President (SBP), which he calls his “[pre]-stand-up era,” he said.

His sense of humor and charisma still resonate with his fellow alumni and faculty of the school. Rogowsky often loitered in the library, Head Librarian Caroline Bartels, who remembers him fondly, said. “He was just a funny kid,” she said.

“He was definitely a big presence on campus,” Chris Garrison ’04 said. Unsurprised to see Rogowsky appear on his screen when playing HQ Trivia, Garrison remembers “him as just being a very entertaining SBP,” he said.

Destined to become an entertainer, Rogowsky returned to his high school roots as a comedic journalist after college and interned for The Onion, a humor publication. Contributing to their print edition, web videos, and television series for Comedy Central, Rogowsky’s internship began a career that would involve hosting HQ Trivia as well as his own late-night talk show, Running Late with Scott Rogowsky, he said.

Actor Timothy ‘Speed’ Levitch ’88, like Rogowsky, had a strong vocation in the arts from a young age. He first discovered his interest in theater in high school productions and solo renditions during club

meetings period, he said.

Levitch attributes his success to a “tight little minority” of classmates with a passion for the preforming arts, including fellow alumni and HBO showrunner David Mandel ’88 and Golden Globe producer Robert Carliner ’88.

Levitch’s greatest accomplishments, however, are not on film, but in his ability to explain the streets of New York City as a tour guide, he said. Weeks before graduating New York University as a dramatic writing major, “somebody told me that I was going to have to get a job.

Hit me by surprise,” he said.

After considering his love of theater performance, history, and New York City, Levitch decided that “tour guiding was a nexus of what I loved,” he said, receiving a license even before he finished college.

Levitch’s tours gained fame due to his enthusiastic charisma and short bursts of philosophical opinion.

In 1998, he played himself in a the documentary, The Cruise. He remains active as an actor, and most notably had a role in School of Rock. “I’ve always had a flair for the dramatics,” Levitch said. “I like to say I’m the hardest working tour guide in the show biz.”

Outside the film industry, several alumni have also pursued successful careers in music. Among them is Peter Cincotti ’01, a world-renowned jazz and pop pianist and singer.

Cincotti had always wanted to be a musician, he said. He frequently performed in live shows during high school, and nearly 10 years later, in the White House.

In one of his many jazz club performances in high school, Cincotti’s audience included legendary producer Phil Ramone, who was impressed by his talent. After the show was over, Ramone had offered him his first record deal.

At age 18, Cincotti released his first record, Peter Cincotti, which quickly climbed to the No. 1 position on the Billboard Jazz chart. Since then, he has released five more albums, and worked with numerous notable producers, including David Guetta. His acclaim led to roles in television shows and films including House of Cards and SpiderMan 2.

Cincotti believes that his education provided him tools for success both on and off the stage, he said. “A lot of artists can’t put a sentence together, let alone have the assets and knowledge that a school like Horace Mann can allow you to gain,” he said. “On the business side of things, my education at HM became a huge asset for me as I began operating in the music business, making deals and agreements with people and companies.”

Cincotti left a mark on the school community with his musical talent. Over 15 years after his graduation, Bartels still remembers the notes of his piano filling Gross Theater during assemblies. “There was this moment when you were like ‘wow this kid is really talented’. This is what they’re going to do with their lives,” she said.

Similarly, Catherine Garrison ‘01 remembers Cincotti as someone who was “really cool but also humble,” she said. “He showed us that it’s possible to do great things while we are so preoccupied at Horace Mann.”

While former classmates remember Cincotti, Levitch, and Rogowsky for their respective musical, theatrical, and comedic talent, they contributed to the community beyond the arts as an ordinary high school students.

Cincotti joined the school tennis and baseball teams, until music consumed more of his schedule. Likewise, Rogowsky played four years of high school baseball, three of which were alongside future Major League all-star Pedro Alvarez ’05.

Levitch even attributes his start to theatre to the school, as his “whole theatrical and performance career began with trying to get quoted in the Horace Mann Record,” he said.

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Eddie Jin Staff Writer

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Former students reflect upon their careers in the performing arts

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EXPLORER OF THE ARTS Actor and tourguide Peter Levitch explores America in Historical Travel Show ‘Up to Speed.’

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THE RECORD FEATURES NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

Juli Moreira/Art Director

Ben Wang Staff Writer Additional reporting by Andie Goldmacher In order to mitigate the effects of climate change, governments all over the world must work to drastically cut emissions within the next 12 years. The report stated that by 2030, humans will be incapable of reducing and reversing the effects of climate change. According to The Guardian, “new taxes on fossil fuels, investment in clean technology, and much stronger government policies to bring down emissions are likely to be necessary.”

Next month, leaders from around the world are meeting in Poland to discuss the findings of recent reports and decide how to implement goals from the Paris meeting in 2015. Despite this, major countries, including the US, refuse to commit to environmental policies.

In the past two months, the United Nations’ (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, the National Climate Assessment, and the annual UN Emissions Gap Report have all been published, prompting both action and discussion among the school community.

Natalie Sweet (10) and Ari Moscona-Skolnik (12) were not surprised by the news. Compared to reports in previous years, the October UN Report was not far off from previous predictions, MosconaSkolnik said.

“It shows that we need to make a transition to sustainable energy somewhat quicker to avoid a fatal turning point,” Moscona-Skolnik said.

However, the Trump administration refuses to address the issue, reversing important agreements like the Paris Accord, Sweet said.

Science teacher Oleg Zvezdin agreed that the government is not only refusing to address climate change, but also “doing things that are only accelerating the issue and increasing the rate of climate change,” he said.

Last year, President Trump lessened regulations on oil drilling and pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, an agreement between 183 of the UN member states to improve the current global warming crisis.

But despite the fact that the majority of countries worldwide have pledged to reduce emissions through the Paris Accord, the ICPP report stated that not only are countries not reaching the goals they had set forth, but these goals are too low to begin with.

For an AP Environmental Science presentation, Julia Hornstein (12) studied the recent UN report. She wanted to learn more about what the government and individuals can do to reduce climate change. “I think about it every day, and I’m very disheartened by the report,” she said.

Although she believes the community can make a difference, Hornstein believes that the people who want to deny the issue of climate change do so largely to pursue economic growth, especially in the oil industry, she said.

Moscona-Skolnik agreed that many high-ranking officials value their own interests more than the consequences of climate change, he said.

As a country, we cannot establish a democratic united front against climate change until trust is established between the two political parties, Lucas

human scale that it’s almost unnoticeable, Zvezdin said. “It’s easy to say that nothing is going on,” he said.

However, with extreme weather conditions like the many hurricanes to hit the U.S. this year alone, people are starting to pay attention to this issue, Moscona-Skolnik said. “People hopefully are getting more serious,” he said.

Apart from hurricanes, the country has recently suffered through wildfires, droughts, floods and other natural disasters as a result of changing global temperatures, and increasing temperatures will only lead to more frequent, and more intense, disasters.

On October 8th, the IPCC, the UN body in charge of problems regarding climate change, released the results from its 48th session. The IPCC concluded that the earth only has 12 years before reaching 1.5º

Julia Roth/Staff Artist

Raskin (10) said.

“The polarizing nature of two-party politics” causes people to hold out on believing in climate change, Raskin said. This occurs to such a large extent that “different factions emerge with different values instead of valuing the general conservation of our country,” causing proponents of either party to “accept or deny data as they see fit,” he said.

“We are being told one thing by the leadership and another by the world,” said Melchior Lee (12). “It comes down to ignorance and awareness.”

Every piece of data shows a clear shift in the climate, but the warming is slow enough on a

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above pre-industrial temperatures.

Any increase in temperature from this limit could lead to catastrophic consequences. At 2º above pre-industrial temperatures, the global sea level would be 0.1m higher than at 1.5º. According to the report, this seemingly minuscule difference could displace 10.4 million more people.

Although this was not the first report of its kind, Gavin Delanty (12) feels very scared by it, he said.

For a year-long Voices of Protest paper last year, Delanty investigated climate change and America’s role in it.

“It feels like we’re heading towards doom, but I’d

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say there’s hope to get back on track,” Delanty said.

He believes that a major problem is the way the United States has handled this issue.

“The United States is one of the most powerful countries in the world, so pulling out of the Paris Agreement has an impact on other countries and what they should do,” Delanty said.

History teacher Dr. Ellen Bales believes that “governments and corporations will have to get on board to solve the scale of the problem,” she said.

Within the community, students at school are trying to do their part as well. On October 29th

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“It feels like we’re heading towards doom, but I’d say there’s hope to get back on track.”

- Gavin Delanty (12)

and November 1st, Green HM held phone banking sessions, where they urged Florida’s citizens to take into account the problem of climate change when voting during the midterms. “The club spoke to more than 600 Floridians,” Moscona-Skolnik said.

“We know we’re not going to make a huge dent in the global climate change, but we want to get people thinking about climate change in their daily lives,” Margot Rosenblatt (12), a Co-President of Green HM along with Moscona-Skolnik, said.

As a Community Council (CC) initiative, Sweet initiated “Take Back the Tap,” a project to limit the number of plastic water bottles used at the school and to raise awareness in the community, she said.

“We use over two thousand bottles per year of plastic bottles,” Sweet said.

“I went to an environmental conference and learned about the initiative. It had been implemented at many colleges, but Horace Mann is the first to open a high school chapter of Take Back the Tap,” Sweet said.

Sweet has been in contact with Food and Water Watch, a non-governmental organization that works to create a healthy future for our families and for generations to come, according to their website.

To generate further interest and address the issue, Zvezdin is planning a trip during Spring Break to go to Churchill, Manitoba, a town in Canada.

This trip is in conjunction with Earthwatch, an institute dedicated “to engage people worldwide in

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HORACE MANN FEATURES NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

climate change could cost the US

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only 57 countries, HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS representing 60% of by the end of the century global greenhouse gas emissions, are on track to cause their emissions to peak before 2030 Wilder Harwood/Contributing Artist

scientific field research and education to promote the understanding and action necessary for a sustainable environment,” according to its website.

Zvezdin wants the students to keep having conversations about the issue and what we can do to change it. “We keep saying that you’re the future, and at some point, you guys are going to be voting,” Zvezdin said. Zvezdin recommends that members of the community think about climate change when voting and in their political lives.

Due to his research, Delanty has become more aware of these issues, he said. “I try to talk about it more often and inform people. A lot

10%

If all fossil fuel subsidies were phased out, global carbon emissions could be reduced by up to 10% by 2030.

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administration take climate change and making a more positive environmental impact very seriously. Jonas had been informed that some of the initiatives taken by the school were the “installation of water-filling stations, electronic dryers in the bathrooms, and efforts to be environmentally conscious in the new building,” she said.

“We’re as mindful about sustainability on our main campus as we are at Dorr,” Kelly said. “The administration is always looking for responsible ways to minimize the school’s carbon foot print and/or maximize the limited resources available to operate the school.”

Some of the school’s alumni are also actively advocating for the issue.

Dr. Benjamin Strauss ‘90, for instance, is the President and CEO of Juli Moreira/Art Director

dedicated to promoting sustainable forest management.

Block traces her interest in environmental issues to her experiences at the John Dorr Nature Laboratory as early as her first visit to Dorr in fourth grade, she said.

Students such as Annabelle Chan (10) are making the effort to educate themselves about climate change because “it affects our futures and lives,” she said. She believes that small actions “such as using paper straws and recycling, could impact the world we live in,” Chan said.

She always tries to use eco-friendly alternative materials and recycle to do her part in reducing climate change, she said.

Bales first became interested in climate change from researching the history of science for her Ph.D. and “doing a dissertation that had to do with environmental questions,” she said. From there, she “got into environmental history,” which led her to think about history through the lens of the environment.

When Bales began to teach high school, she realized that “climate change is one of the most serious problems we have to face,” she said.

One of the major ways Bales contributes to positively impacting the environment is through her teaching. Next year, Bales will begin teaching a global environmental history elective that will “partially deal with climate change,” she said.

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Climate Central, an independent organization of leading scientists and journalists researching and reporting facts about the changing climate and its impact on the public.

Strauss has testified before the U.S. Senate, presented to state and local elected officials, and has been cited by the Secretary-General of the UN. Even before he graduated from the school, he was invested in the topic as one of the founders of the club that came before GreenHM, Head of the Upper Division Dr. Jessica Levenstein said.

Along with Strauss, Nadine Block ’89 has been working to limit climate change, according to the 2010 Horace Mann magazine. Block is the Senior Director of Government Outreach at the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), a Washington, DC-based non-profit

THE

of my friends just don’t care about it. They think it will happen even without human interaction,” Delanty said.

To try to raise awareness, the administration has enacted multiple initiatives, and Dr. Kelly said that each year the school is trying to make numerous improvements.

Last year, in an attempt to lower plastic bottle usage, Dorr teacher and Co-Chair of the Sustainability Committee Nick DePreter and retired photography teacher Karen Johnson proposed a water bottle embargo in the cafeteria.

Dr. Kelly believes “the embargo was quite successful in terms of the attention it brought to bottled water vs. water from one of the school’s ‘bottle fillers’ and the use of a reusable container,” he said.

For many students and faculty, the embargo represented an inconvenience. “It was annoying because I didn’t have a water bottle.

But that being said, now that I do, I hardly ever get a plastic one,” John Mauro (10) said.

“I don’t fault those students and/or employees who found the Embargo an inconvenience. That said, I do think it makes sense for HM to continue to do things that make people think about the environment and the reality of a growing number of limited resources,” Kelly said.

Some students believe that the embargo didn’t change anything.

“Students still use plastic water bottles. If we really did want to change and be more green, we should have an embargo every single day. But then the students would be upset,” Mandy Liu (10) said.

“Eventually, the drinks in the cafeteria will be dispensed through fountain type devices and not sold in individual bottles,” Kelly said.

“Another student initiative is to have Take Back the Tap occur three days in a week,” Kelly said. Once the most convenient days are decided, FLIK will have water canteens stationed in the cafeteria, he said.

Even the school’s food truck, which seemingly would add to the school’s emissions, is beneficial. “We’ve used less than a half a tank of gas since we asked FLIK to lease us the truck six to seven months ago,” Kelly said.

“The food truck is a more efficient way for us to move a small kitchen around the campus, one that takes advantage of our own staffing and food/beverage resources for special events,” Kelly said. The school used to rent the equipment, but the truck provides a more convenient and cost-effective alternative, he said.

In addition to the embargo and Take Back the Tap, the school installed solar panels, replaced plastic straws with paper ones, switched to gas rather than oil in Prettyman gym and the other new structures, and shifted most lights to LED, resulting in a 90% energy reduction,

we have years to massively cut greenhouse gas emissions

DePreter said.

Kelly also listed a handful of recent school initiatives, including donating old furniture to other schools, shifting the admissions process online, regrading Alumni Field to better control water runoff, using recycled asphalt as part of the new tennis court project, installing sustainable landscape around the new buildings, removing invasive vegetation around the Bronx campus and at Dorr, and installing a green playground at the Nursery Division in order to introduce students to “outdoor” play in a natural environment at an early age.

Trustee Bonnie Jonas P’19, 20, explained that Dr. Kelly and the

industrial REVOLUTION

Bales suggests that in order to impact climate change as a school, we should have open conversations, ensure students are aware of what’s at stake, and encourage them to think about longer-term commitments, she said. As a student body, we should “have a bigger conversation about what our lives will look like if we don’t try to change this,” Bales said.

“We endeavor to appreciate and respect each other and our school and, as such, we should be respectful of the resources that allow our school to thrive,” Kelly said.

at 2ºC above pre-Industrial temperatures, 10.4 million more people could be displaced

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THE RECORD ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

A long ride home: school community shocked after snowstorm causes excruciating Thursday commute

Sam Singer and Nishtha Sharma Staff Writers Students experienced nightmarishly long commutes home from school last Thursday as a snowstorm caused heavy delays in the face of unpredicted high levels of snow, and accidents across major highways.

The longest time students spent on buses was about 12 hours, leaving some students to arrive home well after 4:00 am, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly said.

On the Bus 440 Bronx route Sandhya Shyam (12) faced perhaps the most traumatic commute in her life, she said.

She left her bus around 11:30 in light of monstrous traffic and walked over a mile on icy roads in sneakers to reach her friends’ parents’ car, arriving home after 1:00 am despite living in the same borough as the school, she said. “We were slipping and struggling as cars were honking at us for about 20-30 minutes.”

Rhea Patel (9), normally takes the bus home to Closter, NJ in less than an hour. On Thursday, she arrived home at about 11:30 PM. “The bus ride made

from departing the school in unsafe conditions, “some of the buses that had already left were told to let students return to school because of the perils of driving in these conditions,” Kelly said.

“We worried about some drivers who were shaking and cracking down in the pressure of that dangerous driving,” he said.

Long and the other students on her bus were allowed to depart the bus with parental permission after being delayed at the school so she opted to take the subway, she said. This course of action was permitted by school security due to the expectation that delays would continue, she said, However, Long was also unsure of the subway’s safety. “I was afraid of slipping while walking down the hill and was also was worried that the tracks might have been slippery due to the snow, which would’ve caused delays.”

“We only let students leave after clear parental permission and making sure that they had a safe and effective way home,” Forcelli said.

Kareena Gupta (10) took the subway from a stop on her bus ride back to the school after seeing the conditions

relaxed, worked s in the StuPub and Student Lounge, and were given iPhone chargers, Kelly said.

Some faculty members, including Middle Division French teacher Karla Toledano even stayed on campus to assist students who could not get home until late into the night or slept at the school. “Not only did I have no way home, but I felt that it was important to help the students still at school,” Toledano said.

Registrar Chris Garrison and Director of Enrollment Management Lisa Moreira P’19 P’21 both also stayed at school to help keep students calm.

“It’s more important that I stayed a bit later and helped students remain relaxed and organized than left in possibly unsafe weather,” Garrison said.

Kelly thanked all of the faculty members that stayed on campus for extended periods of time in a written statement to The Record. “In this instance, I will be forever grateful for the extra efforts of members of the faculty and staff who touched base to see if additional supervision was necessary,” he said.

Some students were forced to spend

783 UD, MD, and faculty responses from an anonymous poll by The Record me go insane because we had no food or water and ended up getting a flat tire,” she said.

Eventually, the flat tire was fixed by the bus driver, who was also a mechanic, but it was slow and added another hour to the commute, Patel said.

Even though the school cancelled all after-school activities, some buses arrived over an hour past the end of the school day, Kelly said. Buses that arrived were told to remain on Tibbett Avenue and not leave school property, he said.

“Things were a little weird from the start,” Hannah Long (12) said. “Our bus arrived almost 20 minutes late, and ever after we got on, wasn’t moving,” Long said. The bus remained at the school for over an hour, puzzling all of the students on the bus, she said.

“Kelly and I stayed together the entire night to make the important decisions surrounding transportation safety,” Director of Transportation Robert Forcelli said. “We decided that some of the remaining buses shouldn’t leave HM because of the dangerous road conditions and imminent accidents,” he said.

In line with preventing buses

of road travel. “It was just too icy and nothing was being plowed; I simply didn’t feel safe traveling on the road,” she said.

Ishaan Kannan (11), who got home by car, said that “it was terrifying to see the cars and terrible crashes on the side of the road.”

“One sixteen wheeler’s wheels were burning and it kept slipping back, making me fear it would hit us and light the car on fire,” Kannan said.

Naina Mehrotra (6) remained trapped in icy conditions until around 6:30 pm despite taking the 3:15 bus, which was atypical for her, she said.

Other students, such as Gibby Thomas (12) was forced to remain on campus until 8 pm after her mother spent nearly four hours in traffic on a route that would usually take her 20-30 minutes, she said.

While Thomas was comfortable at school, she was worried about her peers’ safety. “I had a few who were driving themselves and it was hard for even adults to maneuver,” she said.

To pass time, Thomas and other students engaged in activities such as Skribbl.io, an online multiplayer game, she said. The school played movies for younger students, while older students

the night on campus or at their peers’ houses in Riverdale.

“A friend of my daughter’s had to stay at our house in Riverdale overnight,” Lower Division psychologist Dr. Nicole Zissu said. “Even though it was a bit awkward, neither his mom nor me felt comfortable with him Ubering home in the terrible road conditions,” she said.

At about 8:00 PM, Kelly emailed the school community, including parents, students, and faculty, postponing all students’ homework and assessments.

He then sent an urgent email just an hour later at 9:13 with a procedure for students on buses to ensure comfortable bathroom access for all students, especially those in the Middle Division, he said.

At around 9:30 pm, Kelly emailed parents, students, and faculty announcing school would be closed the next day. “Having already eliminated homework and assessments, and knowing the number of students who were most likely going to be on the road well past midnight, it made sense to eliminate the possibility and/or pressure of needing to attend school on Friday,” he said.

“Our major concern was the safety of our students, faculty, and staff,” Head of

Courtesy of Janvi Kukreja

NJ STRUGGLE SNAPCHAT Student’s pose in a bus stopped for hours on the West Side Highway after the GWB was closed.

Upper Division Dr. Jessica Levenstein said.

Amidst all the troubles students experienced, Kelly is proud of how they handled the situation, he said.

“Our Upper Division students should be commended for knowing when and how to take charge... Out of a very difficult night came some wonderful stories of camaraderie and leadership.”

Dr. Levenstein was “blown away” by the stories she heard of the school students helping each other. “From escorting younger students on the subway and to their homes, to modeling calm on stuck buses, the HM student body showed itself to be unbelievably caring and compassionate,” she said.

In what was described by Dean of Students Dr. Susan Delanty ‘79 as an “act of kindness to share,” Jackson Steinbaugh (12), along with Eli Laufer (12), Ella Anthony (11), and Marli Katz (11), “herded 30 middle schoolers, some of which have never taken the subway alone, onto the 1 train.”

One day after the incident, The Record opened a Google survey where all students from the Middle and Upper Division could share their experiences from the transportation mishaps.

“I was very scared and nervous to take the subway for the first time but generous upperclassmen took care of me and calmed me down,” Molly Zukerman (6) said in response to the survey.

“The Middle Division kids were the priority,” Shyam said. “They were the

ones put off and scared, as this was a traumatic experience for them,...so we were all just trying to look out for each other.”

The School responded to this event in both preventative and self-calming ways. The Lower Division faculty gave hot breakfasts to all bus drivers on Thursday to thank them for their service during the stressful snowstorm, Forcelli said. “We can only imagine what it was like to be one of those bus drivers in the dangerous storm,” he said.

“I received a delicious breakfast from Horace Mann as well as a $40 gift card from Riverdale,” Scarsdale Union Free School District bus driver Jean Emile said. “It felt nice to finally feel appreciated after risking my life in that storm,” he said.

Students also founded a new Horace Mann Possible Snow Day Indicator (HMPSDI) on Instagram as a result of the storm, to replace the one previously run by now-retired Registrar Mitch Francis, Gupta said.

In order to prevent such an event from occurring in the future, the school plans to take certain measures, Kelly said. These will include meeting with bus companies in order to discuss installing emergency yellow buckets on each bus and ensuring that the school is knowledgeable of the latest bus routes, has reviewed each company’s protocols for such events, and looks at options for parents and students to communicate more readily, he said.

Courtesy of Claire Yoo

NO WHEELS GOING ROUND Schoolbuses have trouble leaving campus due to heavy snow and traffic jams.

9

HORACE MANN LIONS’ DEN NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

Michael Sun-Huang Jacob Schorsch Contributing Writer Despite battling multiple ankle injuries and breaking his wrist in the championship game, Michael Sun-Huang (12) led the Lions to back-to-back Championship seasons. He helped develop a positive culture on the football team through diligence and leadership.

“He gives 100% in games and in practice. He’s also the toughest kid on the team and makes everyone want to be tougher,” Zachary Brooks (11) said.

“He just enters a mindset during games that I don’t see in anybody else. He’s so aggressive and physical it really sets a tone for how our defense is going to play the game,” Tino Caer (12) said.

By gaining 25 pounds of muscle in the offseason, pushing through injuries, and not slacking in practice, he strove to push his teammates to work hard as well, Sun-Huang said.

“Being named captain was an amazing experience to have my hard work pay off and be recognized. It also pushed me to work harder,” Sun-Huang said.

The positive attitude that Varsity Football Coach Matthew Russo cultivates stems from positive recognition and taking accountability, Sun-Huang said.

Furthermore, Sun-Huang develops a “culture of improvement,” in which everyone wants to get better, not make excuses, and dedicate themselves fully to the team, Russo said.

One moment that showed Sun-Huang’s poise and leadership was during the championship game, Russo said.

“The players on the bench and I were shouting at him to double cover a receiver on the opposing team. He shushed us and baited the receiver to go deep. Then, he made an incredible play on the ball, knowing the entire time what he planned to do,” Russo said.

Philippe Boulas

Brittany Jones Avi Kapadia Contributing Writer

Yotam Hahn Contributing Writer Co-Captain Philippe Boulas (12) was a key defender for the Boys Varsity Soccer team this season. Boulas plans on never letting soccer out of his life whether it be playing, watching, or teaching. “I want to be part of the soccer community forever just because it means that much to me,” Boulas said.

Boys Varsity Soccer Head Coach Neil Berniker appreciated Boulas’ effort, work ethic, desire to win, and most importantly, his ability to make his teammates better, he said.

Boulas’s intensity during practice and games inspired his teammates to work harder, Chris Ha (11) said. “Because of Philippe I have also put more effort into what I do on the field, and I would focus more,” Ha said.

Boulas was always capable of making the right plays, but what made him special was the way he held his teammates accountable and brought out a higher level of play from his teammates, Berniker said.

“Philippe is a really fun person to be around, but when it came to soccer he got everyone focused and gained respect from everyone on the team,” Delanty said.

Boulas and the other seniors made a strong effort this season to keep the team close off the field so that the chemistry between players translated onto the field, Boulas said.

“We go and play soccer during our free time outside of school,” Boulas said.

Since Boulas’ first day in high school the soccer team had given him confidence and helped him feel more included as a kid who had just moved to New York from China, he said.

“I’ve moved around a lot in my life and soccer has been the one consistent thing in my life,” Boulas said.

“The team was very fortunate to have a player like him and we will definitely miss him in the future,” Berniker said.

“For the past four years, the Varsity Volleyball team has been my home away from home,” Brittany Jones (12), the Captain of the Girls Varsity Volleyball team, said. After her final volleyball season at Horace Mann, the impact Jones has had on the team and the impact the team has had on her is profound.

Jones embodies all the qualities that a great leader should have.

“She is persistent and vocal,” Rosy Arora (10) said. “I really tried to be a role model by being encouraging and sharing what I know about volleyball with my teammates,” Jones said.

Jones’ experiences outside of school has helped her to lead her teammates this past season. Jones utilizes her knowledge from playing on her club team to give advice to the team here at school. “Playing club volleyball gave me the tools to share my skills with others,” Jones said. “I have always looked up to her dedication,” Sasha Matt (12) said.

“I felt that it was an honor and a great opportunity to play with somebody as skilled as Brittany,” Arora said. However, Jones’ impact on the team was not limited to the game. “Brittany helped me improve on and off the court,” Arora said. Jones’ positivity, work ethic and passion was contagious to her teammates this season.

“Since the beginning of the season, we [the team] were bonded very well because Brittany makes sure everyone feels included,” Arora said. This exemplifies Jones’ leadership, which is what makes her the “backbone of our team,” Arora said.

“Over the years, I’ve learned that the most successful teams are ones that have a leader to bring individuals together to reach a common goal,” Jones said. Jones truly stepped into this leadership position during her senior season by “connecting with individuals and creating common ground with people in various settings,” Jones said.

Throughout Jones’ several years in the volleyball program, she has learned how to lead a successful team. “I realized that teams are made up of many different types of people, but when you are able to come together and work together, great things can be achieved,” Jones said.

Athletes shine on and off the field during fall sports season

Lucy Rittmaster John McCarthy Contributing Writer Co-Captain Lucy Rittmaster (12) led Varsity Girls Soccer through a 14 game season that was tough overall, but led to individual and team-wide improvement After the loss of 10 seniors this year, the Lion’s “had their work cut out for them,” Rachel Kuhn (9) said. The new roster included, “one senior, one junior, seven sophomores, and nine freshmen,” Co-Captain Kiara Royer (11) said.

“Rittmaster managed to bring the team together with her positive attitude,” Royer said. With three years of experience on the team, Rittmaster “took on a leadership role this year and was a coach with a passionate voice on the field,” Coach Tim Sullivan said.

“We got a lot closer as a team and with that our passing got a lot better and we started working as a cohesive unit, not individual players,” Rittmaster said.

Rittmaster persevered despite facing injuries that, “sometimes prevented her from playing whole games,” Granmayeh said.

“My knee issue was a constant struggle throughout the season.

I practically lived in the athletic training office,” said Rittmaster.

Nevertheless, Rittmaster was critical to the Lions success during all of their matches. “She scored goals for us when we needed them” Kuhn said. The most memorable example being “an incredible goal at Homecoming when Rittmaster scored from a corner kick,” Royer said.

This season, she “undoubtedly developed [her] skills as a soccer player [and] on a team level, learned the importance of team bonding,” Rittmaster said. In the future, Rittmaster said that, “she hopes to play soccer for fun in college.”

Julia Roth Nicholas Butera Contributing Writer The Girls Varsity Field Hockey team’s strong season of eight wins to five losses was led by the Team Captain and MVP Julia Roth (12).

Roth led the team with her presence on the field. “Julia earned MVP not only because she was an amazing player, but also because she put in all the work to deserve it,” Malka Krijestorac (12) said.

Sophie Coste (12) described the “very good example” that Julia set for the rest of the team. “Julia has great stick skills, so she was able to show how to utilize the correct skills,” she said.

Roth was a leader off the field, too. “Julia was motivating physically and emotionally for the other players,” Krijestorac said.

Julia made an effort to include all members of the team by ensuring that everyone enjoyed their experience, Coste said.

From the start of her career, Roth had the mindset of always giving her best effort, regardless of the situation. “Bringing energy and excitement to everything that I did is what I hope I contributed,” said Roth.

Roth attributes her success on the team and as a captain to the support of teammates and coaches. “The only way I was able to grow to the captain position was because of the people around me,” Roth said.

Roth’s legacy on the team will live on through her positive impact on younger players.

Lorenzo Hess Masa Shiiki Contributing Writer Many times this past season, Captain of the Varsity Water Polo team Lorenzo Hess (12) stayed late to help out his teammates, even after the whistle was blown to signal the end of practice.

Hess has enjoyed working and helping out the team, he said.

“I was able to spend more time with the JV water polo team during practice and helped them work on passing tips and other tips necessary to succeed in water polo,” Hess said.

“I would not have been able to be the captain and player that I am in the water without my friends on the water polo team.”

“Lorenzo is in fact the best player on the Horace Mann Varsity Water Polo team and he is vocal during games and gives out the best advice about water polo to his peers,” Ben Hu (12) said.

Hess has helped Hu to improve his techniques in the pool, particularly shooting the ball, Hu said.

“Hess is a leader for the team in that he is always the most vocal player in the pool,” Donny Howard (11) said. “Hess is always willing to sacrifice his time to help other peers around him,” he said.

“He has the character, leadership, and respect of his teammates,” Junior Varsity Water Polo Coach Thatcher Woodley said. ”He never got too high or too low,” Woodley said. “The season highlight was Lorenzo’s nine goal game against St Peter’s Prep.”

10

THE RECORD MIDDLE DIVISION NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

Robotics teams take out-of-this-world trip

Claire Goldberg & Diane Kim Contributing Writers

On Tuesday November 20th, the Middle Division (MD) girls and co-ed Robotics team visited the NYC Center for Aerospace and Applied Mathematics located in the Lower East Side. The center uses the NASA Aerospace Education Lab to conduct a program that helps get students excited about STEM through hands on challenges about space. Students also can meet NASA scientists to learn about their jobs. The teams attended this trip to learn about space because their competition’s theme this year is called “Into Orbit, which is basically outer space,” according to co-ed team coach Jason Torres.

“As part of a way to get the team to understand the mission of their competition, we like to take them on a trip,” girls team coach Glenda Guerrero said. The coordinators of the First Lego League (FLL), which is the league the teams compete in, create different events in the city relating to the topic. The center hosted just one of many events in the area, and the coaches decided that it was best for the team.

“It was an interactive environment that required them to communicate with each other,” Guerrero said. This was ideal for the team because collaboration is essential for the

team’s development right now, she said.

When the students were there they did a challenge called Mission to Mars. Torres thought the trip would “help them generate some ideas and problems to address in regards to this year’s theme,” he said.

According to Guerrero, students were divided into groups by an application process and assigned different positions based on what the coaches thought were most fitting for each student. For each role they were given props such as suits, headsets, and microphones to make the experience “completely realistic,” Guerrero said.

The trip proved to be an exciting and new experience for everyone involved. Kira Lewis (6), a member of the girls team, took on the role of a Communicator at the center. “If one person doesn’t want to cooperate…then it wouldn’t work,” Lewis said. “Everyone was working together, even if you didn’t know what the person next to you was doing.”

Christine Tao (7), who had the role of a geologist, thought it was interesting to be able to simulate an emergency situation with meteor showers. It offered an insight into what space missions are like, she said.

The true value in the trip was to learn more about and brainstorm ideas for this year’s FLL topic: the psychological burdens an

astronaut can go through, how to alleviate such conditions, and capturing and recycling space debris, Guerrero said. Asking representatives questions and going through the simulation themselves, “helped [format] new ideas,” Nitika Subramanian (8) said.

Subramanian also felt that the members of the team had grown closer by spending the day together doing an activity relating to an

interest they all enjoyed, she said.

In total, the trip was “absolutely fabulous”, and helped better their understanding of their mission, and practice essential values, which will help them secure a win at their upcoming competition, Guerrero said.

Allison DeRose/Design Editor

6th graders showcase skills in first talent show of the year Kate Feiner Contributing Writer

Courtesy of Michelle Amilicia

ASTRONOMICAL Students explore museum’s planetarium.

6th grade studies the stars at museum Liliana Greyf & Katya Tolunsky Contributing Writers Sixth grade students visited the Natural History Museum to further their knowledge of astronomy last Tuesday as the first few months of their science course are dedicated to the study of astronomy and to introducing the earth in perspective to other planets.

Middle School (MD) science teacher Jodi Hill, who organized the trip, thought that the trip was a great experience for the students because it provided them with an understanding of the importance of astronomy, she said. “I think the fact that there is so much space at this museum dedicated to astronomy shows them how important other people in the world think it is,” Hill said.

“The trip is important because it is difficult to perform experiments for astronomy,” Dean of the Class of 2025 Michelle Amilicia said. “I think going to the museum and experiencing things live is helpful when kids are learning a science that is difficult to study hands on.”

The students were asked to rate each exhibit they visited, and comment on what they enjoyed or would like to have changed, Amilicia said.

“The exhibit I rated the highest was an ecosystem on a meteor representing the attempt to have shrimp living on other planets,” Lexi Lawsky (6) said. “I thought the way it connected what we learned in class and other things I am interested in was really cool.”

Many students found the planetarium to be the most exciting part of the exhibit, as it was hands on and interactive.“The planetarium was my favorite part of the visit,” Rena Salsberg (6) said. “I felt like it gave us more insight than we could have had just in a classroom.”

Maddie Offit (6) thought “it was really fun when

we went to the planetarium because it helped add on to our knowledge of astronomy,” she said.

Hill believes the exhibits that were more hands on and visual were favored among the students. “The kids two favorite exhibits were the planetarium and the meteors because there were things they could really see and touch,” Hill said.

The trip works so well “because of the amount of resources we have available to us,” Amilicia said.

“We are lucky enough to be teaching astronomy in a city that has one of the world’s best natural history museums,” Hill said.

The trip was first implemented 18 years ago and has since developed into an experience that complements the 6th grade science curriculum. “In the 18 years that we have been doing this trip, there have been a lot of new discoveries and changes in the field of astronomy, so that is reflected in our trips as well,” Hill said.

Over the years, the expectations of the children has changed. “We have modified the trip a lot,” Amilicia said. “15 years ago the students were asked more to gather information, but that has now evolved into analyzing exhibits instead,”.

Not only has the world of astronomy evolved, the way kids are taught to see it has also developed. “We have moved away from really focused individualized questions and have begun to ask them to evaluate the exhibit and say what they liked or didn’t,” Hill said. The students had a chance to discuss what they liked and didn’t like about the trip in their classrooms in order to improve the trip for future years, she said.

“We actually changed the trip into more of a creative project where the students would create a planet modeled off one of the current planets that is in our solar system,” Amilicia said.

“The trip was a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed it,” Oliver Konopko (6) said.

On Monday, November 19th, sixth grade students sang and danced in a talent show for their peers and parents instead of having a regular grade meeting. The talent show took place in the Recital Hall and provided an opportunity for students to showcase skills that they have been learning in classes or outside of school.

The show takes place two to three times a year, so that students each trimester have a chance to perform for their classmates.

The sixth grade talent show is a tradition that has been happening for more than 15 years, and now, Dean of the Class of 2025 Michelle Amilicia is working to keep it going, she said. “At first, they are in sixth grade so they’re a little tentative about performing,” Amilicia said, but by the time the second talent show comes around “students are super excited to get involved,” she said.

According to James Rukin (6), audience members were excited because they “wanted to see everyone perform because they were practicing for a while for it,” he said his favorite part of the talent show was when students performed Michael Jackson dances, and after the show, he was even inspired to learn how to moonwalk on his own, he said.

Sixth grade advisor Rachael Cooper, thinks that the show is a fun way to see her students in a different light, she said.

Cooper found that show really helps to build community within the grade as “everyone is very supportive and cheers for the performers,” she said.

Steel Drums teacher and sixth grade

advisor Alan Bates had two classes perform in the talent show. For him, the most special part was that as sixth graders who have never played the instrument before, “they start out from zero, and by the end of the trimester they are performing in front of an audience,” he said.

Two of his students, Rose Korff (6) and Kira Lewis (6) thought that playing in a group was very helpful, because if they messed up it wouldn’t be too obvious, they said. According to Korff, they “practiced the songs so much that [playing on stage] didn’t really feel different”. Both of them were very excited to perform, and also enjoyed watching their friends perform, they said.

According to Korff, the talent show also had MCs, who were very funny, and helped with transitions between the acts. The faculty tries to pick “responsible, outgoing students that are okay with doing things on the fly, and have humorous personalities” to be MCs, Amilicia said.

Now that MD deans stay with their grades for three years, Ms. Amilicia is hoping to continue having talent shows with her class as they travel through seventh and eighth grade. As of now, the sixth grade is the only grade to have a talent show. Her favorite part of the talent show is “seeing the joy of the students on stage when their peers are clapping or cheering for them.”

She also uses the talent show as a way to teach her students what it means to step out of their comfort zone and thinks the sense of accomplishment that students have at the end is a very important reason to continue this tradition in the years to come, she said.

Gabby Fischberg/Staff Artist

HORACE MANN MIDDLE DIVISION NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

ICIE leads assemblies addressing microagressions Henry Owens Staff Writer

Gabby Fischberg/Staff Artist

New LGBTQ+ group highlights schoolwide inclusion events

Sam Singer Staff Writer

Rainbow and Friends, the Middle Division (MD) alliance group for sexual orientation and gender identity Rainbows and Friends aims to foster a culture of tolerance and acceptance during 201819 school year, as a part of a school-wide effort to increase knowledge and respect for all identities, MD psychologist Christina Nichols said.

The group meets on Thursdays after school from 3:15pm to 4:00pm in the office of Dean of Class of 2023 Carlos Aguilar and offers students the opportunity to participate in activities that reaffirm their identities and provide them with increased selfesteem, Nichols said.

A student founded the group several years ago in an effort to “celebrate who we are as people in pursuit of helping our students develop healthy identities,” MD English teacher Jamie Brink said. It challenges biases while recognizing and empowering difference among students, he said.

“The agenda for the group is largely student driven and students have the chance to lead activities that they feel are powerful for them and their selfesteem,” Associate of the Office for Identity, Culture, and Institutional Equity Sharina Gordon said.

The founding and renewal of the group comes as part of a school-wide move to strengthen understanding and acceptance of all identities through multiple initiatives agreed upon by the school administration. “We try to make our school a place where students can be themselves and have changed our programs to reflect that,” Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly said.

The changes have manifested through increased openness and student leadership in affinity groups of all types, the strengthening of the Gender Sexuality Alliance in the Upper Division, and increased publicity surrounding sexuality and gender throughout the year, especially during Pride Month,

Gordon said.

“The school has done so much for me in providing me with a voice and showing me through GSA and Pride month that I am not alone,” Janet Christian (10) said. “The changes the school has made have helped me realize that the community cares and does not want to leave us in the dark.”

“It’s been amazing to have the GSA in the Upper Division,” President of GSA Elizabeth Chung (12) said. “Even if all of the sexual orientation initiatives in every division of the school only help one student have more self-esteem and courage, it will have been worth it to increase their confidence.”

“The library has held multiple events for Pride Month and throughout the year to help students realize that the school is there to help them and increase their self-esteem,” Director of Student Activities Caroline Bartels said.

“One of the most formative lessons of my high school career has been to accept myself for who I am, and the affinity groups and initiatives offered by the school are a real credit to that,” Chung said.

In reflecting upon their past experience at the school, Rivers Liu ‘18 noticed “a trend in increasing respect throughout my years at the school,” they said.

“When I came out as non-binary in my senior year, I experienced tolerance and acceptance that I hadn’t previously seen.”

“It’s been incredible to have a school that has supported me through coming out and sharing my identity with all,” Liu said. “I can only imagine the benefits of such a Middle Division group that allows students to go through that positive experience earlier.”

Noah Shapiro ’17 thought that “it was evident that the school made changes to support students struggling with their sexual orientations and gender identities” in his later years there, he said.

“It’s fabulous that the school is providing such an opportunity to students, even in the Middle Division, to express and celebrate their identities.”

Over the past two months, each grade in the Middle Division (MD) has had an assembly about microaggressions titled “Having Good Intentions Isn’t Enough.”

These three assemblies were led by Candice Powell-Caldwell, an associate of the Office for Identity, Culture, and Institutional Equity (ICIE).

The assemblies were created as a way of continuing the conversation about microaggressions started last year with guest speaker Dr. Derald Wing Sue, John Gentile, co-Director of the ICIE, said.

In Sue’s 2010 book, Microaggressions in Everyday Life, he defines microaggression as, “The everyday verbal, nonverbal and environmental slights, snubs and insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory and negative messages to target persons solely on their marginalized group membership.”

MD grade deans felt that these assemblies were important for the middle school students, they said.

“As an educator, it is vital to teach our students the importance of having a safe environment and to educate everyone about the ways in which we all can take action by recognizing behavior that may be hurtful and offensive,” Dean of the Class of 2023 Carlos Aguilar said.

“The objective was to provide students with education about microaggressions and to give them some tools and strategies for how best to identify and address microaggressions when they occur,” Powell-Caldwell said. “[Powell-Caldwell] talked about really appropriate and accessible ways to think about how microaggressions pop up, the ways we can address them, and what that looks like,” Gentile said.

Material covered in the assemblies included distinguishing between types of microaggression, specifically verbal, nonverbal, and environmental, and the various levels of impact, such as individual, group, and systemic. The difference between intent and impact was another very important point that was discussed.

“When we live in a place of intent, we become so focused on who the person

11

is, on whether or not someone meant to do it,” Powell-Caldwell said. “In this way, it becomes so easy to dismiss a microaggression altogether. Ultimately what matters is the effect or impact of the words or actions that have taken place. Microaggressions are very much about addressing the impact.”

“Microaggressions can be intentional and unintentional,” Sienna Larren (6) said. “Body language or saying something could hurt other people’s feelings.”

One thing Nolan Wallace (7) learned was “don’t assume what people are like,” he said. “Don’t follow what the stereotypes want you to believe.”

“I think the biggest takeaway was about secrecy,” Jiwan Kim (6) said.

“Always talk to an adult. Always speak out.”

Director of the ICIE Patricia Zuroski believes it was advantageous to have unified conversations for each grade, she said.

“All the students have heard the same thing,” Zuroski said. “They have had one conversation, giving them all terminology, language, and a way to talk about that subject. The teachers are also present. We’ve laid a foundation for the whole grade, so that when they talk about it in their classrooms, they are all beginning in the same place.”

After each of the assemblies, the grades broke out into smaller advisory groups to do activities related to the topic of microaggressions. This included more in-depth discussion and acting out different scenarios. Students role played certain situations to better understand how to address microaggressions from the perspective of the target and bystander.

“The more conversations we have where we can educate the community towards healthy ways of communication where equity, inclusion and respect are the norm, the better human beings we all will be,” Aguilar said. “It’s about humanity and safety in all areas of our lives.”

“No one is free from making mistakes; we all make mistakes,” Powell-Caldwell said. “What’s important is not that we pretend those mistakes don’t happen; what matters is how we learn from our missteps and recover as we move forward.”

Sixth grade buys holiday gifts for Mercy Center families Lucas Glickman & Patrick Stinebaugh Contributing Writers This past week, in their annual partnership with Mercy Center, the sixth grade traveled to Target to buy holiday gifts for Mercy Center families, as well as hosted a bake sale to raise funds for the trip.

The Mercy Center is a community center located in the Bronx that promotes a higher quality of life for women and families.

About two months ago, underprivileged families aided by Mercy Center completed of their wants and needs for the holidays. Families partnered with different sixth grade advisories from the school , and those advisories were given the wish lists as well as around $50 per family member to purchase the items.

The sixth grade also held a bake sale on Tuesday, November 13th, to raise money to make up for the cost of the trip. On Thursday, November 15th, they, accompanied by their advisors, boarded school buses at the start of their advisory periods and headed to Target.

The purpose of the trip is to introduce the sixth graders to service learning in a way that is fun and hands-on, but also to teach them how to do good acts even when others may not be looking. “They don’t get to actually meet the families, they just have to know that they have done something in a fairly altruistic

manner,” Service Learning Coordinator Caitlin Hickerson said.

“The second purpose is the experience of budgeting, which some students may have never really experienced before. If you have never been given a limited amount of money

and had to figure out how to spend it, then this may be a new experience,” Hickerson said.

“Maybe they wouldn’t buy the most expensive toy, but they could get three that are cheaper so there’s more for [the kids from the families] to play with,” Dean of Class of 2025 Jake Shapiro/Photo Editor

‘TIS THE SEASON OF GIVING Students raise money to buy gifts.

Michelle Amilicia said.

Another part of it is the skills of collaboration - how are the advisory groups going to figure out as a team what they’re going to be buying, and how are they going to execute this project together, Hickerson said. “Service learning is not only about the service, it’s also about the learning,” Hickerson said.

The conversations around [the experience] have become deeper and more thoughtful, Hickerson said. For improvement in the future she “certainly would want to create more specific activities around the preparation and reflection, the reflection in particular,” she said. The post-trip reflection is new this year, and Hickerson and Amilica both believe it will have a positive effect on what sixth graders take away from the experience, they said.

“I am most proud of the gifts we gave them.

I feel that they were very useful and could provide [the Mercy Center kids] with comfort,” Ayesha Sen (8) said, reflecting on her own trip in sixth grade.

Several sixth graders looked forward to the experience as well. “It’s really fun to work with my advisory and do budgeting,” Owen Banks (6) said.

“I like knowing that I can be able to help someone that is in need of help, and it’s good to do it because we’re more fortunate in some ways than them, and it’s good to give back or do stuff for them,” Amelia Hisch (6) said.

Lions’ Den Record Sports

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NOVEMBER 30TH, 2018

Boys Basketball psyched for season

Suraj Khakee Staff Writer

The Boys Varsity Basketball season kicks off tomorrow with the Peg Duggan Tournament, when the Lions will take on Regis in the Championship game. After an injury-riddled season last year, the team looks forward to improving their skills.

“We know Saturday is going to be a very difficult game, but an exciting challenge,” Boys Varsity Basketball Head Coach Tim Sullivan said. “The team is working hard to become a highly competitive team. We will play hard on every defensive possession and we will move the ball to get open shots,” he said.

“The preseason has been great so far, every single player is all in on having a great season,” Sullivan said.

The team has been practicing for around three weeks, and their intensity has ramped up in the past few weeks, Kamau Hubbard (11) said.

“I think Coach Sullivan is definitely running tougher practices this year. It’s good because it’s getting us more physically and mentally prepared for tough games,” Darius McCullough (11) said.

“Our goal for the season is to be more competitive in the league. Of course, we want to win the league, but improving and paying attention to detail is more within our control,” Jack Blackman (11) said.

The team is mostly comprised of underclassmen. Of the

16 players on the roster, there are six juniors and only one senior.

“The fact that we have a ton of underclassmen both helps and hurts us, I think,” Kelvin Smith (11) said. “We have a good team built for the future because guys can keep coming back year after year, but a lot of teams are bigger in size, so we need guys to play out of position and play tough defense.

That’s where we had a lot of problems last year,” he said.

Many underclassmen will be earn considerable playing time. Eddie Mantz (10), Ben Chasin (10), Chris Robinson (10), and Jaden Kirshner (10) will play even bigger roles than they did last year, Smith said.

“Robert and Kelvin are definitely our players to watch. I think Kelvin can be the best player in the league. He just has to become more consistent with his free throws,” Blackman said.

“I think that we need to build a greater chemistry and build off of what we started last year,” Kirshner said. “I feel close with all the upperclassmen already, and I know some of the new guys will too. Us young guys have to step up and take some responsibility from the leaders of the team,” he said.

Certain players’ injuries last year affected the continuity and consistency that the team was trying to build, Sangmin Lee (11) said. Hopefully this year, the team will have an Abi Kraus/Photo Editor injury-free season, he said.

This first tournament is a test run, Smith said, adding that SCANNING THE COURT Kyle Gaillard (12) looks to pass. it would be great to come home with a win.

Off the block: Sea Lions dive into new year Abi Kraus/Photo Editor

#NOTMYBATHTUB Swim boys after a meet.

Ranya Sareen Staff Writer The Sea Lions are excited to dive into their winter season after successfully competing in their first relay on Wednesday and look forward to their second one today.

The swimmers participated in the Relay Carnival and will compete in the inter-squad Maroon and White Relay, which are co-ed relays designed to test various skills against each other and other schools at the beginning of the season, Aquatics Director and Swim Coach Thatcher Woodley said.

The Relay Carnival took place at Lehman College and included all teams in the Ivy League division, Eva Fortunato (12) said.

The Ivy League is composed of many strong swim teams, so the goal for the Sea Lions throughout the season is to beat as many teams as possible, Sean Koons said (12).

“Beating Trinity will be a struggle because they have been our biggest rival for the last few years,” Fortunato said. Both teams lost to Trinity during the previous season.

“We also want to beat Poly Prep this year and take back our second place title in the league,” McKayla Widener (11) said.

“The relays are a great way to see the strengths and weaknesses of our team and others in addition to helping the new underclassmen understand how meets actually work,” Fortunato said.

The Maroon and White Relay, which is a co-ed meet designed to test various skills against each other will take place at school today. The Sea Lions will be divided into two teams to compete against each other, Koons said.

This meet, in particular, serves as a great opportunity for the team to bond and get comfortable in a competitive enviroment, Colin Mark (12) said.

The relay is also a good opportunity for seniors to lead their respective squads and help set team goals, Woodley said.

“Goal setting is an important part of the swim season as all members of the team are required to fill out a sheet discussing their goals and meet with the coaches to strategize,” Woodley said.

The team is not divided by age, but rather skill level, which puts players of all different grades together in the same lanes, Reina McNutt (11) said.

Madison Wu (9), Harmony Li (9) and Walker McCarthy (9) are among many of the new freshmen that are very strong

swimmers in and out of school, Fortunato said.

Allen Park (12), William Han (12), and Vincent Li (9) will definitely be strong assets throughout the season as they have been putting in a lot of good work so far, Mark said.

“With a lot of positivity, diligence, and good attitudes, the team should be able to thrive during the season and achieve all their personal objectives,” Woodley said.

Abi Kraus/Photo Editor

MAKING A SPLASH Swimmers race down their lanes.

UPCOMING HOME GAMES Friday @ 4 pm: Varsity Wrestling, v. Baruch, Trinity, Bathgate, and Salesian Saturday @ 1 pm: Girls Varsity Basketball - Peg Duggan Tournament Saturday @ 6:15 pm: Boys Varsity Basketball - Peg Duggan Torunament Saturday Monday @ 4 pm: Boys Varsity Swimming v. Xavier Monday @ 4:15 pm: Boys Varsity Squash v. Portledge