The Horace Mann Record, Class Day Issue

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

JUNE 3RD, 2019 || VOLUME 116, ISSUE 29

RECORD.HORACEMANN.ORG

Juli Moreira/Art Director

14 POST SCHOOL PATHS 24-25 4-7 SPORTS YEAR IN REVIEW 15-17 TEACHER LETTERS 26-27 3

SUMMER ON THE HILL UD FACULTY FAREWELLS MD FACULTY FAREWELLS MD REFLECTIONS

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CULTURAL EVENTS

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COLLEGE MAP

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20-21

28-29 SENIORS IN ARTS 30 22 SENIOR SPRING 31

LATEST ON PROM

10-11 RECRUITED ARTS 12 RECRUITED ATHLETES 23 SENIOR INITIATIVE PROJECTS 32

SOCIAL MEDIA & MENTAL HEALTH MULTIRACIAL EXPERIENCES

VOLUME 117

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THE RECORD CROSSWORDS JUNE 3RD, 2019 Volume 116 Editorial Board Editor in Chief Managing Editor Lynne Sipprelle Betsey Bennett 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 Photography Art Directors Abigail Kraus Juli Moreira Ahaan Palla Jackson Roberts Jake Shapiro Issues Editor Middle Division Sadie Schwartz Sandhya Shyam Faculty Adviser Online Editor David Berenson Henry Wildermuth

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.

CLUES

*answers in bottom right corner

ACROSS

3) Pollinator 4) Dog with a wrinkled face 6) Distinguished academic 9) Month of America’s independence 11) National park created in 1864 14) Strip of land near a body of water 16) Subject of the riddle: what gets wet as it dries 17) Cusco is the capital of this former empire 18) Employment 19)

KEN KEN

Robert Indiana sculpture found at 6th Avenue and West 55th Street 20) Artist that sings Blowin’ in the Wind 21) Key component of a snow cone 22) Department store that hosts the NYC event on July 4th 24) Result of condensation that often appears in the early morning 26) Longest day of the year 30) Outdoor barbeque 31) Rock-n-_______ 32) Kathmandu is the capital of this country 33) French word for she 34) Pyrotechnic show hosted on July 4th

Have an amazing summer!

-Volume 116 Editorial Board

KEY

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, 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

DOWN

1) Arabic word for crown 2) One of Pablo Picasso’s daughters 3) Food on the end of a hook to catch fish 4) Body of water often chlorinated for summer fun 5) “Summer Nights” is a song in this 1978 movie hit 7) Spices applied on meat for a BBQ 8) Type of bathing suit inspired by this Atoll 10) Refreshing drink sold by many kids in the summer 11) National park home to Old Faithful 12) Acronym for Editor in Chief 13) Structure kids love making on the beach 15) Greek god of the underworld 18) Smuckers is a well-known producer of this item 23) Type of coniferous tree 24) Synonym for frisbee 25) Achievement 27) Leader of the Communist party depicted in a 1972 famous Warhol work 28) Foam created when a wave reaches the shore 29) Often enjoyed with ice cream

HORACE MANN NEWS MAY 3RD, 2019

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Juli Moreira/Art Director

Mayanka Dhingra Staff Writer While some students view summer as an opportunity to go far and wide to escape the pressures of academic life, each June the school’s campus is as far as some students need to venture for a meaningful summer experience of their own.

For the past twenty-five years, Summer on the Hill (SOH) has provided an accelerated five-week summer academic enrichment program for gifted students from public schools in the Bronx.

In addition to the summer program, from September through June of the academic year, SOH offers Saturday classes to help students build advanced skills in Math, Science, and Language Arts.

The goal of SOH is to help its students receive admission to specialized public, independent, or Catholic high schools upon their graduation from SOH in eighth grade. Former SOH students seeking admission to college institutions have the choice to continue working with SOH throughout high school for standardized test preparation, college trips, career readiness workshops, and one-on-one counselor meetings.

Despite having over 131 public elementary schools, the Bronx has only seven gifted and talented programs for students in grades K-12 run by the National Association for Gifted Children.

In the Fall of 1993 former Head of School Phil Foote met with Horace Mann’s former Director of Admissions Gary Miller and Assistant Director of Admissions John McIvor to find ways the school could do more for public school students in its surrounding Bronx community.

When Summer on the Hill launched in 1994, the program had just twenty-one rising fourth and fifth graders. Today, the program serves around 250 students across third through twelfth grade, helping almost 100% of its students gain entry to private schools and college institutions last year. Partnering with over 83 public schools in the New York area, public school principals and guidance counselors are able to recommend their students for SOH. The students then have to take an

“If it weren’t for the Summer on the Hill program, I don’t think I would be attending Horace Mann and be the person I am today.”

-Siddiq Nanabawa (11) entrance exam before gaining admission to the program.

Having been a student and teacher in the public education system her entire life, Mabel Rodriguez, Director of Placement and the High School program and an alum of SOH, decided to work at SOH because she knows firsthand how overworked and under-resourced public schools are, especially in the Bronx, she said.

Adriana Hernandez (11) was a student at SOH starting in third grade before joining Horace Mann in sixth grade. For Hernandez, Summer on the Hill has been meaningful not only for her, but for her entire family, she said. Hernandez’s mom served as Director of Admissions and Curriculum Coordinator for Summer on the Hill and both her brothers worked at SOH as mentors.

Adriana Hernandez’s brother, Gabe Hernandez (12), explained that the most rewarding part of his experience with SOH was getting to see both sides of the program as a student and later a mentor, he said. As a mentor you see kids who want to go to schools like Horace Mann, and you understand what it is like to be in their shoes and how to guide them, he said.

Muhaiminul Ashraf (12), who began the program in third grade, would have never come to HM or even thought he would be able to apply to private schools if it wasn’t for Summer on the Hill, he said.

On the other hand, Siddiq Nanabawa (11), an alumni of SOH’s Saturday program before joining Horace Mann in ninth grade, was initially not so enthusiastic about giving up his Saturdays for a program

that he thought “would do nothing for him,” he said. Nanabawa was SUMMER ON THE HILL SMILES Pictures from the past forced to attend the program because his parents thought it would help few years of Summer on the Hill. him with his school skills and social skills as well, he said.

Despite his initial reluctance to participate in SOH, the program was a life changing experience, Nanabawa said. “If it weren’t for the SOH program, I don’t think I would be attending Horace Mann and be the person I am today.”

Iliana Quinones (9) also believes her decision to join Summer on the Hill in third grade had a profound impact on her life, she said. Quinones joined Summer on the Hill because she wasn’t challenged in her public school, she said. “School is something I’m so passionate about today and SOH made me realize that,” said Quinones.

For SOH class of 2017 Valedictorian Ericka Familia, SOH was the first time she can remember having to really think hard about her work, she said. Familia knew the work at SOH wasn’t going to be easy, but her eight year-old self-made a promise never to quit, she said. Famiilia joined Horace Mann after graduating SOH in 2017.

Paul Wang (11) who volunteered at the program last summer as a mentor, was impressed by SOH students’ hard work and their commitment to advancing their learning; the experience prompted him to reflect on how fortune he is to go to the school, he said.

Vernon Wilson, Chair of the English Department, taught language arts classes to eighth grade students at SOH for the summer of 2014 and 2015. Wilson too was struck by the relentless efforts exhibited by many of his students each day despite the program beginning the week after public school ends, he said.

For Executive Director Markell Parker, the awareness seven and eight year-olds exhibit about the value of their education is “mesmerizing,” he said. “I had one second grader in a recent admissions interview for SOH talk about uplifting herself so that she could then uplift her family and neighborhood,” said Parker.

Beyond academic life, SOH aims to expose students to extracurricular opportunities they may not have at their public schools. These activities range from an annual theater production to sports and studio arts. SOH allowed Jaden Piccirillo (10) to discover his love for swimming, he said.

Aside from being mentors and counselors, students from the school have found other ways to connect their interests to their involvement with Summer on the Hill.

Ahaan Palla (11), Rohan Bhatia (11), and Jeffrey Chen (11) founded the STEAM on the Hill program after receiving the Alexander Capelluto Grant in 2017. STEAM on the Hill is an extended-day program teaching coding, robotics and video production. The program aims to expose more of their students to technology.

Rohan Bhatia (11) was compelled to start STEAM on the Hill because after starting to study computer science, he wished he had learned to code earlier in life and realized that some kids don’t get the opportunity to learn at all, he said.

In addition to sharing their passions with fellow students, chamber ensemble musicians in tenth grade at the school held the second annual HarMonia benefit concert at Liederkranz Opera Theatre in April and raised over $21,000 for SOH. According to Mikayla Benson (10), the ensemble decided to raise money for SOH to support their own classmates that the program serves.

For Elijah Shaham (10) the concert was a meaningful and motivating experience because it served a good cause, he said.

Dana Kien, a current SOH student in the college preparatory program, attended SOH from third to eighth grade after both her older sisters graduated the program and now works as a mentor over the summer.

“SOH has been so amazing to me and my family,” Kien said. “My sisters and I always say that anything we can give when we grow up will go to SOH and anyone who went through SOH will say that too because its touched us all in so many different ways,” she said.

Even six years after graduating, Alejandra Leon SOH ’13 HM’18 still recognizes the impact SOH had on her life, she said.

“Summer on the Hill taught me what hard work really meant,” Leon said. “Being so young and committing to going to six days of school in a week was a lot, but without Summer on the Hill I would have never thought I would go to such a prestigious high school or college,” she said.

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DEPARTING

THE RECORD FACULTY FAREWELLS JUNE 3RD, 2019

Mr. Gregory Donadio Griffin Smith/Staff Photgrapher

Mark Fernandez & Darius McCullough Staff Writer “Too many to mention,” Gregory Donadio said when asked about his favorite memories of teaching. Donadio has been working at the school since the fall of 1977 and will be retiring this June.

Donadio is known predominantly as the Economics and Advanced Placement Economics teacher at the school; however, he began his tenure at the school teaching European History. During the 1978-1979 school year, Donadio created

a course called 20th Century History, which covered topics like Weimar Germany, Nazi Germany, World War II, and the Cold War. In 20th Century History, Donadio’s class wrote policy memos instead of essays. “It essentially puts students around the table while decisions are being made,” he said.

Donadio believes that this method made the students remember the history better; not as data, but rather as a realistic situation, he said. “You will have problems, you will make mistakes if you underestimate costs and benefits or expectations, but that’s actually the way things are done,” Donadio said.

Besides the students, the main reason why Donadio loves teaching is that it blurs the line between his interests and the school requirements. “If there are new books in econ or in the history I was teaching which I was interested, I will just read those in the course of the year and incorporate what’s useful in my class,” Donadio said. “It keeps you fresh.”

Along with 20th Century History, AP Econ was Donadio’s favorite class to teach, he said.

Donadio enjoys these classes because they brought in relatively strong students on a steady basis. “I like teaching and seeing students develop intellectually,” he said.

Donadio would always have an outline for what he had to say, but the bulk of what he taught was from his own knowledge, Ashna Jain (12), who took Donadio’s AP Econ class this year, said. “Mr. Donadio was so passionate about what he taught, and it was apparent when he was teaching us in class.”

“AP Econ with Mr. Donadio went far beyond an AP class to the level of a college course,” Lynne Sipprelle (12) said.

“Besides thoroughly teaching us economic theory, he also taught us how it shapes the world today and will change change the world tomorrow.”

Most of Donadio’s students admire his teaching style just as much as his topics. While economics was already one of Mika

Asfaw’s (11) favorite subjects, he feels that Donadio has made the class special in his own way. “His witty remarks created a lighthearted environment in which I felt comfortable sharing my questions and thoughts in,” Asfaw said.

His personality added to the classroom atmosphere as well, Leanne Shabtai (11) said. “He always makes funny jokes and brings a very positive energy to the classroom every day.”

“He is one of the funniest people I have ever met.” Morgan Mackenzie (12) said.

“He actually took the time to speak with me outside of class and through the years,” Nick Khakee ‘83 P’18 ‘20 said. “He helped me to succeed.”

“He’s just a very caring guy and someone you feel glad to know,” Mackenzie said.

Kaitlin Howrigan will be taking over Donadio’s AP Eonomics classes next year at the school. By speaking to Mr. Donadio along with his current and former students, Howrigan is working to continue from the great place Mr. Donadio is leaving the program, she said.

Donadio has been helpful and generous with his time in order to assist her in the transition. “He has been willing to sit down with me to share his considerable accumulated wisdom on economics ranging from the best textbooks and resources, to his philosophy on assessments.”

“I have a lot of respect for the fact that he stayed at the school for more than 40 years,” Yoseph Kamran (12) said. “It shows how much he cared about what he did.”

After 42 years of teaching at the school, Donadio plans travel, read, and write about the history of science and technology in his retirement.

Donadio has developed a well-honed style over decades of teaching experience, Howrigan said. “He’s been incredibly supportive which is helpful when you are filling the shoes of someone who has been a big presence in the Horace Mann community for so long.”

Mr. Richard Somma Courtesy of Mannikin

Mr. Somma’s Top 10 Moments at HM I am retiring after 38 years here at HM. What follows is my top 10 favorite things that have thrilled me during these years here.

10) Me and Barbara Berg singing in 1996 at the Faculty/Trustee Talent Show. We sang “I’ve Got You Babe,” in Sonny and Cher uniform.

Barbara was one of our great deans -- history teacher and women’s issues teacher extraordinaire.

9) Me and Kim Do singing “Sea Cruise” by Frankie Ford around 1992. This was part of the Urban Aid Concert Series, founded by Dan Goldberg in 1989. He made this series go on for over 20 years by setting up a successor apparatus. The thrill of a packed cafeteria rocking to our message...what a thrill. What a great song!

8) In his senior year Jason Halperin (‘88) organizes a student group for the annual Cabaret Show. He writes a parody of “Teenager in Love” (Dion and the Belmonts) an hilarious send up of student life at the time---particularly gently poking fun of dean Carole Stearns. I sang the role of the guardian angel.

7) Around 1986 or so Anne McKay and I team-teach an acting class. I taught the skill of improvisation and she taught regular acting skills.

Midway through each class we’d switch groups. She is one of the founding members of the theater department bringing serious thoughtprovoking content to our productions.

Courtesy of Mannikan

6) The English Department allows me and Joe Timko to team-teach a third trimester poetry course about science and math roughly around 2001. We named it “Newton the Demands the Muse, “ after a book with the same name by the literary critic, Marjorie Hope Nicolson.

5) Team-teaching blues classes for several years with Michael Bomwell and me (and before that with his predecessor Jay Berckley and me).

My favorite lesson of ours was examining the difference between the traditions that spawned the Rolling Stones and the Beatles.

4) The American Thigh-Slapping Music Club, with Brett Bush (‘98) as its president, formed trips to listen to thigh-slapping music. Chris Jones and I became faculty advisers. With the students we organized a road trip to Cleveland’s Rock Hall. The highlight was when we took over a local jazz club and got the whole placing singing “When the Saints Go Marching In” in a conga line.

3) The frequent meetings in recent years between me and Harry Bauld. He taught me what a poem truly is and isn’t. The highlight of this pursuit was his writing a poem where a companion of the narrator shows disdain for infinity. I responded with my own poem which looked at infinity as the essence of simplicity. At a recent poetry reading (2017), Harry and I read our poems in tandem and had lots of fun.

2) Being a part of a curriculum revision committee. Me, Chris Jones Nick Perry and Charles Worrall revised the way the kids were to see Geometry. Me, Kristin Rowson, and Huon Murray did the same with Algebra II a few years later. I always wanted to be a part of a group that brought more exploration into the math classroom.

MEMORY LANE Somma teaches a class of students in 1993.

1) Thirty-Eight years of teaching a most curiosity-loving group of students. Students, you helped make math come alive for me. Every Day.

UD FACULTY HORACE MANN FACULTY FAREWELLS JUNE 3RD, 2019

Dr. Kalil Oldham Griffin Smith/Staff Photographer

Simon Yang Staff Writer “On the first day of ninth grade, Dr. Oldham somehow corralled a bunch of totally clueless freshmen into a fascinating discussion of the Arab Spring and the impact of technology on politics,” Honor McCarthy ’19 said. “He made you feel smart, and he empowered students by respecting our voices and intellect.”

After 10 years of teaching classes including Atlantic World History, US History, AP European History, and History of Modern Africa and Asia, history teacher Dr. Kalil Oldham will be leaving the school.

“I loved teaching all the classes I’ve taught,” Oldham said.

“I came here mainly having taught at the university level and not having taught high school history at all, and I’m incredibly

grateful for my colleagues, my students, and my administrators for how much I was able to learn as a teacher.”

“Dr. Oldham brought a really deep knowledge of European history, which was incredibly helpful for the department at the time,” History Department Chair Dr. Daniel Link said.

As the sole teacher of the AP European History class, Oldham successfully addressed having to balance between teaching the material and making sure that the classes were not emphasizing Eurocentric values, history teacher Dr. Elisa Milkes said.

“Dr. Oldham always thought of what would be the most important set of skills for the students, and how to come up with assignments that stress those skills,” Milkes said. “His incisiveness, his ability to pin down what is key, beyond all the noise and all the static what’s really essential was a great asset to the history department.”

“We had spent the whole year in AP Euro learning about religion as a proxy for other motives in politics with Dr. Oldham,” Emma Jones ’19 said. “The question that came up on the AP exam was: ‘were the Wars of Religion really about religion?’ and I remember the whole class just started laughing during the exam.”

Oldham remembers the very first day at the school in the fall of 2009 when he had F and G period ninth grade classes, he said.

“I think I can name all 16 of my energetic and enthusiastic kids in my F period class because they made such a huge impact on me,” he said.

“Dr. Oldham taught with patience,” Darson Chen (9) said. “It didn’t matter if the answer to one of his questions was wrong.

Instead of giving the answer directly, he would steer you in the correct way and let you find the answer yourself.”

At the beginning of each class, Oldham always encourages students to discuss what is going on in their lives and the broader community, Shay Soodak (11) said. “Dr. Oldham always ties it back to what we are learning, and he has taught me how to question my own understanding of different subjects, she said.

“Dr. Oldham is such a great history teacher because of the way he keeps classes engaging and relevant by tying in current events,” Philip Shen (12) said. Oldham’s classes never feel like a lecture as students lead the discussions and all voices can be heard, Shen said.

“We’re living in historical times, and I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to help students navigate that experience of witnessing these historical changes,” Oldham said.

Oldham also made classes fun and engaging, and “the complete opposite of those stereotypical, boring history lecture classes,” Hannah Long (12) said. “He would show us the funniest videos like Hot Cheetos and Takis. I will never forget that rap -- it was fire.”

“For every absurdly riveting intellectual moment in class, there were the times he made great brownies and brought candy,” McCarthy said. “[Oldham’s] professionalism, and his willingness to step outside of his own comfort zone in order to better serve the interest of the students and the department will be greatly missed,” Link said.

In addition to history classes, Oldham has been an instructor for the Searchers Program. As an individual who loves spending time outdoors rock-climbing, hiking, and backpacking, the Searchers Program was a great opportunity, he said.

“Dr. Oldham was really like a parental influence during Searchers,” Jordan Kinard ’18 said. “He made sure everything stayed on track, everyone stayed calm, and that we had fun during the experience.”

Kinard recalls how Oldham let him and his peers borrow his headlamp when they had all forgotten theirs during the winter hike, Kinard said.

“It got dark very early so we needed the lamp, and we were all freaked out and worried,” he said. “Dr. Oldham always was there for us, and his presence made us all very relieved.”

After leaving the school, Oldham will continue to teach history classes at the Episcopal Academy of Philadelphia, while also participating in the academy’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program, he said.

“I’m happy that the school he’s going to next will benefit from all of his strengths,” Milkes said. “His new school is going to appreciate the same skills that we appreciated here.”

“I’ll miss all the people,” Oldham said. “I’ve made a lot of relationships with all the wonderful students, colleagues over the 10 years. Those will be difficult to replicate.”

Dr. Stephen Palfrey

Max Shopkorn/Staff Photographer

Sam Singer Staff Writer After 13 years of dedicated service to the school, Chair of the Science Department Dr. Stephen Palfrey is retiring to spend time with family and explore the world outside of New York.

Palfrey’s first teaching job was at the school, he said. After earning his PhD, Palfrey worked in various physics research positions, including working as a postdoc at IBM and working in optoelectronics (the combined use of light and electric power) at a research corporation, he said.

In 1993, Palfrey began work in finance and consulting, working as a management consultant for the worldwide firm McKinsey and Company before moving on to act as a financial principal for the venture capital firm Canaan Partners in 2000.

It was around this time that Palfrey began to pursue teaching, he said. “I was at a point of transition in my career, having worked in finance for a few years and now wanting to do something else,” he said. “I had always thought about teaching as a possible endeavor but never pursued it.”

Around 2005, Palfrey began a degree program to become certified in teaching, after which he interviewed at the school and began teaching physics.

“My teaching mentors, who were the senior members of the Department at that time, were very influential in developing my enjoyment of teaching,” Palfrey said. “They taught me how enjoyable it was to work with students and colleagues and showed me how much I can learn both about myself and the subject during teaching.” “[Palfrey] makes it clear that he values every student and that he enjoys working with them and seeing their growth and appreciation for science,” science teacher Dr. Rachel Mohammed said.

“Among the many jobs I’ve had, teaching has certainly been not only the most rewarding but also my personal favorite,” Palfrey said.

After years of teaching Physics, Honors Physics, Experiments in Physics and Chemistry, AP Physics, and AP Chemistry, Palfrey was chosen to serve as the Chair of the Science Department in 2014.

Madhav Menon (10) believes Palfrey is “a great teacher who just wants to help his students to succeed however they can,” he said.

“I remember him putting all of his work aside to meet with me when I didn’t have an appointment multiple times,” Morgan Joseph (12) said. “He always put his students first and was happy to help them.”

During his time as chair, Palfrey reinforced the new teacher mentoring program, hired and supported quality teachers, and worked to improve the quality of the school’s science education through curriculum changes, weekly teaching meetings, and other initiatives, he said.

“One of my favorite things about Dr. Palfrey is how knowledgeable and helpful he was to me when I was a new

teacher last year,” science teacher Melissa Doellman said.

“I’ve really enjoyed my years as Department Chair, as I’ve enjoyed continuing to teach and see students’ growth in my own classes but also encourage it among my colleagues,” Palfrey said.

In addition to improving teaching through initiatives as the Department Chair, Palfrey has maintained a strong presence at the school as a colleague, club adviser, and friend, science teacher Oleg Zvezdin said.

Students echoed Zvezdin’s sentiment, sharing stories of Palfrey’s dedication to the school and their learning of science.

“In my time at Horace Mann, Dr. Palfrey has helped out on [science publication] Spectrum, Science Olympiad, and a variety of other science initiatives I’ve participated in,” Joanne Wang ’18 said. “He was extremely organized and helped us to make sure we truly made others enjoy science.”

Amanda Katerei (10) believes Palfrey is a great inspiration and teacher of science, she said.

“When I was an eighth grader, he helped me understand all of the college-level physics for my project on ice skating and made me able to pursue and understand a topic I was actually interested in,” Katerei said.

“He’s really helped me not only memorize the physics we’ve been doing, and he’s made me more interested in the subject,” JJ Ryu (11) said.

Palfrey always encouraged his students to do a lot of the work independent of help, Abigail Kraus (12) said. “He wanted us to really develop our critical thinking skills,” she said.

“Dr. Palfrey has been not only an incredible educator but also a great leader, administrator, and colleague, and he will certainly be missed,” Zvezdin said.

After his retirement, Palfrey plans to continue teaching through tutoring students in underprivileged communities, and he hopes to find time to explore and travel outside of New York with his family, he said.

“Above all, I’ll always remember and admire my time at Horace Mann,” Palfrey said.

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DEPARTING

THE RECORD FACULTY FAREWELLS JUNE 3RD, 2019

Mr. Ruby Reiblein Max Shopkorn/Staff Photographer

Amelia Feiner Staff Writer After 35 years as a Laboratory Technician and science teacher in the Upper and Middle Divisions, Rudy Reiblein is retiring.

Reiblein began working at the school as a part time chemistry teacher in 1985. He went on to restructure

the MD science curriculum, facilitate the addition of the sixth grade into the MD, and most recently, transfer the science department to Lutnick Hall.

Reiblein was first introduced to the school’s campus in 1983 when he was conducting research for his graduate degree on campus. “I was in graduate school doing work on urban raccoons and I was using Horace Mann as one of my study sights,” he said. “I used to come out late at night and set traps for the raccoons and capture them, measure them, put tags in their ears and release them.”

Reiblein was told by a friend to apply for a part time position at the school while he was writing his thesis.

“My PhD thesis kind of took a back seat,” he said. “The next year I became a full time chemistry teacher.”

After working for years as a chemistry and biology teacher, Reiblein eventually assumed the role of Lab Technician, the position he currently holds.

Reiblein has invented a position that goes way beyond organizing and setting up the chemistry materials, Science Department Chair Dr. Stephen Palfrey said.

“He is an integral member of the chemistry team.”

In fact, Reiblein postponed his retirement for an entire year just because the department knew that he was crucial to a successful transition from Pforzheimer Hall to Lutnick Hall facilities.

The job would have been impossible for a new department member, Palfrey said.

Reiblein is known in the department as a man who can solve any problem, science teacher Oleg Zvezdin said. “If we have something that isn’t working quite

right, he is just so knowledgeable in helping us figure out a mechanical solution. He is just a very creative person.”

This talent for mechanical problem solving has fostered Reiblein’s passion for woodworking. Reiblin is active in the Habitat for Humanity program both in and outside of the school. In his retirement, Reiblein plans to spend more time working for the Westchester chapter of the program.

Reiblein is also engaged with the student community as the faculty advisor for the Rocketry Club. “He helped us in the fabrication and design of our aluminum and steel engines and with ordering the ingredients necessary for the composite fuel that we use,” club member Richard Hausman (12) said.

Last year, Reiblein stayed late multiple times each week during the season to help the group, Hausman said.

He is incredibly welcoming and willing to explain anything in a very comprehensive way, Zvezdin said.

Reiblein will miss working with students the most in his retirement, he said. He loves the stimulation of being surrounded by bright and hardworking students, and fears that retirement will bore him. However, he is excited to pursue carpentry, leatherworking, and kayaking while spending time at his cottage in Connecticut.

“He is leaving large shoes to fill,” Palfrey said.

“Thank you for everything Mr. Reiblein,” Hausman said. “We all love you.”

Mr. Lionel Garrison, Jr.

Bradley Bennett Staff Writer

Halley Robbins/Staff Photographer

Director of the Upper Division Tutoring Center Lionel Garrison, Jr. will be retiring after teaching at the school for exactly 30 years. Throughout his career at the school, Lionel Garrison has been a Mathematics Department Chair, physics teacher, and Director of Summer School in addition to his current position, he said.

Garrison began his long teaching career in 1963 when he taught at a small school on the island of Saint Croix in the Virgin Islands. From there, Garrison received a federal grant to teach math and science in the United States and obtained his Masters degree, he said.

After working at Dwight Englewood School in New Jersey, on the school.” the school hired Garrison in September of 1989. According to “Mr Garrison loves to sing, and I remember him singing Garrison, switching to the school was “the best decision I’ve karaoke at Mr. Somma’s 50th birthday party years ago,” ever made in terms of my career,” he said.

Worrall said. “I’ll never forget that.”

“I have mixed feelings about retiring because I have been “Looking back, I couldn’t be more appreciative of Dr. Kelly learning or teaching at a school since I was five years old,” and the school for what they have done for me and my family,” he said.

Garrison said.

Part of the legacy Garrison leaves behind is the presence “I do feel like his presence will be continued to be felt, of his two children, Registrar Chris Garrison and History through the culture shift in our department that continues to teacher Catherine Garrison. this day,” Jones said.

“My father teaching at the school has been wonderful for Ahaan Palla/Photo Director me, and it’s bizarre that it’s ending after many, many years of teaching,” Chris Garrison said. “I don’t know what this school is like without my parents being here.”

Currently, Lionel Garrison runs the Upper Division Tutoring Center, a position that was created specifically for him when he was diagnosed with diabetes in 2011.

“I couldn’t even climb the stairs to get to my classrooms, so I told Dr. Kelly and he created this position because I didn’t have the strength to teach four classes,” Lionel Garrison said.

“Now I get to do the fun part of teaching, which is working one-on-one with students on subjects I like teaching,” he said.

According to math teacher Christopher Jones, the largest impact Garrison made on the school was when he became Mathematics Department Chair in 1993. “‘[He] gave us a much longer leash and showed way more trust in the department,” Jones said. “I saw an immediate difference in the amount of creativity in the department when he took over.” “[Mr. Garrison’s] love for mathematics made an enormous impression on me, and helped me see why math teaching can be an important and satisfying life’s pursuit,” math teacher Charles Worrall said.

For many faculty, Garrison’s presence extends beyond the classroom and academics.

“Mr. Garrison and I have many common interests, and I enjoy talking to him all the time,” history teacher Gregory Donadio said. “He is a man of humor, decency, erudition, and HELPING HAND Garrison works with student in the tutoring office. intellectual substance, which has made a great positive impact

UD FACULTY HORACE MANN FACULTY FAREWELLS JUNE 3RD, 2019

Sensei Fujisaki Max Shopkorn/Staff Photographer

John Mauro Staff Writer Mami Fujisaki will be leaving at the school after 27 years and after having taught every level of Japanese the school offers.

“I actually created the Japanese program,” Fujisaki said. “For the first six years, I was still teaching at NYU, and Japanese at HM was a half credit course. Because it was so popular, it became a full credit program, and for the past 21 years I’ve been teaching Japanese full time” she said.

“She’s so enthusiastic, positive, elegant, and wise,” Spanish teacher Susan Carnochan said.

“We’ve been colleagues since ‘97, and on a personal level, I feel like she’s become one of my best friends on the faculty here,” Carnochan said. “I’ve witnessed her ability to draw students to Japanese and keep them enthralled in the language and the culture.”

Fujisaki believes that the more languages a person knows, the more people they can meet and the more they can explore the world, she said.

“She is so fun to be around and is kind and wonderful,” Claire Yoo (12) said. “She always wants to help us more outside of class.”

Fujisaki has taught Will Han (12) to always be energetic, have a smile on his face, and be respectful to his peers, he said.

“I think to express yourself in any language is important” Fujisaki said. She created Japan Day for all students to express themselves and to experience Japanese culture, she said.

“Learning new languages can be difficult as a person who isn’t very strong in languages, but sensei’s enthusiasm and energy made learning Japanese more fun,” Juli Moreira (12).

“Fujisaki Sensei creates a really engaging and welcoming environment for everyone and it makes Japan Day very entertaining,” Isabella Binnmyr (10) said. “The plays and costumes are a particular insight into the culture,” she said.

“She is the highest energy teacher I have ever had and treats every class like an adventure through Japan,” Ari Salsberg (10) said. “She achieves a balance between linguistic study, cultural investigation, and an overall enjoyable experience when learning the Japanese language,” Salsberg said.

Fujisaki is a harp instrumentalist and has given concerts both at the school and in Tokyo.

“When I leave the school, I want to be more active with my harp playing,” Fujisaki said. “I also want to continue giving workshops for students in Japan, so they can express themselves in English better.”

Mr. Prawat Lauchareon Halley Robbins/Staff Photographer

Natalie Sweet Staff Writer After 34 years of teaching printmaking, drawing and painting, sculpture, and ceramics at the school, Prawat Laucharoen is retiring to work on his personal art projects.

After his retirement, Laucharoen plans to clean up his own studio in Manhattan, he said. He also hopes to devote almost all his time to his most recent project called “Global Issues in Sentences,” he said.

“Artists from all over the world, from Hawaii to Australia, will come to my studio to work on Global Issues in Sentences,” he said. “I want to bring together all these printmakers to collaborate on a piece about the environment, so they can each bring something special from the environment they live in.”

Laucharoen has been interested in art since as early as he can remember, he said.

“I’ve always liked to draw, but as I got older, I began submitting my art to local contests and winning prizes,” he said. “That’s when it became a career option for me.”

Paul Wang (11), who is in Laucharoen’s Ceramics 1 class, really appreciates how much Lauchaoren cares for his students by encouraging them, asking about their days, and sharing his own stories with them, Wang said.

“Mr. Laucharoen shared with me a story from his childhood, when he was a young man he would take mud and clay from the riverbank and craft his own potts,” Wang said. “I think that’s really amazing as well as a unique experience.”

Laucharoen looks back on his friendships with students as his favorite part of teaching with the students, he said. Perhaps most memorable was the Tea Club which he formed with several seniors last year, he said.

One of the students in the club, Yemima Morris ‘18, looks back fondly on the times during break where the club spent using Laucharoen’s office as a mini kitchen to make tea and prepare snacks, she said.

“Our conversations were always incredible, and they never had to stem from much,” Tea Club member Amrita Acharya ‘18 said. “The school is really, really lucky to have had Laucharoen as a teacher for so long.”

Ms. Jessica Emory Jake Shapiro/Photo Director

Isabella Abbott Staff Writer After three years of teaching in the Math Department, math teacher Jessica Emory is leaving the school faculty at the end of this year.

Before coming to the school, Emory spent time teaching an “Orientation to College Learning” class to first year college students in Bhutan, she said. Her students were primarily in their late teens, and the class focused on critical reading, crafting coherent arguments, and refining evidence, she said.

Emory was also a teaching assistant for English language classes in India for a research group that brought online lab courses to underresourced engineering students across India, she said.

Upon her return to the United States, Emory expected to move back to the Boston/Providence area but was intrigued by the opportunity at Horace Mann. “I was so excited to move to New York to be a part of this community,” she said.

Since her arrival at the school, Emory has taught Honors and Regular Algebra II and Trigonometry, as well as sections in Precalculus and Precalculus AB. Emory also worked as a tutor for students needing extra help in math and served as the advisor for the Social Impact Investment Club.

“She was always around to encourage us and provide us with new ideas,” co-Founder of the Social Impact Investment club Ryan Jonas (11) said. “The insight and feedback she provided to us played an instrumental role in the club’s success.”

Former Chair of the Math Department Charles Worrall was instrumental in hiring Emory. “Her warmth, intelligence, and fantastic teaching sensibilities were crystal clear [in her interview],” Worrall said.

“It was wonderful to see Ms. Emory each day as part of that talented, energetic and creative little team of new faculty, huddling together constantly, and, without knowing it maybe, building a new foundation for great teaching at our school,” Worrall said.

Emory’s presence and energy has also been felt by her students in the classroom.

“Sometimes in class when we seem unmotivated, she starts dancing to get us more engaged, while she’s explaining something,” Leyli Granmayeh (10) said. “I think her enthusiasm and passion for what she teaches is the thing I’ll miss most.”

“She had this ability to give us real world examples of how what we’re learning applies to our future adult lives,” said Andrew Rosen (12). “She is a great person to have in your corner. Even though she wasn’t my teacher this year, she approached me on the first day of school to tell me she was always available to answer any questions of mine.”

Emory plans to spend time in Central Asia before teaching at The Dalton School in Manhattan next year, she said.

Though she may be leaving the school, her students and fellow teachers in the Math Department will miss her creativity, patience, and joyful attitude towards all she accomplished at the school, Worrall said.

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8

THE RECORD MIDDLE DIVISION JUNE 3RD, 2019

The MD Says Goodbye To...

Susan Garrison

Andie Goldmacher Staff Writer Former Middle Division Math Department Chair and math teacher, Susan Garrison, will retire this year, after 22 years of working at the school.

Garrison came to the school because her husband worked at the school and her children

attended as students, and as a parent, she saw what an amazing school it was, she said. She remained at the school because of her wonderful students, colleagues, and the nurturing community, she said.

Garrison initially thought she would be an architect, but she practiced teaching math courses in college, and the idea of being an architect went out the window, she said.

“I fell in love with being in a classroom and helping kids learn math from day one,” she said. “I enjoy teaching because every year I get a different group of students, and I always hope to inspire in them a love of learning math.”

One of Garrison’s favorite parts of teaching at the school was getting the chance to work with her daughter and son as they began their careers, she said.

“The most profound part of having my mom teaching at the school has been all the times over the years that high school students, alums, and parents of alums have come up to me to express

how meaningful it was to have my mom as a teacher,” Upper Division Registrar and Garrison’s son, Chris Garrison ‘04 said.

Chris Garrison also appreciates having had multiple generations of Garrisons working at the school, he said. “There are a handful of students who had my sister [as an assistant teacher] in the lower school, my mom in the middle school, worked with my dad in the Tutoring Center, and worked with me in the Student Ambassador Program,” he said.

Susan Garrison left a profound impact on the MD math department. “She was the department chair for a number of years, but even when she was not, she led the department by keeping us focused on the right things,” MD math teacher Tom Petras said.

“The school will miss her personality and caring for students,” he said. “She is very passionate in helping students understand math whatever number of hours of extra practice and meetings that will take.”

Susan Garrison’s former students Jordan Ferdman (10) and Ryan Jonas (11) echoed Petras’ sentiments. “Mrs. Garrison has made me a more confident person, often without knowing she was doing so,” Ferdman said.

“Mrs. Garrison is a kind and patient teacher who always made sure I understood the topics in her class,” Jonas said.

Susan Garrison plans to travel and engage in community service during her retirement. She will travel in Europe in September, and spend winters in their vacation house in St. Croix. “I would also like to work with kids again in some kind of volunteering capacity, probably with math,” she said.

“My retirement is like a graduation for me because I feel a lot like a senior. I am excited for what’s next but I am also really sad because Horace Mann is a hard place to leave,” she said.

Patricia Zuroski

Emily Shi Staff Writer After 22 years of working closely with all four divisions of the school, Director of the Office for Identity, Culture, and Institutional Equity (ICIE) Patricia Zuroski will retire.

Beginning in 1997, Zuroski spent her first 13 years at the school as Head of the Nursery Division.

In a predominantly white community, Zuroski was one of the first faculty members of color

at the Nursery Department. “As a part of the administration, I was concerned about figuring out how the population of the school community would reflect the outside world,” she said.

At the end of the 2009-2010 academic year, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly approached her about a potential initiative to open a diversity office at the school. Zuroski accepted the offer to work in the ICIE because of her belief that diversity created a more exciting learning environment, she said.

From a young age, diversity has been a key pillar of Zuroski’s life as a Chinese woman, she said. “Working in the ICIE has helped me think more carefully about my own experiences as well as what other people might experience,” Zuroski said. “I’ve tried to figure out ways to support other people so that they can live their full identities in everything they do.”

Zuroski spent the majority of her time at the ICIE working on community outreach to ensure students, parents, and faculty members could connect to the ICIE and understand the

Ira Brodsky

Henry Owens Staff Writer

At the end of this academic year, Middle Division (MD) English teacher Ira Brodsky will retire after 20 years at the school. Brodsky came to the school when the MD building, Rose Hall, had just been completed, shortly after he received his MA in English education from NYU. Prior to teaching, Brodsky had a day job in publishing and pursued playwriting. Brodsky chose to transition into teaching as a second career because the idea of being able to work with literature and writing and ideas, and to do that with kids seemed like a great combination, he said.

Working with middle schoolers and gaining

importance of having it, she said.

Yasmin McLamb (12), who has participated in the Student Diversity Leadership Conference (SLDC) and the Global Glimpse program under Zuroski’s mentorship, looks back fondly upon conversations with Zuroski, she said. “[Before Ms. Zuroski,] I had never found a teacher that seemed to both understand the complexities of my upbringing while simultaneously having the answers to all of my questions,” McLamb said.

Dakota Stennett-Neris (12), who worked with Zuroski to start the Hilltop Diversity Coalition (HDC) appreciates Zuroski’s careful consideration and willingness to help student ideas for new ICIE initiatives, she said.

In her retirement, Zuroski looks forward to visiting family, including her father and three grandchildren, and traveling in and out of New York City, she said. “The joy of work is to have competence and to be able to execute what you’ve learned well,” Zuroski said. “I’m also a little bit hungry to test myself out, meet new people, and try new things.”

As for the ICIE, Zuroski feels hopeful to have left the office in good hands. The team, composed of a diverse group of people with professional experience, has been engaging in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work in order to improve the school’s community, Zuroski said.

“She set the stage for the transformational work of our office to reach all divisions and set us up for the next 10 years of great work,” coDirector of the ICIE John Gentile said. “She will enter the shared lore of the stories we will tell that define HM’s legacy.”

Next year, Gentile and ICIE Associate Candice Powell-Caldwell will work together to take on Zuroski’s role, Gentile said.

“I can’t remember a day where I was not excited to come to HM,” Zuroski said. “I feel so fortunate that I had a job in the school that gave me the breath, flexibility, and trust to find and identify important work and allow me to do that.”

insights from their perspective has been one of Brodsky’s favorite things about teaching, he said.

“Somebody will say something and I’m like ‘ooh I’ve never thought of that,’” he said. “Having that kind of aha moment for the student and me is something I will miss.”

“His enthusiasm with his students and books inspired me to work hard in his class,” Abigail Morse (10), a former student of Brodsky’s, said.

Morse has especially fun memories of spending time dissecting and acting out scenes from Romeo and Juliet, she said.

Kathy George has been a longtime colleague of Brodsky’s in the MD English Department. “Mr.

Brodsky has always valued creating spaces where students can express and grow their individual voices,” she said. “Interpretive choices were always encouraged, welcomed, and affirmed.” “[Brodsky] has impacted the school by being a dedicated teacher, and he will join the school’s legacy of great teachers,” Morse said.

Brodsky has returned to writing on top of his teaching in the past few years. After retiring, he plans to focus more on his writing projects and figure out what comes next for him. “It’s a little scary, but it’s good to take on a risk,” he said.

Kenneth Carpenter

Jack Crovitz Staff Writer Beloved Upper (UD) and Middle Division (MD) World Languages teacher Kenneth Carpenter is retiring after 28 years of teaching

at the school. After a long and versatile career that has spanned 45 years, he is planning to devote himself to the creative arts and relax.

“I look forward to getting inspired by something and to give back a bit of what I have enjoyed,” Carpenter said.

Carpenter has taught both Spanish and French in the Middle Division as well as the Upper Division.

As a teacher of World Languages, he brought calmness, resourcefulness, and talent to the department, World Languages teacher Susan Carnochan said. “When I was new to Horace Mann, he was always very kind and very generous, and he has a very clever sense of humor,” she said.

Carpenter grew up in the Vietnam War era and learned French in case he was drafted into the military to try to attain a position as a translator rather than a combat position, he said. Thankfully, he was not drafted.

He decided to try out teaching after college.

“By the time I had taught a year, I was hooked,” he said. “I loved it. I felt that my place was in the classroom helping kids.”

Carpenter is known by his students as a talented and inspiring teacher.

“He really taught the class in a special way and made sure that every class was new, engaging and a lot of fun,” former student Julia Roth (12) said. Carpenter helped students feel comfortable expressing themselves in French,

she said. “He created a really great environment in the classroom,” she said.

He is also known for his artistic talent.

Carpenter created a series of cartoons for students that the Spanish and French departments used to teach classes, including AP Spanish, Carnochan said. He hopes to publish them for wider use in educational facilities during retirement, Carpenter said.

Throughout his long career teaching language, Carpenter has improved and enriched the lives of his students. “I wanted to help kids learn a foreign language and expand their view of the world,” he said. “As Charlemagne said, ‘Having two languages is like having two souls.’”

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HORACE MANN MIDDLE DIVISION MAY 3RD, 2019

An overview of sixth grade SOI Ben Wang Staff Writer

Office of Identity, Culture and Institutional Equity (ICIE) Associate Sharina Gordon has created a pilot Seminar on Identity (SOI) course for a few sixth-grade classes, inspired by the original junior year SOI program.

The classes met twice a week for 45 minute periods during the first and second trimesters. The purpose of SOI was to foster an understanding of identity at the individual level, jumpstart discussion of identity at the structural level, and to identify tools to begin to respond to injustice, Gordon said.

“During the first half of the course, students dove into identity formation and started to build the foundation for deeper conversations,” Gordon said.

“During the second half, students examined the intersections of gender and race through readings, film screenings and open dialogue.”

Some of the topics covered were difficult to talk about for anyone at any age, but it was a good time for them to start talking about these issues, Dean of Class of 2025 Michelle Amilicia said.

“We decided on having the program in the sixth grade because it’s a large entry point for our student body,” Gordon said. “It is a great time to lay the foundation of how to have conversations about identity and how that shows up in and outside the classroom.”

“A few of the topics we talked about, I didn’t really know that well before the class,” Emily Wang (6) said.

For example, prior to the course, Wang was not very familiar with some of the LBGTQ+ issues, but coming out of the class, she thinks she’s learned a lot, Wang said. “We learned to see things from other people’s perspective.”

Amilicia has seen the effects of the course outside the classroom as well, she said. “We were

in an assembly when one student said something that may have been brushed off, but other students around them said to the [first] student that what they said was a micro-aggression,” Amilicia said.

The course can open the door for healthy conversations, and even though it may cause some discomfort or hurt feelings, it’s better done this way on a consistent basis, Amilicia said.

There were definitely times and topics where the class was a little uncomfortable and awkward, Olivia Coward (6) said. “But we realized that we should just be more mature.”

Although Coward believes the main goal of the class was positive and helpful, she had already known or learned many of the topics from Youtube, her mom, and other kids, she said. “I think the teachers are teaching valuable material, but most of the kids knew most of the topics already,” Coward said.

Amilicia, however, maintains her confidence in

the course, she said. Some students may know about these issues from Instagram or memes, but they don’t necessarily talk about them in the correct way, she said. “The class offers a chance for questions and to hear about how others feel.”

Although the course shares a name with the one in the Upper Division (UD), there are a few notable differences, one of them being teacher and student pairings, as compared to single teacher UD classes.

“For sixth grade SOI, we pair up teachers in intentional cross-racial pairings, so that the students can get multiple perspectives,” Gordon said. The classes also met more frequently than in the UD program, so that the MD students and faculty could have more time to connect with one another.

The class dynamics are also dissimilar tp those of the 11th grade course, Gordon said. “Sixth graders have different behavioral needs that faculty must be able to address that are different from 11th graders,” she said.

MD students reflect on the past year Abi Kraus/Photo Editor

Emily Wang I’d say that sixth grade was overall a pretty good year! There were a few things that I learned the hard way, but in the end when I look back at all the stuff that’s happened in the past, I’m glad that I made these mistakes now when they don’t matter as much instead of when it really matters.

Surprisingly, the transition into middle school was very smooth.

I think that the advisory trip to Dorr helped tremendously. In 6th grade, everyone is new to the Middle Division, and that is a common thing that all of us can bond about. Because of that, making friends wasn’t incredibly difficult.

Also, Horace Mann is incredibly different from my other school and so

I did a ton of research on this school over the summer.

I didn’t really have a lot of particular expectations about sixth grade, but I’d heard that there was a lot of homework and pressure. But to be honest, it wasn’t like that - the teachers made sure that the work they gave was manageable along with my other classes, so I didn’t feel that stressed..

An important thing that I learned was that the key thing to getting good grades is to study and understand the material, and to never be afraid to ask questions, as often others will have the same question. And if you are not asking your question, who benefits?

One class that impacted me a lot this year was Seminar on Identity (SOI), which was unlike any class that I’d never had before. It was interesting to participate in a class that did not teach just academics. SOI helped us to reflect upon and improve ourselves and gave us insight on the world that is hidden from us.

Julia Isko/Staff Photgrapher

Nia Huff All in all, seventh grade was successful for me. I enjoyed the social dynamic of bat/bar mitzvahs, I appreciated the new independence given to us by teachers, and I was thrilled that I could try a new sport every trimester.

Before I started seventh grade, I was totally committed to soccer yearround, but then I got to try a new sport every season, which was a great experience. I did soccer in the fall, tried fencing in the winter, and loved running track in the spring. It was great to diversify my athletics because I realized how many different and cool sports there were that I hadn’t experienced yet.

I also enjoyed the newfound freedom given to us by teachers, because it allowed me to figure out how to manage my time

during school and how to learn when I needed to check-in with teachers.

In sixth grade, frees were limited and most of them were used to check in with our teachers, but this year, it was all on us to know when’s the right time to schedule a meeting with a teacher.

Another highlight of my year was the seventh grade history curriculum, which was extremely interesting and eye-opening. It was really cool because we got to learn about NYC and what challenges it faced to become the city that we live in today.

Although the year was filled with highs, I also encountered a few lows. The workload for me definitely increased compared to sixth grade tremendously, which forced me to learn how to manage my time because I became extremely busy on both the weekends as well as during the school week participating in my extracurricular activities.

Despite a few bumps in seventh grade and the occasional drama, I thought it was a great year and I really loved being a seventh grader.

Julia Isko/Staff Photgrapher

Henry Levinson With Dr. Kelly as the acting Head of the Middle Division this year, it felt like the Middle Division was finally the center of the HM universe and not the forgotten middle child in between the two divisions. Having Dr. Kelly as the acting Head was not all fun and games - in fact, the fun and games of Middle Mania became Mini Mild Enthusiasm and cellphones became national security risks. But nevertheless, it seemed like Dr. Kelly got to know every student in the MD and supported everything we wanted to do, which I appreciated.

I found eighth grade to be a trial of responsibility and maturity, a good segue into the Upper Division and yet also a warning that we aren’t yet prepared for the next four years. As the MD elders, we were allowed much more freedom than last year,- something that came with both benefits and downsides. A lot of that freedom was used to manage the most extreme workload that any of us had experienced to this point in our education. Homework increased in time and difficulty, and long-term assignments - projects, presentations, essays, labs, and skits - became the bane

of our existences.

I recognize that these kinds of assignments are supposed to test and teach us the kind of time management we will need in high school and beyond.

Truth be told, I am not naturally good at time management. Up to now, this hadn’t had terrible consequences; I guess my time wasn’t so valuable. But now I have realized that wasting time leads to sleep deprivation, exhaustion, poorer academic performance, and ultimately no social life or, really, any meaningful life. If I learned anything this year, it’s that the secret to a good life is to avoid spending all of it stressing about overdue school work.

One one of the most crucial time management skills I learned is the value of concision. One of my tendencies as a student is to speak and write too much.

My eighth grade English class taught

by Ms. Yarosh taught me an important lesson in this regard. After hearing too many of my words about To Kill a Mockingbird and Macbeth, my English teacher, Ms. Yarosh, helped me learn how I could make my points more directly and efficiently. I realized that less was sometimes more.

Eighth grade tested me across many dimensions, but for good reason. My most difficult challenge will be applying the same skills in the UD, where the stakes seem much greater. But before looking beyond middle school and anticipating what’s to come, this is the perfect opportunity for me and my peers to look back on our experience in these recent years and to appreciate how far we have already come.

Dean Asoluka’s letter to the incoming Class of 2023 Dear Class of 2023, One of the biggest sources of stress the summer before my ninth grade year was the matter of the cusswords. In the eighth grade, I prided myself as a non-cusser. I fancied myself for having more “appropriate” and more “sophisticated” ways to communicate my emotions. It was also the 90s, so we just had cool slang back then. There was no need to punctuate every fifth word with a F bomb because we could just say, “Yo, you buggin,” or “Yo, he sonned you,” and it packed a seismic punch.

There was also my parents, my immigrant Nigerian parents, who would, to put it lightly, dramatically alter my whole life if I became a “cusser.” In the eighth grade, there was no real threat. For the most part, my friends seemed to talk rather appropriately both in and out school. Sure, there were some kids who resorted to “the dirty language,” but I wasn’t in their circles. I hung out with the nerds who traded basketball cards and stories of our immigrant families. We played HORSE in each other’s backyards, ate Blimpie’s sandwiches on the front stairs, and updated our World Wrestling Federation blogs. I liked being safe and wholesome.

I built my whole middle school career on the back

of the words “safe” and “wholesome.”

High school, however, from everything people said, was a whole different animal. I had heard all about the proliferation of the cuss and how it infiltrated every friend circle! This gave me so much anxiety. I used to think, “What if I become so inundated with the cusswords that it became a part of my entire being and I would just let it fly at dinner: ‘Pass my effin’ bread, Mom.’” Or: “What if I somehow become an entirely new person just so I could survive the halls of high school? What if I become a walking fraud and there is nothing to do about it? Dear God!” On the first week of high school, I was vigilant.

I did hear a group of boys let a bunch of words go off during the morning meeting, but I said, “No, not me.” Later, I heard some upperclassmen, tall adultlooking boys with leather varsity jackets, really go at it during lunch, but I said, “No, not me.” When other moments happened, I would say that again and again: “No, not me.” It became a mantra of sorts. “No, not me.”

As I grew older, I no longer had the fear of the “cuss words.” It became, almost immediately, a ridiculous fear, but what I held onto was that mantra of “No, not me.” It came to mean that I am

the author of my own story. I became very focused on not being swayed to be a person that did not resonate with how I wanted and needed to show up in the world. If I was in a situation that raised red flags within me, I would stop and think, “Is this me?” If it wasn’t, I had to suck up the momentary discomfort or embarrassment and walk away.

The mantra also became a self-imposed challenge.

For instance, in high school, I was an incredibly shy kid which in turn caused me to stammer through my words, but I started to tell myself: “No, not me.” I didn’t want my insecurities to stop me from becoming the kind of person who put in action all the ideas that swirled within me. So, I challenged myself to conquer my fear. For example, during English or History classes, whenever I wanted to respond to the teacher’s discussion questions, I would write it down first before raising my hand.

This process gave me the strength I needed to take the risk to contribute. By junior year or so, I no longer needed to write my words down. I just found myself talking and talking. I imagine people who watched me in those early days writing my words down thought it was “weird” or “corny,” but I didn’t care. In essence, I wanted to be my best self. I wasn’t always perfect in this pursuit. I failed many times

in high school, but this mantra of “No, not me” became a rallying cry, my north star.

Class of 2023, I share this story with you because my biggest hope for this class is for you all to be the authors of your own story. There are and will continue to be a multitude of tempting and competing narratives in high school, but I want you to remember that you are the one at the wheel. As I mentioned at the orientation a few months ago, I believe the true gift of education is its potential to be the source of one’s liberation. Yes, we want all of you to go off to wonderful colleges and universities at the end of the journey, but my hope for you is much grander: I want you to be the best version of yourself. I want you to dream big and lean into the opportunities afforded here at the Horace Mann School to set them free. I want you to be you. I promise to center this thought for the next four years of our journey together.

Have a restful summer, Chidi Asoluka Dean, Class of 2023

10

THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 3RD, 2019

Soc i al M e di a an How does social media affect your wellness?

“Snapchat helps me keep in touch with out of school friends. It expands my social circle more than it distracts from it.” fied nse of uni e s e u r t a ace me get at Hor “They give ’t n o d I t y tha communit “They prom Mann.” ote an unre alistic standard th at I tr y to a chieve.”

“Increased confidence.”

“Makes me more conscious of my body image and gives me false perceptions of other people’s lives.”

“I know w

“Comparing myself with others.”

hen I’m ex cluded.”

p, less “Less slee

focused.”

We asked two students to limit their use of technology: no social media and a 50% reduction of phone usage. These were their results...

Euwan I started the screen time experiment thinking no Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat would force me to study for testing week. Though I technically failed to cut my average 3 hours and 8 minutes of screen time in half, I did accomplish my goal. I did not use Facebook, Instagram, nor Snapchat, and the time I did spent on my phone I spent texting in my math and physics group chats. The experiment did not start easily, however. The first day, Sunday, I had to open up Facebook to make a birthday post for a friend.

Even that little nibble of social media was intoxicating. I noticed that in the car, I kept impulsively reaching out for my phone and opening up Facebook because there was absolutely nothing to do but stare out the window.

The first day, I only cut off 7 minutes from my total screen time. The next day, I was determined to cut it down further: I logged out of snapchat and read the Book Day book on the bus instead of scrolling through dog videos on Instagram. Although I had to use Facebook to use the physics group chat, I successfully evaded the infinite time-sucking scroll. By the third and last day, I’d already gotten used to no social media and stopped impulsively

Kim opening and closing Facebook. It was difficult to communicate with friends using Messenger or iMessage since I primarily used Snapchat, but I was getting less distracted. Not only did I have a lot more time to prepare for testing week, I didn’t feel the usual guilt I’d place on myself after wasting hours on social media. I’ve been able to pay attention to my surroundings more as I walk between classes; it’s easier to notice the weather, the birds chirping, and the people chatting around me when I’m not staring down into a screen. We all know that social media can be an addiction, but this experiment has shown that it’s an addiction that’s hard to taper off of at first but gradually easier as long as you take the steps to curb your screen time. I haven’t seen a great noticeable difference in the amount of time I take to study, just what time I’ll start and what I’ll spend breaks doing. It seems obvious - it’s the kind of experiment you’d see in pamphlets and TedTalks - but it’s cliche for a reason. Distancing yourself from even a few social media applications does impact your effectiveness and mood, both as a student and as a teenager.

Lorenzo It’s early Thursday evening, and I haven’t been using several apps and websites on my phone or computer. I haven’t used these apps since Saturday, so it will have been a full six days tonight. This “purge” was not difficult for me, for two main reasons. First, I have had a lot of experience with totally abandoning technology, as my seven week summer camp does not have electricity, and other summer activities I have done require a very limited use of my phone. Second, I am not heavily invested in social media; I use Facebook almost fully for school related activities, so I consume very little original content that other creators post. Facebook is the only real social media I have; the two other main media apps I use are Imgur and Youtube. I use Imgur for entertainment, so it wasn’t difficult to stop using it. I use Youtube for entertainment and also to learn, but since I limited my use of Youtube to solely academic videos, it wasn’t difficult to stop using it either.

My average screen time last week was almost 4.5 hours each day, but for the past six days I have not been using Facebook, Imgur, Youtube, and Pubg Mobile (a game) on my phone or on my computer (unless for academic necessity). I still used communication apps like iMessage and Messenger on my phone, as well as on my computer. The only game I kept on my phone was the New York Times crossword app, which I viewed as intellectual enough not to ban. And one can only do so many crosswords.

With these restrictions, my average

Hess

screen time over the past six days was became 2.8 hours, or 2 hours, 48 minutes.

This is about a 1.5 hour difference in total.

During my purge, I noticed a few significant changes. First, I began spending more time on apps that I had not used too much while I had my “social media” apps accessible. Apps that I used more during my purge include the News app, the NYTimes Crossword app, and Overcast, a podcast app.

If I had kept the use of these apps to their prepurge levels, my average screen time would be less, maybe closer to 2 hours per day.

Another change I noticed was that sometimes I would look at my phone, expecting myself to check Facebook, Imgur, or Youtube, like a reflex, only to remember that I had deleted them for my purge. This was primarily in the first two days of the purge (Saturday and Sunday).

After that, I “got used to” having no social media apps and glanced at my phone less.

Overall, I think this experiment has made me realize that I had developed the reflex of looking at my phone and expecting something to be there for me, be it an email, text, or news article (I have notifications turned off for all other apps). If none of those notifications were there, I might check Facebook, and then, possibly, although with less frequency, Imgur or Youtube.

I would encourage others to try limiting what apps they use for a week, as it may emphasize the significance of time wasted on various sites.

For approximately how many hours do you use your phone each day?

Data collected from 142 respondents from a high school-wide anonymous survey by The Record.

11

HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNE 3RD, 2019

d M e n t al Healt h Jackson Roberts/Art Director

Mayanka Dhingra and Madison Li Staff Writers For many students, waking up and immediately checking their phone is just another part of their daily routine. However, as social media and technology become an even more integral part of our lives, its presence manifests uniquely for different individuals.

“Although social media is supposed to be fun and not that important, I find myself stressing out about whether enough people have watched my story or liked my post,” Nshera Tutu (10) said. “At times, I find myself feeling bad about myself because I feel like I can’t measure up to the people I see on social media.”

Alex Nagin (9) sees the issue as heavily gendered, with females feeling immense pressures to present themselves in certain ways online, causing issues surrounding body image and feelings of inadequacy, he said.

“The danger with social media is that

“

For her “Change” project in health class, where students are asked to make a change to one health-related habit for two weeks, Kate Bown (10) decided to use the app Headspace to meditate five to ten minutes each night. While Bown enjoyed the app at first, by the end of the project she found that doing something without a screen, such as talking with family or journaling, helped her de-stress more, she said.

Helena Kopans-Johnson (11) rarely uses social media more than once a day, and if she does, it is often during “transitory times,” she said.

The use of certain platforms of social media has the powerful potential of interfering with our “biologically-ingrained rewards systems,” Pervil said. “[These platforms] provide meaningful rewards, but they do so inconsistently.”

“Take Snapchat for instance: getting a message from a friend feels nice for a couple of seconds, and then you may not get a message for a little while,” he said. “That pattern of rewards actually makes us crave more, and so you can feel a real sense of need for more messages and a real sense

“At times I find myself feeling bad about myself, because I feel like I can’t measure up to the people I see on social media.”

- Nshera Tutu (10)

it provides an artificial platform to try to supplement feelings of insecurity rather than seeking healthier spaces to cope with those issues,” Nagin said.

However, feeling bad about herself doesn’t usually last long, Tutu said. “I just remind myself that everything on social media is especially curated to make experiences, lives, and people much better than they are, so I’m not really missing out.”

Upper Division psychologist Dr. Ian Pervil sees social media and technology as both potentially helpful and harmful to students’ wellness, depending on how they are used, he said.

“Think of how much we can learn about wellness from the internet or from apps that are tailored to our needs; at the same time, think of how undermining and damaging it can feel to be exposed to influences that undermine our selfesteem and hurt our well-being,” Pervil said.

Jackson Roberts/Art Director

of loss when you don’t get messages.”

Isha Agarwal (11) uses Snapchat more than she’d like to, she said. “As much as I’d like to say it’s for communication purposes, like many, I get caught up in streaks and maintaining friendships through the length of streaks,” she said.

Like Pervil, some students are also concerned with the dangers associated with social media as it affects mental health. Dalia Pustilnik (9) believes that there are different risks associated with social media for different age groups when it comes to editing apps, she said. Such apps can have a very negative effect on young, impressionable users who may not realize what is real and what is not, Pustilnik said.

An app like Facetune, a photo editing application used to edit, enhance, and retouch photos, allows the user to present an “‘improved’ but fictional self ” to the world that conforms

to technologically-built standards of beauty and youth, Pervil said. It results in those who use such apps possibly feeling unworthy of compliments and attention they get and others who don’t engage in the apps feeling like everyone is prettier than they are.

As a photographer, Kopans-Johnson will sometimes edit her photos, changing contrast or brightness, but she feels as though other forms of editing can be dangerous because they present only the best side of a situation, she said.

Mandy Liu (10) uses editing apps to edit the lighting and background colors, but she knows many people that use Facetune for physical features, she said.

“Personally, I think if someone is smoothing out their face or removing a pimple, I don’t think that is very detrimental to their selfesteem, but when it comes to editing their entire body in a way that they don’t even look like the same person, that is when editing is a problem,” Liu said. “When people keep using editing apps, they feel like they can’t post another picture without editing it, and it creates a never-ending cycle.”

Liu isn’t alone in her dislike for social media’s tendency to misrepresent reality. Justin Gurvitch (9) opts for social media forums like Reddit because he finds that unlike Instagram, users on Reddit are very honest, he said. For Gurvitch, the platform provides a sense of camaraderie and allows him to connect with people from all different walks of life.

One aspect of Reddit Gurvitch enjoys is “the excitement you feel when a post explodes,” he said. After posting a fact about Jon Bon Jovi’s restaurant on, “Today I Learned,” a sub-Reddit he frequents, Gurvitch received 44,000 likes in addition to 860 comments.

For Jonathan Mong (10), an avid Yankees fan, being on the baseball sub-Reddit has allowed him to learn sabermetrics and how they work, he said. On the flipside, Mong often finds himself procrastinating on Reddit and has a hard time getting his work done, he said.

“During the night time, it gets really tempting to check it while doing work and most, if not all the time I spend away from work at night is spent on my phone,” Tutu said.

Not only is social media a source of excitement and recreation, but for some students, certain platforms have more functional purposes. For Josh Benson (12), activism posts on Instagram and Facebook that address issues that are important to him are for the key purpose of educating, agitating, and organizing, whereas Reddit and private Facebook groups are more for recreational purposes, he said.

“I post about events that I’m going to in order to get people to go and support,” Benson said. “I also use it to find events to go to and to find groups to associate with.”

Similarly, Charlotte Cebula (11) follows many activists and organizations on her social media platforms and reposts their content on her own accounts , she said. She also often leaves links in her bio so that people can donate to organizations, such as Planned Parenthood and American Civil Liberties Union, of which she is a member, Cebula said.

“A lot of the ways people get awareness about issues is through Instagram and Facebook because they don’t really follow the news, so [posting on social media is] my way of helping people become more aware,” she said.

While some social media platforms can be used as a catalyst for activism and spreading awareness about certain issues, others have shied away from certain platforms after having been a regular user. Ben Lee (11) decided to stop using Reddit during his sophomore year after realizing the anonymity of the platform bred toxicity and hate speech, he said. Lee initially starting using the platform to connect with his peers in debate, but began to take issue with the superlatives circulating on the debate sub-Reddit such as “hottest debater” and “worst debater,” he said.

Nevertheless, social media can help students keep in touch with their goals. As someone who works out regularly, checking his YouTube subscriptions to fitness channels is part of Phillip Shen (12)’s daily routine, he said. For Shen, the biggest benefit of YouTube is content that provides information on good nutrition as well as proper form when working out, he said.

For some students, social media can do more harm than good, Chloe Choi (9) said.

“When people hang out, especially in groups, they want to post on Snap and Instagram and let everyone know that they’re hanging out and a lot of people can be hurt by that if they weren’t inluded.”

While social media has its benefits and drawbacks, it can serve as a powerful tool in terms of connecting people, Agarwal said.

“I understand that there are a lot of problems in terms of body image and perpetuating stereotypes of certain groups of people, but I think that there are so many uses to social media that we overlook,” she said. For example, Agarwal easily keeps in touch with family that lives across the world in India as well as friends that have left for college due to the power of social media.

“We often take those methods of connections that are at our fingertips for granted,” Agarwal said.

12

THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 3RD, 2019

The experience of

multiracial STUDENTS Kiara Royer Staff Writer

“I don’t really have control over my identity because sometimes other people just assume what I am,” Alexis Fry (10) said. “But, I wouldn’t choose to be solely White or solely Asian, and I like being both,” she said, identifying one of the complexities multiracial students at the school face.

Others often make assumptions about Fry’s identity, which in reality is both Chinese and White, she said.

“I’ve had people ask me ‘are you just White?’ or just assume that I’m fully White, or fully Asian, or even Hispanic, and it’s made me uncomfortable at times,” Fry said.

Fry’s experience is one shared by millions of Americans. According to the 2010 United States Census, nine million Americans, or approximately 2.9% of the population, self-identify as multiracial.

A survey completed by the Pew Research Center in 2015 states that 19% of multiracial people believe their identity to be an advantage, 76% believe that it makes no difference and 4% consider it a disadvantage.

“Multiracial students are the second largest student of color group on campus, so in part I think that speaks to a growing safer environment for those students,” Office of Identity, Culture and Institutional Equity Associate Sharina Gordon said.

According to Gabby Fischberg (10), who is half Filipino and half Argentinian, the school does not have specific friend groups pertaining to race or ethnicity, but it can still present challenges around being multiracial, she said.

“I don’t look Asian at all, so sometimes it feels a little weird talking to Asian moms or going to an Asian affinity group,” Fischberg said. “I feel like I have a connection with different groups of people that I wouldn’t have otherwise if I had just been one race; but at the same time, it almost feels like I can’t fully fit in because I’m not fully that race,” she said.

Similarly, Vivien Sweet (10), who is half Chinese and half White, has experienced incidents at school where her identity was questioned by others, she said.

“Last year, a junior asked me if I could participate in an AP Stat survey, and the first question was ‘are

which was hosted by Jayla Thomas (11) and Yasmin McLamb (12). During the workshop, Hernandez discussed colorism, a specific form of discrimination that privileges light-skinned individuals of color over those with dark skin, in Latin American culture.

Hernandez has heard insults towards her mom such as “go back to the South Bronx where you belong,” she said.

“Other people don’t realize that there are many shades of skin color even within the same country,” Hernandez said.

There is a gendered aspect to colorism as well. “People believe my brothers when they answer people’s questions about identity, but they constantly ask me and never believe me,” she said.

Because of her experiences, Hernandez refrains from defining herself by race and now prefers to identify herself by her ethnicity, she said.

Hearing Adriana’s talk about her experiences resonated with McLamb because “the only mixedrace Latina experience I’ve ever heard of were those of Afro-Latina descent, so for someone to identify as mixed within their own ethnic group was definitely an experience I’ve never heard of,” McLamb said.

McLamb said that Thomas originally came up with the idea of a workshop pertaining to the multiracial experience for Book Day, she said.

“As soon as we heard that the Book Day book was going to be Born a Crime, we immediately knew that we wanted to connect our identities to Trevor Noah’s,” McLamb said.

The two ultimately decided to first share a presentation that featured the history of colonization and the experiences of multiracial people around the globe. They then placed greater emphasis on the student panel, because “we thought it would be a great opportunity for students and teachers to see students on the panel talk about something beyond their academic ability and more about their personal lives,” McLamb said.

During the workshop, McLamb discussed how, while being raised by the East Asian side of her family, she watched others ask her mom questions such as “are you a babysitter?” or “did you kidnap this child?” McLamb said.

“Being raised by the culture that you don’t look

Courtesy of Vivien Sweet

THE SWEET LIFE Vivien and Natalie Sweet (10) and their family. you a minority?’” Sweet said. “I said yes because technically I am a minority, half a minority, but it still counts, and she said: ‘no you’re not, because you’re White.’”

“The fact that my appearance is ‘White,’ but I still couldn’t put [Chinese] down on the survey was crazy to me because even though I understand that that’s how I look, it’s not how I feel,” Sweet said.

Students and teachers have questioned Adriana Hernandez’s (11) identity from her appearance almost on a daily basis, she said.

“When my mom used to work [at the school], students and teachers would be like ‘oh, who’s your mom?’ and I’d have to explain who my mom was and why her skin color was so much darker than mine,” Hernandez said.

“Some people would even question the fact that I really am Hispanic at all until they hear my last name,” she said.

Because of her racial identity, Hernandez participated in a student panel during a Book Day workshop called The Multiracial Experience,

like is really hard for anybody, because if you can’t relate to people that look like you, and you can’t relate to people who are culturally the same as you, there’s really nowhere for you to go,” McLamb said.

McLamb didn’t meet another “Blasian,” an individual of both Black and Asian heritage, until she was 14, she said.

“I really walked around the world thinking that besides Tiger Woods, there was nobody out there like me,” McLamb said. “I was like ‘oh, whatever I say is the only time other people will see a Blasian person talk about their identity and their opinions,’ so I always walked around subconsciously knowing that there wasn’t someone like me in that space and that I had to always make a good first impression.”

There are individuals at the school who immediately perceive McLamb as a person of mixed race, others who perceive her as Black, and others who think of her as “some racially wishywashy person,” and so she struggles with finding her voice in the classroom, she said.

Race does affect you more at the school if you look the part, Jasper Heymann (11) said. “Even

though I’m half Chinese, I don’t think I’m treated or compared to Asian stereotypes because I don’t look very Asian at all,” he said.

For Philip Shen (12), who is half Chinese and half White, there have been times when students automatically assume his identity because of his surname.

When Shen told other students that he placed into Honors Algebra in eighth grade, they responded with “oh yeah, of course, because your name is Shen,” he said.

“In that case, it felt like my Chinese side was overriding my other half,” Shen said.

While appearance does affect one’s identity, Rosy Arora (10), whose mother is Italian and whose father is Indian, believes her biggest struggle is choosing which of her two halves to identify with at different times.

“I feel awkward about specifying that I’m Indian because it’s not obvious just by looking at me that I am, so if I do choose to identify with my Indian side, I think some people think that I’m not Indian enough,” she said.

At school, Arora has a group of friends who “won’t call me Indian and only recognize me as half,” she said.

“So even if I say that I’m Indian, they will also say ‘yeah, but you’re also White,’” Arora said.

Upper Division history teacher Dr. Kalil Oldham, whose mother is White and father is Black, has experienced a similar feeling of not knowing which side to identify with. Oldham said

“I don’t use [my multiracial identity] as a weakness, I use it as a strength, and I think people are now more drawn towards difference rather than being afraid of it.”

- Yasmin McLamb (12)

that his high school in Seattle had a very small Black population, so the first time he interacted with a large Black community was in college.

“College was a positive change in my life, but it also brought questions of racial identity that I hadn’t wrestled with or thought about before,” Oldham said.

One central question around identity for Oldham has been the question of what it means to be multiracial in American society, as “there is this history of expectation that if you have a Black parent, you are Black,” he said.

“I’ve always viewed myself as somebody who doesn’t belong to the White world,” Oldham said.

But he also feels that his racial identity has changed at different stages of his life, and it has been a hard topic to discuss, he said.

“When I started [at the school], the history department was an entirely White department, and for seven or eight years I was the only person of color,” Oldham said. “It’s been hard for me to figure out where I belonged and where I fit in, and I don’t think I ever figured it out because it was just a constant question,” he said.

For Gordon, her college experience provided the first real inclusive space for multiracial students, she said.

“I was like, ‘oh my gosh, we have our own club! I now don’t have to go in-between the Black Students Union and the South Asian Students Association,’” Gordon said. “I can exist in a space with other multi- and biracial folks. That was really mind-blowing and affirming to me because it was so exhausting constantly trying to assert one part of myself or another in those mono-racial spaces,” she said.

“I didn’t want to feel like I had to prove myself because I wanted to show up as me, as Sharina, with all of my intersections and complexities,” Gordon said.

Growing up, Gordon said that even though she felt very connected to her Indian heritage as well

as her Jamaican heritage, she had to emphasize her “Indian-ness” because others didn’t believe her, Gordon said.

“I think [being biracial] is definitely positive because I understand Australian culture as well as Taiwanese culture, so I’ve definitely learned a lot from being part of both,” Chloe Coward (9) said.

Ana Melian (10) believes that her identity doesn’t affect her in the classroom because the school encourages conversation and awareness of diversity, especially with events like Unity Week, Courtesy of Gabby Fischberg

ALL SMILES Gabby Fischberg (10) and family. she said.

Fry believes that there is a lot of understanding at the school in terms of being multiracial, she said.

“There are a lot of multiracial students in my grade, so I’ve found people that I can talk to at school about being biracial; but in society, it’s not talked about that much.”

Heymann believes that although Asians are subjected to certain stereotypes, “Horace Mann kids seem to be doing a good job of respecting Asian culture for what it really is,” he said.

Even though her two cultures don’t collide often, Sweet said that it’s beneficial to be able to experience two different cultures, she said.

Self-identification can be a constant process, Gordon said. “Becoming conscious of your own racial identity, how you like to be defined, how you’d like to be seen - it can become even more layered when folks are in the middle or on a spectrum,” Gordon said.

While McLamb remains the only person like her in most spaces, she no longer believes that her individuality is a bad thing, she said.

“I don’t use [my multiracial identity] as a weakness, I use it as a strength, and I think people are now more drawn towards difference rather than being afraid of it,” McLamb said. cLamb finds that her family has become her support system, as her parents have raised a child who was “different,” so they understand, to an extent, how to respond to racial difficulties, she said.

“Definitely find your support system and remain authentic; don’t change yourself for other people’s opinions of what you racially should be, and don’t adhere to stereotypes, because you’ll lose yourself Juli Moreira/Art Director

along the way,” McLamb said.

“Own it, own all of who you are, and don’t feel like you have to choose one side or compromise yourself just because it makes other people feel more comfortable with your identity or your existence,” Gordon said.

13

HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNE 3RD, 2019

The New Community Project Madison Li Staff Writer New Community Project, the brainchild of English teach Chidi Asoluka strives to expose students to a multitude of perspectives and service learning in the local community through literature and hands-on entrepreneurship work.

Asoluka’s class, which was implemented this school year, intends to combine three disciplines into a single year’s class: literature, as the gateway to understanding the local entity, social justice, by using one’s talents and gifts to collaborate with one’s community through empathy not pity, and business, by creating a project and putting it out into the market to see how it fares, he said.

The road to making New Community Project into what it is today wasn’t easy, however.

In his third year of teaching, Asoluka questioned whether teaching was really what he was destined to do for the rest of his life, he said. His friend, to whom he reached out for advice, told Asoluka, “I don’t know anyone more destined to be an educator than you,” admitting that he envied Asoluka and wanted to be more like him. One piece of advice from the conversation that stood out to Asoluka, now in his 14th year as a teacher, and inspired him to continue teaching was that he should make the job his own, instead of trying to be a traditional educator, he said.

The advice from his friend stuck with him, Asoluka said. “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to make [my job] my own since then, and I’ve had a lot of iterations of what that looked like,” he said.

Striving to find something authentic to who he was, after discarding many ideas, Asoluka woke up one day with the idea of the New Community Project, which combines all of things he cares and is passionate about into a Courtesy of Abigail Kraus

TEACHING Mr. Asoluka leads his class. “gumbo,” he said.

“When I teach, I feel like it’s more than a class, and rather I’m inviting students to my mindset,” Asoluka said. He hopes that the class serves as a catalyst for self-reflection, breaking the “Horace Mann bubble,” as well as learning about service and entrepreneurship, Asoluka said.

For Jamie Berg (12), the class has deepened his understanding of how institutions of power and trauma as well as how the conditions of one’s environment affect people’s’ lives in different ways. Above all else, the class has taught him a lot about himself, he said.

“It’s forced me to think deeply and critically examine things that I take for granted in my life– how authentic am I truly being to myself?”

The class also requires that students think about their own identities. “How do I lean into my whiteness at times to get preferential treatment? I’ve had to ask myself a lot of questions like that,” Berg said.

In the beginning of the year, Asoluka focused on the theme of “innerview,” which regards reading personal narratives and creative nonfiction texts that allow students to think inwards about who they are, who their family is, and what their friend group dynamic is, as well as speaking from the I perspective in conversations, Asoluka said.

In addition, New Community Project stands out to Berg as a class in which the students are actively influencing the world rather than staying contained within the insular bubble of the school by creating sustainable projects that they hope will impact the community, which appeals to him, he said.

Nisha Saghal (12) chose to take New Community Project because she wanted to move away from the traditional English class structure into an environment that pushes one to think beyond words on a page, she said.

“A huge part of the course is changing how you read, because you aren’t necessarily reading to analyze specific lines from a book but instead really delving into the identities and choices of the different characters,” Saghal said.

To Melchior Lee (12), the class is unique in that it forces members of the class to actively think about what they’re reading, he said. “I think that’s a positive stray from a traditional English class setting, where people can get lost in the literature and can get away with immersing themselves within the books,” he said.

As the class discusses issues that affect each student’s daily life instead of only the lives of characters in the books, that means that everyone has something to contribute to the class conversation, Lee said.

Aside from reading a variety of texts, the class has also focused on writing.“Throughout this course, we have focused heavily on writing with intent and unpacking the meaning behind what we write,” Caroline Kaplan (12) said. “Saying ‘what does that mean?’ after each line I write is one of the important skills I will take away from the class, aside from all of the business skills I am learning in conducting our project.”

The class still reads and writes like a conventional English class, but it does so in rather unconventional ways. Students write emails to people from nonprofit organizations, and Asoluka proofreads them for grammar and clarity, he said.“There is still reading and writing– it just looks different,” Asoluka said.

For its final projects, the class is split into three separate groups that each take on separate tasks: marketing, community engagement, and programming. The class started to work on the projects full-time after spring break.

The class worked with the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center (KHCC), Courtesy of Abigail Kraus

TIME FOR CLASS Students gather for round table discussion. designing projects that will ultimately benefit KHCC and its community members, which incorporates an entrepreneurship element, Asoluka said.

The mission of KHCC is to “empower Bronx residents from cradle to career to advance education and well being for a vibrant community,” according to its website. The class has visited KHCC several times throughout the year to learn more about its personal story, including the intersectional forces within the organization and the mechanisms of the nonprofit, Asoluka said.

“We began with focusing on what it takes to run a nonprofit, and what is involved, including operations, funding, the process of expanding the organization, and leadership,” Executive Director of KHCC Margaret Della said.

In the fall, the class visited KHCC and learned about all of the programs that KHCC provides, such as those for expectant mothers and babies, older adults, survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, young men and women with special needs, bilingual communities, and people that are living on the cusp of the poverty line, Della said.

One of the goals of the class is to “read” the nonprofit organization with which they are working like a book, analyzing what are the major characters, what are their conflicts, and what are the themes, in the same way you analyze and discuss a book, Asoluka said.

“We have a great deal of trust in them and [KHCC and the class] have a good relationship built, Della said. “We are optimistic about what will emerge from this partnership and hope they take these experiences into their professional lives.”

Courtesy of Ruth Seligman

FIELD TRIP! Students visit Kingsbridge Heights Community Center to speak to representatives from various programs.

Casey Lutnick This year in New Community, we watched a TED talk by social justice advocate Bryan Stevenson, in which he described “proximity” as staying close to those who are suffering or exiled. He said that proximity to those in need endows agency and humanity and allows oppressed voices to be heard.

The senior elective New Community teaches social justice through a combination of literary analysis, self study, and hands-on volunteer work. In the class, this concept of proximity was present in our discussion every day, and even more importantly, in our work with the greater Bronx community.

With our teacher, Mr. Asoluka, we analyzed the definition of love, discussed the importance of allyship, and defined the idea of “sight seeing,” wherein everything you experience is through your own lens, including your physical body and identity. We talked about the difference between being motivated by empathy and by pity and how this important distinction shapes one’s contributions.

In the fall, we read All About Love by bell hooks, which encouraged us to question the definition of love. We were assigned to “write a personal narrative that either complies, disagrees, or complicates a concept from All About Love.” Mr. Asoluka’s open-ended question forced me to spend hours thinking through difficult and complex ideas. I’m used to prompts that provide a lot of guidance, but instead, in New Community, we spent time in class learning flexible writing structures that apply to many different types of composition.

In the winter, the scope of our studies expanded from the individual to the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center, a local organization that coordinates early

“I am walking away from NewComm with a deeper understanding of how to study myself and those around me in order to build the strongest bonds of community.” childhood through adult programs. Reading If Beale Street Could Talk, we created thought maps that highlighted the importance of collisions and homecoming. We then compared the novel with KHCC’s purpose and needs.

I began to understand how factors in an individual’s identity, such as race or gender, can overtake love. More concretely, I learned about the importance of allyship in one’s personal life and in creating a non-profit.

The most central experience I have had with allyship is in terms of friendships. I consider my friends my strongest allies and my biggest supporters because I’ve built a community with them. Throughout my time at Horace Mann, I’ve made new friends and kept old ones since I was four, without giving it much thought. NewComm has taught me to analyze my relationships as if they are a “living text.” I was prompted to ask: What are the passions, ambitions and motivations at play in a relationship?

Does the setting impact the formation and development of relationships or community? Where can I see the intersection of race, class, and gender?

This theoretical work in the classroom helped me when it came time to create a project for the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center (KHCC). We visited KHCC and hosted the staff at Horace Mann, talked with volunteers, played with the kids, and got to know the center’s challenges more intimately over time. This empathetic engagement was directly connected with the literary training we began in September.

The projects have real-world impacts that incorporate themes and discussions from this year and will last even after we graduate. My group is creating a marketing video for KHCC, one that will be put on the service learning platforms of Manhattan College and Yeshiva University.

The purpose of the video is to attract more long-term volunteers to KHCC, because one of the biggest challenges we identified through our proximity to KHCC was volunteer retention.

NewComm is more than an English class. I’ve always thought of myself as a math and science student, but NewComm has allowed me to realize my potential as a writer and thinker. I am walking away from NewComm with a deeper understanding of how to study myself and those around me in order to build the strongest bonds of community.

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THE RECORD PHOTO ESSAY JUNE 3RD, 2019

LET’S. GET. CULTURAL. Photo essay designed by Abigail Kraus

The Black Parents Union hosts a showing of “Fresh Dressed,” a film about the development of black fashion & culture through the 80s and 90s, featuring a handful of designers who were present for a talk-back.

The Feminist Students Association hosts its annual dinner with “Women in the Arts” as the theme.

The Horace Mann community strives to celebrate the multitude of cultures that represent our student body, from Nursery to Upper Division. Here are a series of photos from some of the beautiful events we’ve had on our campuses throughout the 20182019 school year.

The Nursery Division educates students about Diwali through celebratory music and dance.

The Lower Division celebrates Lunar New Year with traditional outfits, artwork, and lucky decorations.

All photos taken by Jasmin Ortiz.

HORACE MANN LIONS’ DEN JUNE 3RD, 2019

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Fall Sports Teams Girls Tennis 11-0

Football 7-1 Girls Soccer 0-14-1

Boys Water Polo 7-5 Soccer 7-8-2 Field Hockey 8-5

Girls Volleyball 4-11 Girls X-Country

Boys X-Country

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THE RECORD LIONS’ DEN JUNE 3RD, 2019

Winter Sports Teams

Boys and Girls Swim 7-1

Boys and Girls Ski

Boys Basketball 11-9

Boys Fencing

Girls Indoor Track

Girls Fencing

Girls Squash 7-6

Boys Indoor Track

Girls Basketball 24-2

Wrestling 11-0

Boys Squash 14-4

HORACE MANN LIONS’ DEN JUNE 3RD, 2019

Spring Sports Teams

Boys Outdoor Track

Boys Tennis 12-1

Girls Lacrosse 4-12

Softball 8-7

Boys Tennis 12-1

Boys and Girls Crew

Boys Lacrosse 3-10

Boys Volleyball 7-7

Ultimate Frisbee 6-5

Girls Rugby

Baseball 9-10

Golf 11-0

Girls Outdoor Track

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18

THE RECORD VOLUME 117 JUNE 3RD, 2019

Oh, Baby! here comes VOLUME 117 Amelia Feiner News Editor

Julia Robbins Editor-In-Chief

Sam Keimweiss News Editor

Abigail Salzhauer Opinions Editor

Eddie Jin Arts Editor

Gabby Kepnes Features Editor

Madison Li News Editor

Nishtha Sharma Arts Editor

Simon Yang News Editor

Ranya Sareen Lions Den Editor

Isabella Zhang Middle Division Editor

Nelson Gaillard Features Editor

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HORACE MANN VOLUME 117 JUNE 3RD, 2019

Jude Herwitz Issues Editor

Mayanka Dhingra Managing Editor

Kiara Royer Features Editor

Darius McCullough Lions Den Editor

Andrew Cassino Lions Den Editor

Eliza Poster Arts Editor

Mark Fernandez Lions Den Editor

Victor Dimitrov Opinions Editor

Ben Wang Middle Division Editor

Euwan Kim Design Editor

Reena Ye Design Editor

Gabby Fischberg Arts Director

Annabelle Chan Arts Director

Ahaan Palla Photo Editor

Jake Shapiro Photo Editor

Griffin Smith Photo Editor

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THE RECORD COLLEGE MAP JUNE 3RD, 2019

California

Illinois

CAL POLY ENGINEERING

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERISTY

Audrey Yu

Isabelle Banin

CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY Everett Kagan POMONA COLLEGE Natasha Stange SCRIPPS COLLEGE Analisa Gagliardi STANFORD UNIVERSITY Kate Golub William Golub Ben Hu Casey Lutnick Sajan Mehrotra

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Jamie Berg Jacob Bernheim Andre Dang Ryan Hoang Ashna Jain Abby Kanter Janvi Kukreja Ryan Leung Samuel Puckowitz Raphael Silverman Bradley May

Juli Moreira/Art Director

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS Tino Caer

UC BERKELEY Elizabeth Chung UC LOS ANGELES Siona Gupta Paul Tchelistcheff Emily Yu

Indiana UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME Joshua Tom

UC SANTA CRUZ Bebe Steel UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Isabelle St. Jean

Connecticut WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY

Louisiana TULANE UNVERSITY Akida Joseph Matthew Kaufman Olivia Klein Simon Logan-Sankey

Maine

Faijul Rhyhan YALE UNIVERSITY Richard Hausman Julia Hornstein Nader Granmayeh Natasha Gaither Matthew Li Ben Metzner

BOWDOIN COLLEGE Lorenzo Hess

Maryland JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY Richard He

District of Columbia

Massachusetts

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

BOSTON COLLEGE

Nyle Hutchinson

Michael Sun-Huang Young Joon Kim

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY Sophie Coste Allison DeRose Elizabeth Fortunato Eva Fortunato Eliza Zelnick HOWARD UNIVERSITY Deveraux Mackey

Georgia EMORY UNIVERSITY Eddie Ahn Peri Brooks Brittany Jones Sadie Schwartz GEORGIA TECH Ryan Eastep

BOSTON UNIVERSITY Anabelle Pinkston Colin Mark

Michigan UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN Shant Amerkanian Sam Benchimol Evan Buonagurio Dylan Friedman Megha Nelivigi Charlie Silberstein

BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY Schuyler Rabbin-Birnbaum Sophia Reiss Josh Benson HARVARD UNIVERSITY Betsey Bennett Arul Kapoor Miyu Imai Eli Laufer Lynne Sipprelle Claire Yoo

Minnesota

TUFTS UNIVERSITY Dana Jacoby Ethan Kim Silvia Wang WELLESLEY COLLEGE Alexia Gilioli WILLIAMS COLLEGE Nikhil Ostrander

BARD COLLEGE Charlotte Pinney BARNARD COLLEGE

CARLETON COLLEGE Jackson Stinebaugh MACALESTER COLLEGE Solomon Katz

Karen Jang BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY Yoseph Kamran COLGATE UNIVERSITY

SMITH COLLEGE Alba Bryant

New York

Emily Zeppieri

Missouri

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST LOUIS

Eunice Bae Ari Moscona-Skolnik Jackson Roberts David Shen Philip Shen

Alexandra Crotty Maya Dubno Nisha Sahgal

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HORACE MANN COLLEGE MAP JUNE 3RD, 2019

Pennsylvania BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY Maya Freeman CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY Andrew Caosun DICKINSON COLLEGE Brody McGuinn UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Matthew Chung Will Han Caroline Kaplan Tyler Jonas Eric Ohakam William Sassower Gibby Thomas

Rhode Island BROWN UNIVERSITY Gavin Delanty Katie Goldenberg James Gluck Lauren Port Becca Siegel

Tennessee VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY Craig Murray Josh Taub

Virginia UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND Andrew Rosen

New Hampshire DARTMOUTH COLLEGE Olivia Kester Chidimma Okpara Henry Wildermuth

Wisconsin LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY Cindy Kaiser UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

CORNELL UNIVERSITY Kyle Bernardez Adam Bleustein Jake Bloom Sophie Ehudin Katie Fine Kai Galvan-Dubois Noah Goldberg Abigail Kraus Kyra Kwok Michael Ortiz Jonathan Oshrin Allen Park Alexandra Reich Lucy Rittmaster Aaron Snyder Veronica Stellings Dakota Stennett-Neris Nicole Warszawski Evan Wu HAMILTON COLLEGE Surya Gowda NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Ragan Henderson Devon Hosaido Stewart Hughes Mel Lee Mia Sebastien Leonard Song

Ellie Klein Sasha Matt Tatiana Pavletich RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE Jakob Djibankov Kyra Sanchez SKIDMORE COLLEGE Kyle Gaillard Maxime Guilbaud Juli Moreira

New Jersey PRINCETON UNIVERSITY Abigail Goldberg-Zelizer Connor Morris Adrian Rogers

England CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS Malka Krijestorac

ST. JOHN’S UNIVERSITY Kamaal Watts STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY Gabriel Hernandez SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY Adam Fife Anika Rabkin Destiny Wright-Butler UNION COLLEGE William Moran

North Carolina DUKE UNIVERSITY Morgan Joseph Hannah Long Alexa Mark UNC CHAPEL HILL Alexandra Peeler Julia Roth

Sweden KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Alexander Binnmyr

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THE RECORD ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT JUNE 3RD, 2019

College Recruitment in the Arts Victor Dimitrov Staff Writer Despite the school’s reputation of intense academic rigor, many students manage to balance their musical and artistic passions in tandem with their courses. Following their high school experience, some students within the school hope to further the pursuit of their talents.

Students Miyu Imai (12), Adrian Rogers (12), Craig Murray (12), and alum Jasper Cox ’17, plan to use their college experiences to continue their explorations of the arts and music.

Cox has been pursuing the arts through classical vocal performance at the Peabody Conservatory, a subschool of Johns Hopkins University, he said. Before his graduation, he had been involved in chorus and a handful of musical productions at the school.

For Cox, his college process was exhausting because he was applying as a dual major to several schools, w h i c h required a separate

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figure out which songs to perform for his pre-screening and live auditions, a process that began at the start of his junior year, he said.

Cox’s college process was hyperfocused on his musical talent, he said. “[My process was] much less holistic than the average college process because at the end of the day, conservatories and music schools want to see who has the most potential to grow and have a great career,” he said.

Unlike Cox, Imai’s process focused much less on her as musician and more as a student, she said. “I definitely did not rely on it entirely for my college process,” she said.

Imai has participated in both school orchestras, Orchestra and Sinfonietta, in addition to attending Julliard PreCollege, working to found orchestras outside of school, as well as doing outreach work, she said.

Imai plans to enroll in a dual degree program at the Berklee School of Music and Harvard University, allowing her to pursue her musical and academic interests simultaneously, she said. Like Cox, she also had to submit an arts supplement with recorded videos and a music resume to apply to this dual degree

/Ar t Di application rect or to the Common Application, containing his musical supplements and materials, he said.

Musicians have to prepare for program.

The school’s auditions, write music specific essays, admissions compile pre-screening recordings college (videos of them performing), and even officers help the students practice with college faculty across the submitting additional materials to ensure they stay on top of deadlines, country, Rogers said.

“You’re basically adding a second Senior Associate Director of College college process to the mix and it can be Counseling Christopher Farmer said. pretty overwhelming at times,” Rogers The material for artists or musicians is said. “It takes a lot of forethought and submitted through Slide Room, which is similar to the Common Application. planning.”

“It’s always helpful to see the artwork In addition to testing, Cox had to

Juli Moreira/ Art Director

a student is submitting to get to know the student,” Farmer said. Students often submit art to show their passions and convey how much time they’ve committed to them, Farmer said.

Typically applications to music or arts colleges are first read by admissions officers at the school; however, the artistic component of the application is then reviewed by a professor in that field, Farmer said.

Submitting artwork that is evaluated highly by an arts professor can really help a student in the admission process, he said.

“Depending on the college and a student’s intended major, art and music portfolios could be evaluated differently. Some colleges send the portfolio directly to the arts and music faculty to be evaluated,” Executive Director of College Counseling Canh Oxelson said.

If the student is planning to major in arts or music, there’s a good chance that the department faculty will weigh in on the decision, Oxelson said.

“HM teachers are great about sharing what they know of a student’s interests in the visual arts and music as well as the kinds of colleges that might really support those interests. They are also helpful in providing some direction about putting together portfolios,” Oxelson said.

Rogers also hopes to explore all the musical opportunities available to

him at his college, whether that be by taking classes with professors who motivate him, helping to teach younger musicians, or participating more generally in the music community at Princeton University, he said.

Rogers pursued his passion for music throughout high school in programs such as the New York Symphony Orchestra, the Manhattan School of Music Precollege Program, and the New York Youth Symphony Conducting Scholar, a program for young conductors.

For musicians interested in dual degree programs, the college process can get pretty tedious, Rogers said. In addition to the standard essays and testing that everybody goes through, you have to go through an entire other process, Rogers said.

“The best way to get ‘recruited’ is to meet a professor ahead of time,” said Rogers. “The professor I met with was really impressed with my conducting and really wanted me to come study with him next year, and that’s how I ended up where I am now.”

It is important to make a good impression on the faculty to ensure that you are getting your name out,

Max Shopkorn/Staff Photographer

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Mieu Imai (12) practices violin in the Recital Hall.

Cox said. Performing at and winning local regional competitions as well as participating in summer programs is essential to the college process for musicians.

“You want to learn your audition repertoire super early so by the t i m e

you’re auditioning, it’s just become ingrained into your mind, and you can play it without breaking a sweat,” Rogers said.

Like Cox, Rogers began planning his audition material in the beginning of his junior year. However, he had been touring and visiting faculty since late sophomore year to get a feel for which professors he liked, he said.

Rogers would have applied for a dual degree music program had he not been accepted to his early admission college, he said. “I was really fortunate, and I got in Early Admission, so I didn’t actually have to do most of my auditions.”

Murray will be pursuing a music performance degree in college, alongside a computer science degree.

His college experience will include regular recitals, music courses, and weekly piano lessons, Murray said.

Throughout high school, Murray played at most concerts featuring the school’s choir groups, as well as for numerous assemblies, he

said.

Murray’s process was similar to those of other students, he said. “I still had to visit schools, write essays, and fill out all of the fields on the common application.”

Murray started around the same time as his peers, which was late into the summer of his junior year, he said. However, picking the pieces for his piano audition repertoire started during the fall of his junior year, about a year before the early

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applications went out.

“Contrary to popular belief, my college process wasn’t that different from most other students.

The main difference was that I built my application centered around my musical ability,” Murray said. “A lot of people like to compare artistic recruitment to athletic recruitment, but I don’t think it’s exactly the same,” Rogers said. “In the arts, professors don’t usually reach out to you. You have to go to them and impress them, and if they like you then they’ll take you in,” Rogers said.

Unlike athletic recruitment, one does not rely on their coach to recommend them, Imai said. “You just promote yourself and show your skills directly through videos. It’s like submitting an extra essay on what your strengths are.”

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HORACE MANN LIONS’ DEN JUNE 3RD, 2019 Courtesy of Gibby

Thomas

Courtesy

of Jamie Be

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Gibby Thomas Tennis

Athletes eager to perform at the next level Darius McCullough Staff Writer The athletic careers of Gibby Thomas (12), Jamie Berg (12), Olivia Kester (12), Chidimma Okpara (12), and Nikhil Ostrander (12) will continue at the next level as part of college varsity teams. Each of these athletes have put immense time and effort into their training and navigated the balance between academic work and athletics throughout high school.

They will seek to make a large impact on their respective collegiate programs as part of the class of 2023.

Thomas’s tennis career began at an early age.

“I’ve been playing tennis since I was five years old, and I’ve been playing competitively since I was about eight,” she said.

With all-day tournaments on the weekends, time management was difficult, Thomas said.

“I always made sure I stayed on top of my work and my tennis by getting work done during frees or sometimes having to pull all-nighters, but it was worth it,” she said.

Thomas has committed to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) and will play Division I Tennis there.

Berg started wrestling in fifth grade. “It took

me a few years--until tenth grade--to fully commit to the sport and start to live my life in a way that would be conducive to athletic success,” Berg said.

After four years of the school’s academics and athletics, Berg will wrestle Division III at the University of Chicago (UChicago).

Berg’s decision to commit to UChicago was largely a result of his excitement about the school’s extracurricular programs, such as the Institute of Politics, as well as the success of their wrestling team in the 2018-2019 season, he said.

For Kester, splitting time between crew and her studies was not easy, but the adrenaline and joy of crew kept Kester motivated, she said. “The feeling that I get when I’m racing is incomparable,” she said. “It’s almost like a runner’s high.”

Kester will compete in the Ivy League Division as part of the crew team at Dartmouth College.

The recruiting process can begin as early as the summer of freshman year, Okpara, who will be playing tennis at Dartmouth College, said. Compared to the “normal” college application process, the recruitment process is much quicker and spots for the teams run out

quickly, she said. “This is definitely different from not being recruited as I finished my college process and committed to Dartmouth in the summer before senior year.”

As a Horace Mann student, Kester had the option to rely on her grades and apply to schools without the direct support of the coach, she said. “I was lucky enough that my dream school offered me a spot in their recruiting class.”

Ostrander’s college process was a bit different from the rest of the athletes as he was not recruited, and will walk-on to Williams College’s Division III football program, he said.

As a non-recruited athlete, football did not have an impact on Ostrander’s college process since he did not know if he was going to play in college. Once he was accepted, Ostrander and Varsity Football Coach Matthew Russo sent game films to the Williams football coach.

“During visiting days, I met with him on campus, and was offered a spot on the team,” Ostrander said.

Besides the fun of playing football for another four years, being part of a team gives a student-athlete a close-knit group on campus when school starts, Ostrander said. “It should

make the adjustment from high school to college much easier.”

For Thomas, playing the sport she has been playing for 13 years will have a positive impact on her college experience, she said.

However, the goals of these athletes for college range beyond just sports. Okpara plans to pursue the pre-med track, majoring in neuroscience or biomedicine, she said. “This may sound hard, but if I can balance Horace Mann’s rigorous academics with my hectic competitive schedule, I can do anything.”

Some of the seniors have high expectations for their athletic careers beyond college, while others plan to end them in 2023.

“I see myself playing professional tennis at the four major grand slams for a couple of years and then becoming an inspiring figure in women’s tennis,” Okpara said.

On the other hand, Thomas plans to stop playing competitive tennis when she graduates from UPenn, she said.

Berg aims to be a four-time Division III National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion at UChicago, he said. “I am going to wrestle until I can’t anymore.”

Courtesy of Nikhil Ostrander

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Nikhil Ostrander Football

Courtesy of Olivia Kester

Okpara Chidimma Tennis

Olivia Kester Crew

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THE RECORD LIONS’ DEN JUNE 3RD, 2019

The Game Of Life

Sophie Ehudin: Kivunim When I toured colleges, I didn’t look west of Chicago. Little did I know I would choose to spend my year living in Israel and traveling throughout Eurasia.

Before starting college, I am participating in a program called Kivunim. Kivunim is a gap year program that focuses on cultivating world consciousness. Kivunim will push me to gain a more nuanced and well-rounded view of the world beyond the confines of New York. I will be based in Jerusalem, but I will also travel to surrounding countries, including Albania, Greece, and Portugal, to get a behind the scenes look at other cultures and their practice of, and influence on, Judaism. While learning about the different perspectives, I will explore where my beliefs and values lay, and how the different cultures and religions coexist.

One opportunity the program offers me is the chance to learn in a different environment. I have been in a traditional classroom setting my whole life, and I am excited to learn in a new immersive and experiential environment where I can experience the rich diversity of the world and become a more empathetic person because of it.

During my four years at Horace Mann, I stacked up on math and science classes at the expense of social sciences and humanities classes.

During my undergraduate experience, I will be in an Engineering school where the same cycle will most likely repeat. Yes, I feel confident in

the STEM fields, but I believe that my academic experience will be enhanced by focusing on the humanities for a year. By going on this program, I will get to study the subjects I feel like I have missed out on. Immersing myself into different cultures will expose me to the needs of people from different backgrounds, and I will better understand how I can contribute to society and make an impact on the world.

I am excited for college, but I am enthralled to first have this experience which will push me outside of my comfort zone in a new way. To an extent, I don’t want to go to college and be in the same routine of going to class and going out at night. I want a bigger change in my life and to first experience the world. I am excited to slow down and have time for personal reflection and spiritual growth. I will have more time to reflect on my passions and interests to not only figure out my place in the broader world, but also to discover what makes me excited day-to-day and how I like to learn. I am also hoping this will enhance my college experience because I will have a clearer sense of how to make an impact on campus and the extracurriculars in which I want to invest my time in over the next four years.

Life is short, and I want to take advantage of this opportunity because it is rare that I will have this chance again. I encourage you to go out of your comfort zone and take a pause to learn about yourself and the world in a new light.

Rachel Lee: Gap Year Working I took a gap year because I didn’t feel ready for college.

College was always built up as this amazing, transformative place where I could pursue my intellectual passions. However, at the end of senior year, I didn’t feel ready to go into what was meant to be my most important, and possibly last, educational experience right after high school. After I signed my gap year agreement, I looked into all the different things gap year kids did – intense internships, study-abroads, travel – and I wanted an independent experience that was incredibly different from academics.

I decided to work as a nanny during the year and took on a bunch of other temporary jobs: art teacher, studio manager, barista, publishing assistant. I moved out of my parents’ house and into my own apartment and learned how to “adult” properly.

During the gap year, there were definitely moments of isolation and regret – without the community of people a school or a workplace brings together, I spent most of my time on my own. Seeing Instagram photos of friends juuling at frat parties, cramming in the library, and globetrotting on their gap years, I definitely felt like I made a mistake choosing a fairly boring way to spend my year.

Looking back at it though, with all the wisdom a first year of college can give you, it was a great experience. Aside from learning the very mundane skills of managing my finances and meal prepping, living for over a year as a young, unskilled minimum wage worker with only a high school diploma taught me first-hand

the privileges I have and the power of a college education. Those privileges even created my gap year: working at a coffee shop and babysitting, electing to take time off before attending a selective university, were all my choices, unlike some of my colleagues who didn’t and couldn’t choose.

I’d like to say college will always be more fulfilling and enjoyable after a gap year, that all gap year experiences will lead to earthshattering revelations, but there’s really no way to be sure – maybe I was ready right after senior year, and my life would have been equally great without some time off. You might end your year of working without the same realizations I came to, or drastically different ones.

I try not to be one of those gap year kids who seek to convert uncertain seniors into the gap year cult, but I do think everyone who is even mildly interested could get something fulfilling out of it. If you’re interested in working through your gap year, just know it may not be the life-changing experience you can rave to your classmates about in the fall. No matter what job you have, working gets to be monotonous and tiring. Gap year programs are so fun and wellattended because they are specifically designed to be engaging and challenging the whole time; similarly, classes and clubs at schools and universities, even the boring or work-intensive ones, are curated for students to experience.

The greatest challenges in my year were getting through boring or hard weeks, designing my life to include things I find engaging, and learning when to say no.

I just finished my sophomore year at Wellesley College. Halfway done with college! It has truly been nothing short of a roller coaster experience. A year ago, I would have told you how much I hated my first year. My best friend was having the time of her life at a big state school, and I had seen about three boys that entire year. I thought that having gone to The Spence School prior to Horace Mann, I would have been used to the social culture at a women’s institution, little did I know that was not going to be the case. But after a whirlwind of a year, joining a society, meeting new friends, and changing my

major, I finally feel like I can call Wellesley College my home. All-women’s institutions are not for everyone. There is a steep learning curve when trying to understand where you as a student fit in on campus. Freshman year is hard for everyone, but it is especially hard socially at a women’s college like Wellesley. If you can stick it out, it ends up being one of the best experiences you can ask for, but you can’t just sit idly and wait for it to come to you. However, know that if you can rise to the challenge, it will be the four most impactful years of your life.

Sarafina Oh: Women’s College

Christian Hernan There are plenty of reasons why 99% of people in America do not join the military, yet there are also plenty of reasons why 1% do. I fit into that 1%. I enlisted into the Army immediately after I graduated from Horace Mann to help pay for college and as an alternate path towards Officership other than going to West Point.

Many HM students may already be familiar with the United States Military Academy, however, the more popular option across the nation is the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). My path was a little unorthodox from the beginning as most students apply for the 4 or 3-year scholarships via Army ROTC at their prospective universities. Therefore, I need to separate my piece into two parts: the first discussing enlistment and the other discussing ROTC. Enlisting was an enlightening and humbling experience. Most officers in the military never experience this side because they attend college following high school. However, one thing an officer must understand before they can lead is how to follow, and the enlisted component of the military is at its core obedience. Before I go into depth about my experience, it is crucial to understand the disparities between an enlisted soldier and an officer. The simplest way to put it is to say an officer plans and leads while the enlisted follows and executes. A junior officer is one who responsible for about 40 people while more senior officers are responsible for

hundreds, even thousands of soldiers under their command. Those on the senior enlisted side act as advisors to these officers and the junior enlisted are the grunts of the force. As you can probably begin to understand, knowing the junior enlisted experience can be very impactful to a leader as the try to understand how to lead their soldiers to success.

When I enlisted, I was shipped to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where I trained with hundreds of other recruits from across the country and learned basic military tactics such as how to survive on the battlefield. We spent hundreds of hours training throughout the rigorous 10week program, including sleeping with my weapon every night in both the barracks and out in the field. The most rewarding experience, though, was learning how to adapt physically and mentally. As an HM alum, I believed I already knew what sleepless nights were like until I fought exhaustion through three days on two hours of sleep while receiving only the essential dietary necessities from MRE’s (Meals-Ready-to-Eat). However, it was not just the lack of sleep for which one has to account, but the continuous physical activity and stress of simulated survival. Under these conditions, we are trained to remain alert and ignore our mortal limits to accomplish the mission. This includes engaging in combat, administering first-aid under fire, communicating intel clearly, maintaining our weapons meticulously, and

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HORACE MANN OPINIONS JUNE 3RD, 2019

e: School Edition Juli Moreira/ Art Director

ndez: The Army protecting each other among the many other priorities of work under intense stress. These are skills you do not necessarily need in civilian life, but you learn many lessons from them. You learn how to remain collected under pressure, how to stay mentally vigilant and confident, and how to be self-disciplined, skills you will be hard-pressed to learn in the civilian world without possible substantial consequences.

ROTC is very different but reinforces the same ideals. ROTC administers these teachings through classwork and mock officer roles you will experience in the real Army. Fordham University is the school that hosts the ROTC program I attend, and the program is renowned for the high-caliber officers it produces. The students I have worked with are second to none in their leadership qualities and professionalism.

We conduct physical training three times a week at 0630 with a lab and classroom portion once a week lasting until 1530. In labs and classes, we learn about military tactics and strategies supplemented by management and leadership studies. While the primary focus is to produce Army officers among a typical college setting, much of what we learn applies to the civilian sector. Officers will be in command of hundreds of people, parallel to the role of upper management in business corporations.

An officer coming out of the Army is a veteran with experience being responsible for millions of dollars-worth of military-grade equipment

and the lives of their soldiers, whereas their civilian counterparts may have less applicable experience and fewer credentials.

I am currently on track to graduating and commissioning as a Second Lieutenant by 2021. I recently became a contracted ROTC scholarship recipient and will be heading to Air Assault school at Fort Campbell, Kentucky this upcoming July as a result of my working hard within the program. Before becoming cadet in ROTC, however, I spent roughly 2.5 years in the Army reserves, reaching the rank of Specialist (E-4) as a Signal Support Systems Specialist (25U) attached to the 340th Military Police Company headquartered in Fort Totten, NY. My experience in the Army thus far has been one of the best in my life, one I would never trade for anything else. The people I have met are some of the most amazing human beings I ever encountered, and most will be a part of my family for life. Between my firearms training, my skillset from my job as a 25U, and my future opportunities as I head towards active duty postgraduation, I wholeheartedly recommend this path to anyone willing to challenge themselves.

Do not be intimidated about the giant leaps the military presents. They are meant to drive you closer to success, and I challenge you to take those leaps to become greater than yourself.

Lucy Golub: A Year of “Real Life”

Anyone who’s spoken to me for more than a few minutes knows that I like to keep busy-- and, at a school like Horace Mann, keeping busy is almost too easy. After 13 years of classes, HMTC rehearsals, Spirit Squad Practice, press night, mentoring, and the slew of other random obligations that I somehow found shoved into my backpack with my AP Calc binders, I felt like I needed a breather. However, after so many years of living without the room to explore, I didn’t know what that meant. You go to school, attend club meetings, take the late bus, do your homework, cram for a test, sleep, snooze the alarm, chase after the bus, and do it all over again. There’s seemingly no way to escape from the routine because there’s always another thing to do. The idea of a gap year was something I initially dismissed. I planned to go right to college, somehow figure out what I want to do while I studied, and then head into the rest of life.

In May 2015, however, I confirmed my spot in Harvard’s class of 2019 and began dreading it.

After the university emailed me at the end of May to schedule my writing placement exam (classic, a test before we even arrived), I realized that continuing immediately with school was a terrible decision for me-- I wanted time to explore what I was actually interested in.

So, without knowing what I was going to do but with the encouragement of Ms. Pili, I emailed my admissions officer: “I’m thinking about taking a gap year. Is it too late to request that?” After a few nervous days, my gap year was approved and I was on my way to a full 15 months of… well, I didn’t know. How would someone who had filled almost every waking minute since middle school with something “productive” be able to figure out how to structure an entire year outside of school.

Having so much empty space to fill was stressful in itself, but I was both excited and overwhelmed by the possibilities. Would I work? Travel? Watch TV? What kind of job did I want to do? What would look good on a resume or help me get a job in the future? Alternatively, what would be fun?

While I wanted to focus on relaxing and enjoying, it was hard to shift from the mindset of needing to focus on the future all the time. With too many choices in front of me, I decided to take things one step at a time.

I spent the summer with friends, soaking in the last few moments that they would all be in the same city. I worked. A lot. Mondays and Thursdays I had back to back hostess shifts at Bar Italia, an Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday I volunteered at a research lab at Columbia Medical School. Almost every night and often on the weekends, I bounced around apartments tutoring students in courses I’d taken, then I’d have dinner with my family at home or take the 6 back downtown to NYU. Predictably, I was keeping busy, almost too busy at times, but it felt like I was doing meaningful activities, rather than studying for subjects that I wasn’t passionate about.

After many months working multiple jobs and as winter began to chill the streets of Manhattan, January brought me a different adventure. I headed off to London, ready to nosedive into Shakespeare’s folios. I spent the semester studying

Classical Acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). I’d loved theater for as long as I can remember, but I had never had the opportunity to engross myself in it all day every day.

At first, living away from home in a different country was really hard. Most of my classmates were juniors or seniors in college who were spending a semester studying abroad. I felt like a baby. Our program had no real orientation to get to know each other, and instead of living in dorms, many of us lived separately. The transition from high school to living alone in an apartment cooking all my meals for myself was jarring. I felt alone in the city, and I missed the comfort of the friends I’d had for years. But, after about a month, as I befriended my older classmates and London started to feel like home. I mastered a few go-to lunches and dinners, the art of grocery shopping for the week, and I embraced the conservatory classes from 9-5, Monday to Friday. While I didn’t travel every weekend around Europe like I had originally hoped, I learned how to explore London on my own and saw that I could make close friends anywhere, skills that benefits me daily, still.

In April, I headed to South Africa, where I worked for a month at a baboon rehabilitation center called C.A.R.E. We woke up early each morning to make bottles, scrub down enclosures, and play with baby monkeys. In between manual labor and catching baboons who jump out of trees into my arms, I met people from all over the world, from Elizabeth, a college student from Idaho, to Daz, a British man in his mid-30’s dedicated to animal conservation.

At Horace Mann, success was always expressed the same way: get good grades, go to college, get a job. That framework makes it difficult to measure the accomplishment of helping give a tiny baboon a second chance at life. I admired the people who spent their lives dedicated to animal conservation, but I didn’t know how to feel after this background. They taught me that I needed to reconsider my framework for success.

My year certainly wasn’t the “backpack through Southeast Asia for 8 months” extravaganza that some have in mind when they picture a gap year. There are many things I’d do differently if given another opportunity for time off, however, my gap year taught me that there’s so much more to do in the world than schoolwork, and that I’ll never be able to do all of it. And, I’ve learned that that’s okay. My gap year taught me how to cook a salmon, parallel park, and most importantly, how to be okay with being by myself. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone for an entire year, deviating from the prescribed path, and learning what I want (or don’t want) to do are skills that impact me every single day. I tell everyone who asks that taking a gap year was the best decision I’ve ever made. Yes, I was scared, and I didn’t know what to do with the year. You probably won’t either. But there are so many resources, websites, and people to help you figure it out. There’s no perfect year and no perfect decision. I encourage everyone to take some time off, even (or especially) if you don’t know what you’ll do with the time.

Miyu Imai: Dual Degree Program For college, I’m planning on pursuing biomedical engineering at Harvard and violin performance at Berklee as a part of their dual program. It’s always been extremely hard for me to decide which field I will pursue: academics or music. I was often discouraged from choosing both, but when I saw that Harvard also had dual degree programs with two music schools, NEC and Berklee, I immediately knew that the program was for me. I chose Berklee instead of NEC because I wanted to explore the field of contemporary

music. Being entirely classically-trained, I had never touched or even dreamed of playing jazz, pop, or electronic music. Berklee feels like my chance to explore a field I have no experience in on an advanced level. I’m really excited to play in jazz ensembles, join movie/game music productions, and try out electronic music, maybe even sound engineering. I’ll continue playing classical music, but I’m so thrilled to add this new field into my life, along with my passion for iPS cells and other academic fields.

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THE RECORD TEACHER LETTERS JUNE 3RD, 2019

Jake Shapiro/Photo Editor

To The Class of 2019, A few months ago, my mom came to visit me in the city for a day. It’s sort of a yearly tradition we’ve been building, and we try to do something new and unique each time.

This year, my mom planned a visit to Tenement Museum.

I was excited, as I had never been before, and I thought it would make a great activity for a day in New York. In the back of mind, too, was an activity I thought would be even more special: visiting the nearby Teen Art Gallery, organized by, and showcasing the artwork of, students in the class of 2019.

Ahaan Palla/Photo Editor

Dear Seniors, My father once told me that if you have nothing good to say, don’t say anything at all.

Sincerely, Dr. Fippinger Dear Seniors, On second thought, I do have some things to say. Although I was privileged to witness many moments of your academic and personal glory, my most memorable experiences with you have been characterized by their absurdity. These absurd moments are, I suspect, the ones I’ll never be able to forget no matter how hard I try. There was the time Olivia called me “Mom” and the time Sadie asked if I had grandchildren.

We arrived in the Bowery and found the gallery, which was scheduled to formally open later that weekend. Inside, I buzzed as I pointed out the artist names beneath the photos, paintings, collages-- talking about the connections I had with them, or something great they had said in Algebra II, or SOI, or at a Union meeting. My mom found pieces she liked and asked if I knew this student, or what I thought of the creation, or just told me how impressed she was. We then left for the museum. The gallery, though, was the highlight of my day.

All of this is to say-- I love to brag about you all. I tell of the insightful things you say in class. I tell of your beautiful problems sets while I’m grading over the weekend. When my relatives or friends express sympathy that I’m staying late at work for an event, or that I’m teaching a 5th class in the wintertime, I tell them: “yeah, but these kids brought Dapper Dan to campus, and brought together an entire community.”

Or, “yeah, but that class is full of insanely kind and goofy kids. It’s hard for me to not have fun with them.”

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share your works, your personalities, your jokes, and your views. You’ve let me know-- and the many people in my life-- that the kids are alright. or Best, Mr. Kafoglis

t irec rt D A / a reir Mo i l u J

To The Clas

The nine of you comprised one of my all-time favorite and all-time silliest classes. But absurdity in ninth grade is par for the course; thankfully, it didn’t end there.

I was blessed to teach your grade again in a rousing section of eleventh grade, an inspiring seminar on George Eliot and Virginia Woolf, and a few disastrous senior electives, which will remain nameless. In eleventh grade, your absurdity took on new, more mature forms, such as the infamous eleventhgrade blind poetry writing exercise (not to be discussed) or the time Jakob stapled his own finger in the middle of class.

Seniors are known for being slightly unhinged, but every single day in “How Fiction Works” opened my eyes to newer and greater forms of insanity. And sometimes, there is a fine line between insanity and genius. Ashna, for inexplicable reasons, attempted to get an A– on every single pop quiz, and she succeed, even getting an A– on the quiz Allison took for her when she was absent! Or what about Bradley, your grade’s unacknowledged Daenerys Targaryen, roasting everyone all the time? Whatever else you may have done these four years, you’ve always made me laugh.

As you head forth into the wilderness of the world, I hope you take away three things: Virginia Woolf is the GOAT; be careful with staplers; and trust in yourselves because, in spite of how absurd you are, you are also brilliant, creative, and wise.

Sincerely, Dr. Fippinger

HORACE MANN TEACHER LETTERS JUNE 3RD, 2019

Ahaan Palla/Photo Editor

To all my graduating mathematicians and physicists, I am so proud of you! I hope you are proud of yourselves and that you are able to take these next few days to reflect on everything you have done and accomplished in your time at Horace Mann.

I hope you feel proud of the way you have stretched yourselves and of how much you have grown as thinkers. I hope you have found a deep appreciation for collaboration and the ideas of your peers. I hope you can remember the moments that challenged you, the moments that tested you, and the many moments of triumph, both large and small, that have been a part of your finding yourself here.

I hope that as you go out into the world you will always claim your identity as a math/science thinker and, that no matter what you end up doing, you will embrace the place you have already carved out for yourself in that world.

Most of all, I hope you can recognize and celebrate your unique brilliance and the multitudes of ways you have left your mark on this school and the people in it. It may take time for you to make

ss of 2019...

Ahaan Palla/Photo Editor

O, seniors!

I met a great heap of you four years ago. How I loved you then.

You were strange, jubilant, occasionally feral ninth-graders. You fell off chairs; you wrote lewd poems about musical instruments; you refused to stop looking at your cell phones, even when I grimaced and shouted at you; during assemblies, you began making meticulous and wrongheaded inventories of each second in our “sixty seconds of peace.” I recall an afternoon when one of you, not actually enrolled in my ninth-grade F-period class, spent the greater part of the period hidden under the table, presumably enthralled by our discussion of Macbeth, but in any case, utterly

sense of everything that you have gone through and everything you have done, but I hope you will take time for that reflection.

I hope you will go out into the world sure of yourselves and confident in who you are and what you bring to the table. I hope you will leave Horace Mann centered in yourself and your strengths as a student, thinker, and person. I hope you will each take the time to appreciate how wonderful you are, as you are.

Believe in yourselves! Know, if you ever doubt yourself, that there are people here who have seen you and who believe in you fiercely. We are always behind you and you can turn to us if you need to be reminded of that.

Be vulnerable and share all of yourself with the world. Push yourself to be your best and know that your best has nothing to do with what anyone else is doing. Steve Prefontaine was an American runner who ran out front without fear. He knew this was the only way to be sure he ran his best every race, leaving everything he had on the track, regardless of who else was running. He said, “To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.” You each have so many gifts, so be yourselves and run out front! This is your race. Run it your way. Don’t pace yourself off the people around you or measure your successes off what they are doing. Trust that your best will inspire those around you and that there is a place for you to make an impact on this world.

I am so proud of each of you and so grateful to have taught you and to have seen you grow these past four years. I hope you can always see in yourselves what we have seen in you. I will always be here for you – believing in you, rooting for you, and cheering you on. I can’t wait to see what you will do!

Congratulations!

Ms. Crowley silent. You burst out at Lady Macbeth’s line in Act 2: “Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, / And ’tis not done.” Your tenth grade was a year punctuated by moments of outrage, as I remember it, and surges of anxiety and confusion tempered by bursts of hilarious solidarity. From what I could see, you were growing stronger, more self-assured, more resolute, more brilliant.

In this last year, your last year, I’ve been holding my breath a little bit. It has been unusually challenging, though you have battled the monsters of this year pretty successfully, too. I have watched some of you make the most difficult and most important decisions of your time at Horace Mann – answering questions about what you really love, what kinds of people you want to be, what you want to give your labor to, how you want to grow in the next stage of your lives. It’s hard to explain the feelings I have now, watching as you prepare to leave. I’m so proud and so hopeful. But because I still love you all, despite this second semester of insanity in Youth in Revolt (I take responsibility ONLY for the title of the class), it’s also tremendously painful to see you go. You’re strong, you’re smart, you’re well prepared, you’re wonderful. I miss you. Please, don’t forget to come back and see me.

Very sincerely, Ms. McIntyre

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 3RD, 2019

Promposals: Yes or no?

Nishtha Sharma & Jude Herwitz Staff Writers

Who would think that a mariachi band would be the straw that broke the camel’s back? Nonetheless, when a male student hired a Mexican music group to serenade a female sophomore from the balcony above Olshan Lobby after an assembly four years ago, it technically marked the end of the school’s sometimes overthe-top prom invitations, known as promposals.

Although the administration announced that it would ban oncampus promposals the following year, the tradition still continues.

The new form of promposal, however, looks very different. No more custom will-you-go-to-promwith-me Snapchat geotags, nor tiny windmills arranged all across the field. For most on-campus promposals, students have used posters, food, or some combination of the two. The custom continues because it is just that: a custom, Alexa Watson (11) said. “This is our one school dance, one of our only school traditions.”

Yet the policy of no promposals still stands, against the wishes of some members of the student body.

In fact, all of the students interviewed have said that they were against banning simple, non-ostentatious promposals as long as they were not distracting, and in a poll sent out to the Class of 2019, only 7.1% of the 70 respondents said they supported the policy.

In an email which Head of Upper Division Dr. Jessica Levenstein

“The only way to decrease heteronormativity and to break these stereotypes is exposure,” Derose said.

“By banning promposals entirely,

56% of students promposed to their prom date students are not even given the opportunity to go against the mold and go against these standards. I’m going to prom with a girl and if I was able to prompose publicly that would be one way to break down this stereotype,” she said.

Some seniors were not pleased when promposals were banned, Dean of Students Dr. Susan Delanty said.

However, administrators were, and continue to be, in favor of the injunction against public promposals, she said.

“I would like to even remember when promposals actually started, because it’s a newish thing,” Delanty said.

Yet they persist. After school on a Thursday earlier this year, Ben Hu (12) drove with his mother to Flushing to buy pork buns for his promposal. The next day, with a poster in hand and with the help of a few friends, he asked his date to prom in a corner of Katz Library

during H period.

“I think that when done right, promposals can be really special and not just about the pomp and decoration,” Hu said. “Most of the time, they will have some sort of very significant meaning between two people and genuinely are just to make the other person feel appreciated and special.”

Sangmin Lee (11) learned that he was going to prom in March, when his senior date asked him in private. He had a feeling that she was planning something bigger as well, so was not shocked when she staged a more extravagant promposal with their friends; it happened outside of school, so was not subject to the school’s ban.

“She’s older, [so] I’m not supposed

who asked her, and not the other way around, she said. “I would just correct them,” she said.

Alex Crotty (12) initially felt that she had to find a male date, she said, but since she had already attended prom with a guy before, she ultimately chose to prompose to one of her female classmates. “I determined that for me, the most important thing is to find somebody who is willing to dance and who I’m actually going to have fun with.”

To prompose, Crotty slipped Annabelle Pinkston (12) a fortuneteller she had just made that spelled out ‘prom’ on the outside, and each fold on the inside had some variation of the word ‘yes’, she said.

In the Record poll, 63% of the 46 respondents who said they were in

76% of students do not agree with the ban on promposals everything stop,” Gluck said. In fact, both Gluck and other students who have been interviewed described instances of faculty members shutting down on-campus promposals in the middle of them.

Lorenzo Hess (12), who

“I think that when done right, promposals can be really special and not just about the pomp and decoration. Most of the time, they will have some sort of very significant meaning between two people and genuinely are just to make the other person feel appreciated and special.”

-Benjamin Hu (12) to be the one who asks,” he said.

Emily Yu (12) felt pressure after spring break, when people started talking about prom, she said. She ultimately chose to privately ask a male classmate.

While people did not question her choice to ask a male student, she noticed that a lot of her peers assumed that her date was the one

92% of students are going to prom with a date of the opposite gender sent to the Class of 2017 in the spring of that year announcing the ban, she cited the expectation to do something extravagant, the enforcement of heteronormativity, and overall disruptiveness of the invitations to prom as factors in preventing students from conducting them on campus.

Allison DeRose (12) believes that banning promposals does not promote heteronormativity, but rather dismisses an opportunity to bring to light issues surrounding queerness.

Jackson Roberts/Art Director

a heterosexual couple for prom said that “guy promposed to girl.”

After a student brought the mariachi band to campus, Delanty saw that a line had been crossed, she said. “That was over the top. So what was happening was the proposals kept on being, ‘Can you top this?’” she said. “Everyone was wanting to do something more outrageous than the other person.”

However, Watson said that off campus promposals have not solved the problem of showing off via prom invitations. In fact, it has made it worse. “It’s more difficult to not be able to do it at school. Kids feel more pressure to do something that’s over the top,” Watson said.

Off-campus promposals are more difficult for those who do not socialize with their dates outside of school, she said. “If you talk to them inside of school but wouldn’t necessarily hang out with them outside, there just isn’t a time to do a promposal,” Watson said.

Some students, like James Gluck (12), still take the risk and stage promposals at school, He promposed to Gibby Thomas (12) in Lutnick Hall early last month.

He was approached by a faculty member in the middle of it, but the day was also Thomas’ birthday, so he had plausible deniability by writing “happy birthday” on some cupcakes.

“If that hadn’t happened, he probably would have just made

promposed because he felt that it was traditional to do so, said that even though people prompose, they almost always have already agreed to go together prior to the promposal.

“Typically people just have a poster which says ‘Will you go to Prom with me?’” Gluck said. “I think it’s just something sweet and simple and fun to do.”

Nonetheless, Hess agreed that banning ostentatious promposals is okay.

“Public promposals that are ostentatious can be pressuring on somebody. I think that when [the administration] bans all promposals, they have to consider what the word public means,” Hess said. “I think that someone chooses to do it on a field with a few friends, for example, it’s not public because no one is really affected by it.”

However, the question of what makes something public or private can become complicated, depending on the location that a promposal occurs, the time of day, how many people are involved, or specific plan of the promposal. For that reason, there are not any current plans to change the policy, Delanty said.

“There’s no way to say where the line is,” Delanty said. “What makes something more outrageous than another thing?... It felt like [a promposal] should be more a moment between two people than between all of everybody.”

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HORACE MANN FEATURES JUNE 3RD, 2019 Juli Moreira/Art Director

Before and after the party

Samuel Keimweiss Staff Writer

Prom is more than a three-hour event. For some, It’s essentially a three-day party, Morgan Joseph (12) said. “It is a tradition that I think is fun to take part in,” she said. “It’s like your last big hurrah with HMers.”

Every year, seniors gather in small groups before and after the party to celebrate the end of senior year with their friends.

Pre-prom is traditionally at a place with a nice view or at someone’s house, and the primary goal is to give parents an opportunity to take pictures and to allow the students to meet their dates to travel to prom together, Nader Granmayeh (12) said.

Parents are not allowed to drop their kids off at Prom and stay for pictures, Head of Student Activities Caroline Bartels said. Doing so would defeat the purpose of prom, which is an opportunity for friends to get together, she said.

Pre and post-prom are exclusive, and most people attend by invitation only. While the majority of seniors receive informal invitations long expected from their friends, some others may feel left out, Eleanor* (12), said. “We want everyone to be together but physically it is not possible,” she said.

Students also feel friendships tested when a friend chooses to

attend their date’s pre or post-prom over their own, Nate* said. “It feels a little unnecessary, the hype of tradition,” Mark* (12) said. “It’s not a good tradition.”

While Post-Prom is considered a tradition by most, Granmayeh said he estimated that only around half of seniors actually take part. Most students who do will go up to the Hamptons with a group of friends for

43% of promposals occurred at school despite the ban the weekend, Donald* said.

Group size depends on how many people can fit into the house, Donald said. He will be at a post-prom of twenty people, but other groups can range from as low as 15 to as high as 50, he said. Sometimes, multiple post proms will come together for a few hours, he said.

However, some students feel that there is a pressure at post-prom to engage in illegal acts such as drinking or smoking that is not present at other parties, Tara* (12) said. “Some

people haven’t consumed substances before and will be encouraged to partake,” she said. “Like ‘do it now before you go to college.’”

Mark does not plan on attending a post-prom for this reason. “Why do I need to go and watch people get crazy when it’s not actually that fun?” he said. Although he was invited, Mark decided not to go because he felt that if he did, “you have to get drunk and get others drunk,” he said.

While Tara agreed that there is pressure to drink, she does not think people will overindulge, she said.

“We all watched the health class video [Keg Party]. Hopefully there is no Langston,” she said. Tara said that while she expects there to be alcohol and weed offered at her event, she hopes it will not be the focus of the post-prom. She wishes to instead spend the weekend playing board games and relaxing with her friends, she said.

While Mark and Tara say that there is substantial pressure, Eleanor feels none. She said that alcohol is not the main component of post-prom. Like Tara, she said she expects to spend her post-prom relaxing and hanging out with friends.

“It is mostly about being together and having fun one last time,” Eleanor said. *names with asterisks are students who have been granted anonymity.

Juli Moreira/Art Director

Prom-perfect pressure Samuel Keimweiss Staff Writer

Jackson Roberts/Art Director

With prom just days away, pressures of having nice outfits, hairstyles, and instagramable prom pictures floods the seniors’ thoughts.

“Girls have been looking through websites and thinking about the type of dress they want to wear for at least six months,” Janvi Kukreja (12) said.

According to Kukreja, all of the senior girls are in a Facebook group where they post their potential prom dresses in order to avoid two girls buying the same dress, she said.

“I love the prom Facebook group,” Kukreja said. “Everyone comments on each other’s pictures how good everyone looks even if they’re not friends, and I think that’s a really nice thing.”

Over the course of her time working at the school, Caroline Bartels, Head of Student Activities, has attended almost every prom. When she started working at the school in 1997, senior girls wore both

long and short dresses; however, some of the short dresses were inappropriate for prom, Bartels said. She has been a part of creating the tradition of all senior girls wearing long dresses, she said.

“It takes so long to find the right dress while a boy just picks the same black tux,” Kate Golub (12) said.

“Obviously boys spend time making themselves look presentable, but it’s very different from a lot of stories I’ve heard of having to go get your hair done and do makeup,” Nader Granmayeh (12) said.

“I never wear makeup and I don’t really want to wear makeup, but I feel pressure to have to get it done somewhere,” Kukreja said. “That’s not me at all, but just because it’s prom, I have to get it done someplace,” she said.

Morgan Joseph (12) said she does not feel an external pressure to look good, but wants to put in extra effort to look good in her dress and pictures, she said.

Eliza Zelnick (12) said she puts a lot of pressure on herself to look good at prom.

Bartels thinks some of the pressure

actually comes from mothers to their daughters to get their hair and makeup done professionally, she said.

“It’s easier for boys but at the same time I think it’s more confusing for boys,” Bartels said. “Most girls just go and buy their dress, but a boy doesn’t know how to go about getting his suit, especially if you’re a family who has never had a kid go to prom,” she said.

“I don’t feel a pressure to look any way, but I do want to look good. I know there will be pictures, so I want to look the way I want to look,” Granmayeh said. “There are some societal pressures not to wear ridiculous outfit but there is nothing I want to wear that I am scared people wouldn’t accept me wearing,” he said.

Data from 70 responses to anonymous Record poll sent to the senior class.

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THE RECORD PHOTO ESSAY JUNE 3RD, 2019

Creativity in the Senior Class

By Ahaan Palla, Jake Shapiro, and Abigail Kraus

Muhaiminul Ashraf

Siona Gupta

Everett Kagan

Kyra Kwok

Kyle Gaillard

HORACE MANN PHOTO ESSAY JUNE 3RD, 2019

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Scenes From Senior Spring

By Jake Shapiro and Abigail Kraus

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THE RECORD FEATURES JUNE 3RD, 2019

Senior Initiative Projects

Gavin Delanty and Claire Yoo: Three Short Stories Isabella Zhang Staff Writer

For Gavin Delanty (12) and Claire Yoo (12), writing is a way of meditation, so for their joint Senior Initiative Project (SIP), the two have joined pens in writing three short stories together, Yoo said.

“Claire and I both love writing and have been talking about writing something together for a year now,” Delanty said. When Yoo learned about SIPs, she thought it would be a great way to pursue their writing project with some guidance from a teacher, she said.

“When Claire first came to me to propose her idea, I was immediately on board and looking forward to the stories they were going to write together,” SIP Coordinator Dr. Kalil Oldham said.

Delanty and Yoo have thought about many different formats and ways to write their stories, Delanty said. “We would put all our ideas into a Google Doc, and sort of see which ones inspired us,” Yoo said.

“Eventually we decided to write a tragedy in the style of a stream of consciousness, a Sci-fi in the form of epistolaries, and a mystery in reverse chronology,” Delanty said.

The tragedy “Doggone!” describes a day in the life of a man living in the suburbs of Michigan, Yoo said.

“Even though this piece is a tragedy, it contains hilarious content from time to time,” SIP faculty advisor Dr. Andrew Fippinger said. “The man wakes up in the morning, and his dog had gone to bathroom on the rug, and the story is written in terms of all the thoughts going through his head,” he said.

After writing the first story, Delanty and Yoo quickly moved on to write their second piece, “Pickles for Guillermo,” Yoo said. Written in the form of letters, the sci-fi was divided up into letters between Yoo and Delanty, she said.

“We came up with important plot developments and each wrote two of the letters, ending up with the story being around 10 pages,” Delanty said.

A consistent theme throughout these stories is Delanty and Yoo’s playfulness, Fippinger said.

“As a reader, I can see their playfulness come out in the pieces’ quirky humor, and the inventive ways they play with literary styles,” he said.

Due to the strong friendship between the two, Delanty and Yoo did not have much trouble creatively, Yoo said.

“Their process is a lot of fun to watch, because

Juli Moreira/Art Director

they are clearly very good friends and they have shared sensibility and shared sense of humor,” Fippinger said.

“To finish off the year, we hope to get teachers to read these stories in a podcast, while we discuss our writing process as well,” Yoo said.

Fippinger thinks a podcast can really capture the voice of these stories, he said. “Given the different forms these stories take, I think a podcast can deliver the different emotions in each story,” he said.

“I’m really enjoying this project, because writing comes naturally to me,” Yoo said. “It is a good outlet for me to express what I’m thinking and feeling,” she said.

Delanty enjoys writing as well, and he has been writing ever since his freshman year in high school, he said. “Writing has been a way for me to decompress, and through writing I am able to express myself more creatively,” he said.

“Claire is my best friend and an incredibly talented writer,” Delanty said. “I hope that through this project I can learn from Claire and strengthen our friendship, since we are both going to college in a few months,” he said.

Fippinger is excited to have the booklet with three short stories in his hand, he said.

“These are two incredibly talented writers who are in the height of their high school game and thrilled to be working with each other,” Fippinger said. “They derive energy off each other, and I get to sit back and see the product,” he said.

Bebe Steel: Rocky Horror Picture Show Eliza Poster Staff Writer For the past few months, Bebe Steel (12) has focused her efforts on a creative Senior Initiative Project (SIP), directing the school’s first production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, an interactive performance which simultaneously explores themes of self-acceptance, celebrates LGBTQ+ culture, and encourages audience members to pelt performers with plastic toast and confetti, she said.

“I didn’t want to waste my senior spring not taking advantage of how I have all this free time,” she said.

“I just thought about what inspires me, and what’s fun, and what would be exciting to bring to the school community.”

In her production last Tuesday, Steel projected The Rocky Horror Picture Show film, which was released in 1975, in the Recital Hall, and during musical numbers, student actors came on stage and mimed the performances of the actors on screen, Steel said.

Rehearsals began after spring

break and were held on Mondays and Wednesdays. Steel and the 12 actors collaborated on choreography and direction, and Steel’s advisor, Theatre teacher Benjamin Posner, sometimes advised her on staging, Posner said.

In comparison to many of the school’s other productions, Rocky Horror’s rehearsal process was far more casual, Spencer Kahn (11), who plays the antagonist, Dr. Everett Scott, said.

“Everyone there is super good friends,” he said. “A lot of the times rehearsals will divulge into jokes.

It’s not super serious, but we all care about what the end product is.”

Since The Rocky Horror Picture Show contains explicit content, the administration permitted only 11th and 12th graders to participate in the production. Moreover, Steel and the actors struggled to preserve the unique experience of the play, while still making it suitable for a school environment, Alba Bryant (12), who plays Columbia, the eccentric former lover of the show’s star, Dr. Frank-NFurter, said.

“We just asked her to make sure that she understood that she’s still in

Courtesy of Ben Rosenbaum

a school setting, and that her staging and their performance should be school appropriate,” Posner said.

“At our school we don’t do any out-of-the-box queer theater like [The Rocky Horror Picture Show],” Steel said. “I just wanted to make something for myself and work with my favorite actors and the Horace Mann Theatre Company.”

Kahn believes that because the show centers around unique themes which school productions don’t usually address, actors have the opportunity “ to do something they haven’t done before,” he said.

Dance is a central component of the show, and for Kahn, who is not very experienced in dance, “memorizing movements” was one of his greatest challenges, he said.

Steel believes that the school frequently embraces LGBTQ+ art which centers around the problems faced by people who align with such identities. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is renowned for its outlandishness and its candor when regarding gender and sexuality, mainly aims to simply celebrate and enjoy gay and transgender culture,

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION! Production Director Bebe Steel (12) on stage.

Steel said.

Steel hoped that students who attended would “have fun and break out of their shells,” she said.

“Rocky Horror was so unique and interactive, and also a refreshing change from the typical Horace Mann production,” Veronica Stellings (12) said after watching the production.

“I think it’s important to watch it at Horace Mann because we spend a lot of our time being so serious and having all of these expectations about where we should end up, and who we want to be in terms of our future,” Steel said. “I think a lot of the time we don’t stop and slow down to appreciate what’s around us and indulge and have a great time.”

Ben Rosenbaum: Playwriting Eliza Poster Staff Writer

HARD AT WORK Ben Rosenbaum (12) works intently on his play.

Courtesy of Priyanka Voruganti

For his Senior Initiative Project (SIP), Ben Rosenbaum (12) explored the shifting realities of masculinity by writing a play which chronicles teenaged boys grappling with gender, sexuality, and youth culture.

The play centers around four 17-yearold straight males who attend a party where they confront challenges related to drug use and sexual conflict. The characters’ attempts to fit into standards of sex and sexuality result in their objectification, where they are more motivated by societal pressures than individual desires, Rosenbaum said.

“Everyone is objectified. It’s not just women being objectified, it’s not [men] just being objectified, but they’re objectifying themselves.”

The impulse to write the play stemmed from Rosenbaum’s confusion about masculinity and what it means to be a man, he said.

“I’m a very emotionally open and honest person, and I’ve noticed that with certain people, me being that way made them very

uncomfortable,” Rosenbaum said. “I felt like I was going insane. ‘Is this not who I’m supposed to be?’ ‘What am I supposed to be?’”

After reading gender theory books, Rosenbaum realized that the expectations imposed upon men are enforced through the patriarchal ideology which influences both men and women in society, he said.

Throughout his writing, Rosenbaum struggled to not write himself into the story, as he has already relinquished some of the standards of masculinity which he aimed to investigate within the characters, he said.

Rosenbaum worked with his advisor English teacher Sarah McIntyre to create a linear, storyline in which characters expound their emotions through a “stream of consciousness,” Rosenbaum said.

“Ben has done the research, and planning, and the articulation on his own and I have been a sounding board for [his process],” McIntyre said. “My role is not to suggest ways of him thinking about it, but to keep prodding him with questions that find the weak points in his logic, and ask

him to elaborate.”

During their sessions, Rosenbaum and McIntyre discussed the various pressures which make young American men conform to standards of masculinity, as well as how to convey those “abstract ideas into a really short, really visceral point,” McIntyre said.

“Because [Rosenbaum] has such a complex understanding of the social and emotional parts of this problem, it’s a very poignant struggle to be able to clear away what can’t be said, and say what can be said,” she said.

Playwrights such as Toni Morrison and Paula Vogel influenced Rosenbaum’s writing; however, he also drew inspiration from the works of musicians such as Jacob Collier and Fleet Foxes, he said.“I write very musically; some of the abstract parts are inspired by a lot of musicians I listen to,” he said.

Rosenbaum chose his SIP in order to push himself to explore subjects which intimidate him, he said.

“It’s something that’s exciting to do in your last months at Horace Mann,” he said.