The Horace Mann Record, Issue 3

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HORACE MANN’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1903

SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2017 || VOLUME 115, ISSUE 3

August 25

September 10

September 19

September 23

HURRICANE HARVEY

HURRICANE IRMA

CENTRAL MEXICO EARTHQUAKE

OAXACA, MEXICO EARTHQUAKE

Category 4 Texas Gulf Coast

Category 5 Florida

7.1 Mw 342 killed & 6,000 injured

September 27

6.1 Mw 12 miles from El Barrio de la Soledad

HURRICANE MARIA

Category 5 North Carolina

Community reflects on toll of recent natural disasters Betsey Bennett Staff Writer

Courtesy of Luke Weber

Within the months of August and September, Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Jose, Hurricane Maria, and several earthquakes have hit the southern United States, the Caribbean, and Mexico, each one having an effect on the greater school community.

Disaster Relief

Student Body Presidents Daniel Posner (12) and Siddharth Tripathi (12) are raising awareness about the recent natural disasters and collecting clothes to donate to victims.

Initially, they were looking to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey through an organization collecting school supplies for affected schools.

“The effort is in the works, but in the meantime, as more recent natural disasters have taken their toll, we decided to participate in a local donation drive through the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization that was announced by the Bronx Bureau President’s Office,” Posner said.

The clothing drive will be taking place at school all week, and the collected items will be shipped out to Puerto Rico and Mexico.

“These natural disasters may seem far away, but they are really in our backyard and they are hurting our neighbors,” Posner said. “Clothing is a basic necessity and as a large school community, if everyone brings in only a few items, we can make a big difference.”

According to Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly, the schoolwide efforts to aid the victims of these natural disasters embody the core value of striking a balance between individual achievement and a caring community.

“Within and across all of our

Courtesy of Beatrix Bondor

HURRICANE AFTERMATH (Left) A supermarket in Houston is almost fully unstocked after Hurrican Harvey; (Right) Luke Weber’s (10) cousin, who lives in Florida, school’s football field had a large boat blown onto it during Hurricane Irma divisions, the Board of Trustees and administration stand ready to support the growing number of hurricane related responses emerging from classroom discussions, the UD student leaders, our MD service learning program and even the thoughtful ideas put forth by individuals at Nursery and Lower,” Kelly said.

Hurricane Harvey

On August 25th, Hurricane Harvey made landfall as a Category 4 Hurricane with 130 mph winds near Rockport, Texas.

According to Beatrix Bondor (12), who has family in suburban Houston, the hurricane itself was not too destructive for her family.

“What they did feel was the flooding, which came in the aftermath,” Bondor said. “Their street actually ended up flooding pretty badly, to the extent that on my cousin’s Snapchat story, I saw a truck going down the street with water above the wheels.”

According to Bondor, the hurricane

has also had a negative effect on her family’s commutes into work.

“A normally twenty-minute commute has taken my aunt three hours for a long time because of the flooding and the traffic,” Bondor said. “The city is a mess.”

Aaron Shuchman (9) also has relatives that live in Houston. Most of his older relatives live in high rises, so they were not affected, but the majority of his family lives in standard houses and therefore lost power, Shuchman said.

“Many had water come in on the first floor, and they had to move all their stuff up to the second floor to prevent it from being ruined,” Shuchman said.

“A few of my cousins sat on the top floor of their house in their bathing suits because of the heat that came from being without air conditioning.”

Gordon Goodman ‘71, who lives in River Oaks, Houston, did not experience flooding in his home because his neighborhood is on relatively high ground, he said.

However, one of his daughters lived in another part of Houston that

was flooded, and since then she has been living in Galveston, he said.

Since the storm, Goodman has been providing help to those who suffered severe damage in the form of legal aid clinics.

“There’s a tremendous amount of data in the server, and it has to actually be copied from one drive to another,” Kenner said. The school can copy roughly 25 gigabytes of data to the other server per hour from one place to another.

The school’s server contains roughly 2,000 gigabytes worth of content which adds up to roughly 80 hours of copying.

Once the material was copied to the new servers, First Class was able to turn back on and students regained access to their emails. However, that if anything went wrong with the copy, the school’s original server would still be intact and useable and nothing would be lost, Kenner said.

The school wants to keep their technology as current as possible, Kenner said. Since the hardware is too old, it’s much safer to move to a new platform, he said.

These changes make the server more secure, allow the school to run the most up-to-date software, and eliminate the redundant architecture of the server.

Kenner explained redundant architecture, saying “The server lives in two physically distinct, separate places at the same time. The switch

allows us to move to only one of these. Updating the server allows the school to access more technological capabilities we cannot do in our current environment,” Kenner said.

Students around the school had different takes on the outage. For Amman Kejela (10), the outage turned out to be an nconvenience because he had two assessments the following week and was not able to email his teachers about them.

“I had all the same obligations without a key tool to fulfill them,” he said. Kejela had also just switched a couple classes last week and was depending on the long weekend to make the adjustment, but the outage made that relatively impossible. On a scale of 1-10 reliance on FirstClass, Kejela ranked himself a 9.

Alena Underwood (10) found the outage to be difficult as well because she wasn’t able to check for homework or email her teachers.

Teachers were also affected by the FirstClass outage.

“The outage was just a reality that we had to live with,” Dean of Student Life Susan Delanty said.

“It was a little frustrating at times

Hurricane Irma

Just days after Hurricane Harvey dissipated, Hurricane Irma slammed the Caribbean and Florida.

“My parents and my siblings were all getting scared because we didn’t know what was going to happen to our family in Miami,” Luke Weber (10) said.

“We were always looking at news and getting worried because the hurricane was supposed to directly hit Miami.”

Weber’s entire family evacuated before the storm hit, he said. Some of his relatives stayed in Tennessee for two weeks, while others came up to New York to stay with Weber and his immediate family for about a week.

According to Weber, his family’s houses sustained minor damage from the hurricane.

“My grandmother’s gate was broken,” Weber said. “And my uncle, his house is by the water, so he has a big fence keeping his dog out of jumping in the bay, and that entire fence just got blown off.”

In addition, the school that Weber’s cousins attend, Ransom Everglades, was damaged by Hurricane Irma.

Since their school is right next to the water, there was a large boat that got blown onto their football field.

“A lot of people from that community decided to step up and rebuild, so there was a big movement among students and families belonging to that school,” Weber said. “So while there was a lot of destruction, there was also a community effort to repair.”

Weber visited Miami this past weekend.

“While we were driving, I noticed that all along the highway, some of the street lights were broken, some of them were crooked, and others just shattered,” Weber said. “You could tell that remnants of the hurricane still existed.”

Mexico City Earthquake

On September 19, the day of remembrance for the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Central Mexico.

Emily Bleiberg (12) has family that lives in and near Mexico City.

“My cousin’s building at work basically fell down and they had to evacuate,” Bleiberg said. “There’s a lot that needs to be done and things that need to be rebuilt, and I think there is a lot of stress revolving around that.”

In addition, Bleiberg has a close family friend whose family lives right where the earthquake hit the hardest, she said.

“They were calling us and just crying and trying to find any family members that they could,” Bleiberg said.

see Disasters on pg. 3

School shuts down email for four days; transfers servers

Courtesy of Adam Kenner

THE ROOM WHERE IT HAPPENS Server room holds new and old FirstClass

Leonora Gogos Staff Writer In order to upg¬rade the school’s email server, FirstClass, to the newer, more secure version, the technology department shut down the school’s server from September 20 to September 25.

This change was absolutely necessary in order to avoid any unplanned server outages, like one that occurred two years ago, and to ensure the smooth usage of the technology, Kenner said.

“We’ve reviewed a bunch of options,

and we chose this approach,” Adam Kenner, head of the Technology Department, said. “For the moment, we think it’s the best thing to do.” The new server will hopefully be easier to manage and more secure, Kenner said. With the newest operating systems in place, there is a lower chance of hardware failure or losing any data, Kenner said.

The school’s server used to be located on physical hardware, but the update required the email software to be relocated to virtual servers.

but it was also somewhat peaceful to have no choice about checking and answering FirstClass emails.”

Math teacher Charles Garcia found the weekend of the outage more relaxing than it would have been had we had access to FirstClass, Garcia said.

However, he found the aftermath of the outage to be difficult, because there was a typo on a homework problem and students were not able to reach out to him to inquire about it, Garcia said.

“We appreciate the patience of the community,” Kenner said.

“I know it’s an inconvenience for people who depend on it, so we certainly appreciate that everyone is willing to cooperate with this.”

Spyri Potamopoulous/Staff Artist

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THE RECORD OPINIONS SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2017

AFreyd of Getting Reported

I’ve known what my senior facebook name was going to be since freshman year.

I, as well as many others in my grade, spent a ton of time brainstorming ideas, sending screenshots of cover photos, and cracking up over creative names.

Some contenders included “The Frey” after the band, and “Freytos” like the chips, but I ended up choosing “AFreyd of College.” It embodied the original purpose of senior names with my own spin on it.

Every August seniors flood Facebook with photoshopped Volume 115 Editorial Board Editor in Chief Managing Editor Gustie Owens Eve Kazarian Features News Tiffany Liu Sam Heller Natasha Poster Yeeqin New A & E Opinions Jonathan Katz Seiji Murakami Joanne Wang Rebecca Salzhauer Lions’ Den Middle Division Peter Borini Ella Feiner Ricardo Pinnock Sarah Shin Design Editors Evan Megibow Nikki Sheybani Lisa Shi

Issues Editor Art Director Mahika Hari Ariella Greenberg

Columnists Lutie Brown Curtis Chung Amir Moazami Staff Writers Malhaar Agrawal, James Arcieri, Malhaar Agrawal, Betsey Bennett, Peri Brooks, Amelia Feiner, Elizabeth Fortunato, Leonora Gogos, Caroline Goldenberg, Katie Goldenberg, Surya Gowda, Will Han, Jude Herwitz, Edwin Jin, Solomon Katz, Sam Keimweiss, Janvi Kukreja, Madison Li, Connor Morris, Megha Nelivigi, Noah Phillips, Eliza Poster, Julia Robbins, Abigail Salzhauer, Sadie Schwartz, Nishtha Sharma, Tenzin Sherpa, Sandhya, Shyam, Becca Siegel, Charlie Silberstein, Lynne Sipprelle, Ben Wang, Jeren Wei Staff Photographers Iliana Dezelic, Eva Fortunato, Abigail Kraus, Daniel Lee, Mimi Morris, Benjamin Parker, Tatiana Pavletich Staff Artists Sofia Gonzalez, Damali O’Keefe,

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.

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year rite of passage.

It may seem like something small and irrelevant. Those who have already had their names reported in some cases have had to provide legal documentation to keep their accounts. Others aren’t even going to try and change their names because they don’t see the point if they’re just going to be reported. While we may, and probably won’t find out who has been doing this, the important thing to note is that

someone gets enjoyment out of potentially getting a peer kicked off Facebook for a harmless tradition saddens me. Getting my name reported, amid the stress of college applications, felt like I was being stripped a senior

someone feels so insecure that they feel the need to hide behind a screen and ruin something they should be enjoying. What I’m trying to say is, whoever is doing this needs to grow up and find a better use of their time.

The importance of striking a balance

Photography Amrita Acharya Freya Lindvall Abigail Kraus

Online Editor Faculty Adviser Michael Truell David Berenson

grades, including my brother’s, go through senior year with this tradition. It was all good fun until last year when numerous names were reported. Only Horace Mann students had this problem, so the person reporting was likely one of us. One of my peers thinks it’s funny to spoil a tradition that has been going on for so many years. A lot of us take pride in it; there’s even a superlative in the yearbook for funniest name. The fact that

Courtesty of Freya Lindvall

Freya Lindvall

cover photos and puns known as “senior Facebook names.

Although the original reasoning for this tradition, hiding a profile from college admissions officers during the application process, still sticks, seniors mostly see it as a rite of passage. It’s a way seniors get initate their final year of high school and maintain a sense of humor during the final stretch of the college process.

Before becoming a senior, I always loved watching the seniors change their names and creating funny cover photos.

There was nothing profound about it, just a great thing to do that was fun and silly.

This August, Parul Sharma became Sharmin Ultra Soft, Gabi Rahmin became RahMean Girls, and James Bauman became The Hunger James. Almost all of these--and more--were reported within a few days. Some were reported within a few hours, other within a few weeks. Ten days after I changed my own Facebook name, I woke up to a notification saying my account had been reported and shut down for “not following community guidelines.” I wasn’t allowed back on Facebook until I changed my name back.

I’ve been at Horace Mann a long time and seen many

Lutie Brown Columnist Extracurricular activities have been an integral part of my experience in high school, allowing me to be able to try new things, identify role models, delve into passions, make changes in both my community and myself, and find families that support me in all I do.

I came into Horace Mann as a wideeyed freshman and stumbled into a completely new environment that not only promoted intellectual discourse through challenging academics, but also provided tremendous resources and support to help students achieve their individual visions of “success.”

I came in without a plan (and don’t even have one to this day), but have instead been able to forge my own path to go where my heart desires.

I made it my mission to take part in extracurriculars after my weekend at Dorr for Upper Division Orientation (UDO), where I bonded with fellow freshmen, and met my upperclassmen mentors. I remember rocking out to “Stacey’s Mom” at karaoke night (and again at Disco Dorr) and being in awe of the performers at the talent show. It was a new experience from my former public school where the arts often went neglected in extracurriculars, leaving the emphasis on competitive STEM-related teams. I knew after that weekend that I wanted to be just like my mentors and perform as they had that night. Within the first days of school, I received a mass email promoting Spirit Squad—the hip-hop dance group that performs at Homecoming, the Student

Choreographed Dance Concert, and Buzzell—and inviting anyone interested in joining to audition after school later in the week. Little did I know that I would find a caring dance family there, bonding with dancers of all grades who have mentored me throughout my high school career.

Joining Spirit Squad paved the way for my journey through theatre and dance for future years, from building sets to participating in numerous musicals. I was able to stretch out of my comfort zone, learning a German accent and operating a jigsaw, and developed greater selfassurance through performances and support from my peers. My confidence from performing and doing what I loved reached beyond theater, and into public speaking and self-expression.

At the Clubs Fair my freshman year, I was like a kid set loose in a candy store—I felt the need to devour each

and everything, as all the organizations sounded incredible, so I indulged myself in any way I could. I took the leap to join the Record, a publication that simultaneously frightened and excited me. Joining the paper gave me invaluable interviewing and writing skills through experiences ranging from reaching out to administrators for interviews to the importance of concise and succinct writing. I was able to use these skills beyond the newspaper– in English and history papers, and discussions. It finally led me here, today, where I have an outlet to voice my thoughts and opinions to my community as a columnist.

I don’t mean to give a laundry-list of my extracurriculars, but as I reflected on my three years at the school while writing this column, I couldn’t help but feel immense pride, love, and appreciation for all my experiences both in and out of the classroom. I was able to accomplish all that I had set out to do from my first night as a member of the school, as I mentored and danced at UDO every year, and truly transformed from a wideeyed, quiet freshman with clouds of ideas to an outspoken senior who has turned ideas into actions and inspired others to do the same.

Despite my transformation, along my journey, I had not only scaled mountains I had never even dreamt of, but had also let many things slip through cracks that led to chasms. Though taking on a plethora of extracurriculars was an overhaul for me, especially with my inability to wisely manage my time, I would never ask to go back in time to change my decisions to get a higher quiz or test grade. I learned lessons the hard way, followed my heart, and buried myself in activities while drowning out academics, rarely listening to sound advice from adults and peers I admired.

I do not recommend following my model, but instead hope to convey that although I gained an immeasurable Liz Fortunato/Staff Artist amount of knowledge in the classroom, I grew the most through my exploration of extracurriculars and the results of risks I took along the way. As I move on to the next chapter of my life in college, I will forever hold onto both the connections I made with friends and family and the memories I created over my time at the school. I will continue learning more about myself and growing as a person, making a difference, motivating and mentoring others, dancing away my worries, writing for a publication, and applying the leadership techniques and lessons I have learned outside of the classroom to inspire others to do the same.

FAKE NEWS ALERT Aaron Snyder Not a Staff Writer Last week a small group of teachers and administrators secretly met to reschedule “hell weeks” in response to the school’s switch from trimesters to semesters. The meeting was called after an administrator overheard multiple juniors bragging that the new policy would allow them to start their senior slumps in January.

According to audio recorders secretly planted in the dean’s office by former Head of Upper Division Dr. David Schiller, an unidentifiable faculty member said, “The goal of the switch is to make the school year seem easier while actually keeping it as hard as its always been. Mwah-hahhah!” Uninterrupted cackling was heard for the next several minutes.

To combat the feeling that our school is becoming less stressful, the faculty have been asked to evaluate many proposals aimed at maintaining the level of academic rigor for which the school is known.

An early favorite was a plan to switch from hell weeks to hell months.

The Athletics Department, hoping to build off of the momentum of the new attendance policy, proposed having P.E. grades be determined by athletic ability rather than effort in order to make students more competitive.

Also in contention was a carefully calculated proposal from the math department to change the ten-point scale to an eleven-point scale so students’ grades are rounded down instead of up at the end of the year.

The switch to semesters has presented an opportunity to department heads, who will now attempt to cram more material into their curriculums, despite the year not actually increasing in length. When the department chairs heard of my investigation into this matter, one was overheard saying “should Aaron really be spending time on this conspiracy theory given that he has three tests tomorrow?”

RELATED ARTICLES Squirrels hold annual feast after clubs fair RECORD BROKEN: Student signs up for 70 clubs in one period!

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down on and spam

Dunkin Donuts turns to surge pricing in response to clubs fair demand

3

HORACE MANN NEWS SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2017

Community Council creates subgroups EDITORIAL to increase effieciency; plans initiatives Lynne Sipprelle Staff Writer This year, the Community Council (CC) will be divided into three committees, which will focus on making the school campus more sustainable, working with clubs on diversity in the student body, and planning schoolwide games and activities, Chair of the CC Amir Moazami (12) said.

The CC is sectioning these initiatives off into committees to ensure the council works efficiently, Secretary of the CC Janvi Kukreja (11) said.

Each committee will consist of four to five CC representatives and a senior leader, Moazami said. “By having this structure, it’s given people more autonomy to think creatively,” he said.

Initiatives that will be completed in a few weeks include getting coffee cup sleeves in the cafeteria so people do not take two cups when buying hot drinks as well as getting specific trash cans for batteries, Sustainability Committee member Jude Herwitz (10) said.

“One of our longer term goals is to stop or drastically reduce the number of plastic water bottles sold in the caf, perhaps by making it easier for students to fill up and use reusable water bottles or by raising the price of plastic water bottles and selling reusable water bottles in their stead,” Herwitz said.

“Sustainability is something that’s really important, and that I don’t think Horace Mann has focused enough

attention on in the past, so I’m glad to hear it’s getting its own committee,” Ben Rosenbaum (11) said.

Mayonka Dhingra (10) said she was also excited for the new committee, and to see the school join the movement towards greater sustainability.

Kyra Hill (12) is head of the diversity committee. “I am half Asian myself, and so I really like diversity as an idea,” Hill said. “I think it’s really beautiful that there’s a lot of different people that come to our school that come from different backgrounds and identify differently, whether it be ethnicity, race, or gender.”

Hill plans to invite members of clubs such as East Wind West Wind, the Union, and the Feminist Student’s Association to the diversity committee’s meetings to discuss ideas like running joint workshops during Unity Week and Book Day. The main goal of the committee is to extend the CC’s relationship with these clubs by talking to them about what they want in the student body and how the CC can improve specific initiatives, Hill said.

One of the committee’s immediate initiatives with the FSA is a “Humans of Horace Mann” idea where the committee will take photos of students and post them with captions about how the students identify, Moazami said.

“I like fun. Activities are fun,” Head of the Student Activities Committee Govind Menon (12) said.

This year, the student activities committee will be working on

bringing Project X back to the school in October, potentially setting up bouncy castles in conjunction with the Happiness Club, and having a school-wide bake-off in December organized by each grades’ class presidents, Moazami said.

“Project X again this year sounds awesome,” Eli Laufer (11) said.

“I think our school community has a big problem with managing stress, so anything that gets their minds off work is probably beneficial for the schoolwide community,” Menon said.

Skye Rabbin-Birnbaum (11) said that out of the three new committees, he was most excited about student activities. “We need to boost class moral because it is the beginning of the year and we are into the hardships of school, yet again,” Rabbin-Birnbaum said.

The committee is also open to suggestions for activities from the student body. “If there’s demand, we will supply,” Menon said.

As a whole, the CC is trying to set up I Period speaker workshops run

by Theatre Department Manager Jonathan Nye and the presidents of Model UN and Debate, Moazami said.

“Really our idea is that we’re a community council. It should be something where it’s comfortable for people to talk, for people to have ideas, for ideas to move around, for people to really think critically about what’s going on within the school,” Moazami said.

Last week, the school’s email server, FirstClass, was shut down for four days for server maintenance. Students expected this planned outage to skyrocket stress levels, due to our inability to communicate with teachers. For many of us on the Editorial Board, FirstClass is the first app we open when we wake up and the last one we check before we go to sleep.

Surprisingly, the outage did not turn out to be the anticipated stressor, but rather a moment of clarity; we realized the prevalent role technology plays in our lives. In our features article about News Sources this week, our survey revealed that over 90 percent of 322 students polled get their news mostly online. As ninth graders and their families discussed at Community Evening this past Wednesday, technology often creates conflicts within our families, as there is a lack of communication between parents and kids about what technology is and should be used for.

While we value the communication between students and teachers that FirstClass enables, we also recognize that dependency on technology has its drawbacks.

We urge the school to recognize and evaluate alternatives to our current exhausting system. At many comparable schools, there is an expectation that teacher-student communication is confined to the classroom. On a larger scale, France enacted a law called “Right to Disconnect” requiring companies of a certain size to establish hours when staff should not be sending or answering emails.

Additionally, we encourage students to refrain from impulsively checking FirstClass and realize that they have the “right to disconnect.”

Our time without email highlighted the pressure to always be connected and online; during our Editorial Board meeting, everyone admitted that they had tried to check FirstClass over the weekend although they knew it was offline.

Students see increased number of pests at school Becca Siegel Staff Writer

Damali O’ Keefe/ Staff Artist

From Disasters page 1 “They were calling us and just crying and trying to find any family members that they could,” Bleiberg said.

Bleiberg’s cousins have taken part in the rescue operations to go out and try to find people.

“I think it’s brought them together in a lot of ways, but it’s certainly been heartbreaking to watch and heartbreaking to see when piled amidst all the natural disasters in the world,” Bleiberg said.

Bleiberg is leading a Spanish Club fundraising initiative for the earthquake and hurricane in Puerto Rico.

Hurricane Maria Most recently, Hurricane Maria devastated the Caribbean, especially Puerto Rico Tutoring Center Director Lionel Garrison Jr. has a large extended family on St. Croix, as well as a condo with his wife and children.

According to Garrison, the hurricane was not as devastating as it could have been. The island suffered a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane in 1989, and as a result, people began to build sturdier houses, Garrison said.

Although Garrison’s condo weathered the storm well, Hurricane Maria pounded the island, causing huge winds, down trees, 25-foot waves, and an 18-foot storm surge, he said.

“Almost all residents of St. John and St. Thomas were flown to St Croix after Irma, because it was not as badly damaged,” Garrison said. “But now St. Croix got hit.”

ICIE co-Director John Gentile did not have any family members directly affected by the recent natural disasters, but he did have close friends in the paths of several of these weather events.

“I know lots of colleagues and friends who have relatives and families in Puerto Rico, who have been completely devastated by the effects of the hurricane there,” Gentile said. “I also have a really good friend whose grandparent had to be evacuated out of Florida during Irma, and she’s 95, and so the impact of that is pretty intense when you’re at that age.”

In addition, Gentile recently visited Austin, Texas, where his friends were discussing the evacuations and rescue efforts for Hurricane Harvey.

The Sweet Gum Tree

by Gordon Goodman ‘71

Dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Harvey on the Gulf Coast, read more about Goodman’s experience on pg. 1.

Stranded pools of rain have jumped the curb To pause for breath upon their sagging porch These tropical depressions strain one’s nerves And show why lonely guests are so unsought Just lucky that they bought a brand new roof Yet still surprised their first had never leaked And glad they felled the dying sweet gum tree Whose branches had disturbed a fragile peace

Ranging from water bugs to skunks, pests have been reported across the campus from the girls’ locker room to outside Spence Cottage.

Since the beginning of the school year, many students have noticed an uptick in the number of pests around the school. Eliza Bender (10) began to notice the bugs during field hockey preseason, when she witnessed a group of ants and some water bugs in the locker room, Bender said.

“I have seen many more bugs this year comparatively to last year”, Joseph said. “Last week, I was walking with my friend in the Music department and we saw three cockroaches run across the floor.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen at school before,” Joseph said.

This upsurge of “creepycrawlies” around the school, however, is a myth, Director of Maintenance Gordon Jensen said.

“There hasn’t been an uptick in pest control this year, it’s all cyclical.

When it begins to get colder outside,

anything that is outside will try to come inside to keep warm,” Jensen said. Bender, however, saw these bugs during the summer, she said.

The maintenance staff has various ways to combat the annual problem, Jensen said.

The school has hired weekly exterminators to check the boiler rooms and any classrooms that have had problems with pests in the past. The maintenance team also patches up any holes in the school’s fortification that mice might be able to get in, Jensen said.

Additionally, the school hires a service called Tender Trapper for issues with rodents, such as the skunk found near Spence Cottage last week. The service captures the animals from the school’s campus and releases them in upstate New York, Jensen said.

“If the maintenance department does not know about an issue than we can’t take care of it, so we do ask that everyone let us know about any issues, prior to them becoming a real issue,” Jensen said.

So, well protected from this storm they wait For in what nightmares could they still believe That in their need to live what they have lost Once gone our memories cannot be retrieved Though safe they miss the roof that was above And seek the sheltering limbs of their beloved Mahika Hari/ Isues Editor

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THE RECORD FEATURES SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2017

Madison Li & Tenzin Sherpa Contributing & Staff Writer On a typical morning, Govind Menon (12) rolls over and grabs his phone off of his bedside table. He turns it on and makes his way to the New York Times (NYT) Daily Briefing, spending his first five to 10 minutes of the day catching up on domestic and world affairs.

Menon, like many students in the school, reads the NYT as his news source of choice.

“I have push notifications on my phone for NYT articles a few times a day, so if an article catches my interest, I’ll open my phone and read it,” Leonora Gogos (10) said. “It’s very convenient for me to stay up to date with news.” Besides that, “I watch the news after school most days,” she said.

Faijul Rhyhan (11) reads the news whenever he receives a notification on his phone.

James Chang (12) reads the NYT online, the paper copy of TIME magazine every night, and other news sources such as the Washington Post and 538 for election coverage, he said.

Taussia Boadi (10) reads CNN and

it’s also good to branch out to other publications,” history teacher Dr. Ellen Bales said. Reading news sources from other countries or in another language is beneficial for students because international news sources give a different perspective, she said.

Both Tasfiah Tabassum (12) and Margot Rosenblatt (11) watch late-night talk shows, but it is not the first place they go for news, they said.

“I don’t get my news from late night, I get my news from articles, but I like the commentary that late night shows offer because it’s funnier and easier to remember,” Tabassum said.

Rosenblatt watches Last Week Tonight with John Oliver because it is entertaining and explores issues she wants to be aware of, she said. “John Oliver talks about stuff that’s on the news, but he also talks about systemic problems that need to be addressed, and that’s why I like it,” Rosenblatt said.

“Comedy is just more interesting — it does not dumb down the piece,” Rosenblatt said.

For an international perspective, Middle and Upper Divisions Library Department Chair Caroline Bartels

“Reading a range of sources and stories that have opinions that do not reflect your own is good practice for news consumption.”

- Dr. Ellen Bales watches ABC News with her family to keep herself more informed about local and international news, she said.

Zarina Iman (12) follows activists on social media and gets her news from online, television, and the radio, she said.

“You can start with CNN, New York Times, Washington Post...[but]

reaches for The Guardian, a British newspaper, she said.

Margalit Patry-Martin (10) reads The Local fr, an online news source that provides general news about French politics and culture, she said. Not only does the website provide French news in English, but “you can also type in

Where do students get their news?

Results from 322 survey responses

different country’s domains, such as thelocal.de, which is for Germany, and get similar news about those countries,” Patry-Martin said.

“I find that reading other countries’ news is both relaxing, in that I get to get away from our country’s hectic news, and I get to get a perspective on global, political, and social trends, such as islamophobia and fascism, along with learning about different countries’ cultures,” Patry-Martin said.

Outside the classroom, Gogos talks to her friends about the news, she said.

She and her friends send each other interesting articles about current news topics, Gogos said.

Chang participates in Model Congress, which has pushed him to expand the range of sources that he gets his news from, he said. “It’s important to get nonpartisan and multiple partisan viewpoints.”

“Reading a range of sources and stories that have opinions that do not reflect your own is good practice for news consumption,” Bales said.

Both Bales and history teacher Dr. Susan Groppi implemented a weekly current events section into their AP World History classes. “Part of the goal is to connect what’s going on now to the themes in the history we are studying,” Bales said.

The school provides a variety of resources that expose students to current events, such as printed copies of the NYT in Olshan Lobby, Bartels said.

Having a hard copy of the NYT at school that students can pick up is a convenient way for students to read the news more often, history teacher Dr. Elisa Milkes said.

In addition, the school provides ProQuest, Bartels said. ProQuest gives students access to journals, databases, and e-book resources, according to the

ProQuest website.

Many students look to social media for news updates, which, while convenient, at times comes at a cost.

Social media makes it “easier to know what is going on in the world than it ever has been,” Groppi said.

Menon finds some news by scrolling through the featured news stories section on Snapchat, a photo-sharing phone application. He tends to look at what is trending on Facebook as well, he said.

Yasmin Mclamb (11) follows NYT on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. “[Social media] can be a very useful

“Both good and bad, the way computers collect our data controls the way we think and we start to only read from one perspective.”

- Caroline Bartels portal, but it has to approached with a strong critical intelligence,” Bales said. People have to be careful because following certain accounts on social media may pre-filter your news, she said.

One major social media site that filters news is Facebook. “The stories that show in your news feed are influenced by your connections and activity on Facebook...This helps you to see more stories that interest you from friends you interact with the most,” according to the Facebook website.

“When you start looking at political posts on Facebook, it starts caching

cookies from the news websites you follow,” Bartels said. Both good and bad, the way computers collect our data controls the way we think and we start to only read from one perspective, she said.

Bales tries to get her news from sources that filter less out in order to maximize her knowledge of world events, she said.

Many news sources have been criticized for leaning towards one political wing.

Zoe Mavrides (12) does not think that social media is necessarily an ideological echo chamber, but rather that it depends on the community and the people that one surrounds themself with, she said.

“I personally tend to have liberal news in my Facebook feed because of the things I like and the pages I have followed as well as the nature of our school environment, but I do know friends of mine at other schools who have more conservative viewpoints that have very different news on their accounts,” Mavrides said.

Even though NYT is considered a more liberal newspaper, Mclamb does not sense a strong bias while reading its articles, she said.

“The NYT website captures a lot of what’s in the print version while having additional information and graphics that aren’t available in the print,” Milkes said.

“A lot of the major newspapers are doing really excellent reporting and have a really great online presence, specifically New York Times and Washington Post,” Rhyhan said.

“Even if you’re a liberal, it’s important to look at a trusted conservative site and vice versa,” Bartels said. The most important thing is that news consumers are “looking at the other side of the story” and recognizing which sources are reliable, she said.

How often do students read the news, not for class?

Results from 322 survey responses

35%

35.6%

20.6%

8.8% Every day

Several times a week

Once a week

Once a month

5

HORACE MANN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2017

SPOTLIGHT: EMMA JONES (12) Foyle Young Poets commends Jones (12) Peri Brooks Staff Writer Emma Jones’ (12) dreamlike poem Brooklyn Heights evokes a sense of longing with its vivid language, which struck a chord with this year’s judges of the international Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award competition.

Selected as one of the 85 commended poets out of 11,000 poem entries, Jones was invited to the awards ceremony at the London Literature Festival and received a year’s Youth Membership to The Poetry Society, a prize goody bag of books, stationery, and chocolate.

Brooklyn Heights will be published in an online anthology.

“I feel so honored,” Jones said.

“Being a writer and marketing yourself is very difficult. Writing awards, unlike math, are subjective, because it’s all about someone reading your writing and connecting with it.”

Jones originally wrote the poem for an English 11 assignment. Once

Jones’ English 11 teacher Harry Bauld read her poem, he immediately saw its potential, and it became one of his favorite poems, he said. Bauld was so impressed with it that he ultimately encouraged her to submit it to the poetry competition, he said.

“I admired Brooklyn Heights right from the beginning because it is a species of love poem which is very difficult to write without being too cliché,” Bauld said. “It was a surprising love poem, which was one of the animating pleasures of it: You didn’t know it was a love poem… until the very end.”

From a young age, Jones has been a passionate and intrigued writer of both prose and poetry, she said. She has even completed two novels.

“Writing is a very direct expression of yourself,” Jones said. With prose, “you get to show the world through your eyes; poetry is more about feeling than an actual description,” allowing oneself to express complex situations in words. “When you’re writing prose you’re trying to get someone into an environment, but

Abigail Kraus/Photo Editor

GETTING INSPIRATION Jones (12) suggests that aspiring writers read a lot.

when you’re writing a poem you’re getting someone to access a feeling,” she said.

Jones is very inspired by her surroundings, especially New York.

She believes that location plays a large role in people’s identities, she said.

Jones draws from her own experiences when writing. Her poems revolve mostly around people or events in her life. In contrast, her novels focus on her interests, she said.

“People always say write what you know, but don’t always do this,” Jones said. “I put my own spin on things, even if they aren’t things I know about personally.”

“She is able to render her experience,” Bauld said. “She pays attention at a level of detail that makes her writing seem real. This is not a skill you can teach.”

Jones’ advice to aspiring writers is to write and read a lot, she said.

“Writing is something that you have to not be afraid of doing,” she said.

“Writer’s block comes from fear that writing isn’t good, so ignore any feeling about your writing not being good enough, and just go for it.”

Jones enjoys English so much that she simultaneously took English 11 and the Senior Electives last year.

“I was so impressed with Emma as an 11th grader in a 12th grade classroom,” Jones’ poetry elective teacher Rebecca Bahr said. “She wasn’t intimidated and was never afraid of voicing her own opinion.

She contributed to discussion in a way that invited people in to keep talking.”

“She approaches literature as a writer, and her insights are… of a person who has written much herself,” Bauld said.

Brooklyn Heights The midday sun is arms around me, meandering through the tree-lined streets. A carriage house made of magenta brick, like the kind of house you’d want to be married in. You hear the wind on the pavement, tossing up petals– A dog walks as a king, a bird peers from a branch. Somewhere beneath, a mouse goes about its business. New York Harbor’s sliver sits at the end of Pierrepont Street but close by trees and doll-like houses shroud me. Here is Clinton Street like the River Danube splitting Europe and by a sunbaked sidewalk a car passes a tiny crossing. In windowboxes, a rose, a fern, some sage.

I see students of Brooklyn–young, lonely, happy, on the steps of St. Ann’s church smoking.

I search for your face, your long legs, the black sweep of your hair, the fractal of you in my mind. I only love these houses because one could be yours.

by Emma Jones

Damali O’Keefe/Staff Artist

Loewan brings peace and contemplation through new art exhibit Amelia Feiner Staff Writer “What does peace mean to you?

What can you do to make this world a better place?” These questions sprawl across an empty white panel in the Fisher Gallery, now home to the Weaving Peace exhibit by Amy Loewan. Beneath, pens dangle from colorful string, and dozens of answers are scrawled across the wall: kindness, compromise, compassion….

Open from September 25 through 28, Weaving Peace is composed of Loewan’s installation in the Fisher Gallery and a Peace House in the Rotunda. Although the Peace House was based on a design by Loewan, visual arts students had the chance to participate by designing its paper walls.

Loewan was born in Hong Kong but emigrated to Canada in 1978.

She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in occupational therapy, and she has a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting. Now, Loewan dedicates her time to exploring powerful visual metaphors of peace and harmony.

Along with her installation, a “Meet the Artist” was held D, E, and F periods on September 25, and workshops were led by Loewan herself on September 18, 19, and 20.

By studying Loewan’s exhibitions,

students learn her creative process.

The “weaving” component of the gallery’s name derives from the two tapestries hanging in individual alcoves. From far away, they look like plain lattices, but upon closer inspection, pieces of paper with words of peace on them are woven into the tapestries. Eight synonyms for peace are written over and over again in over 35 different languages, extending the metaphor of peace to an international level.

Chair of Visual Arts Department and Curator of Student Art Kim Do hopes that his students will see that they can address big challenges of humanity while also creating beauty and transcendence as Loewan did through her weavings.

“It demonstrates collaborative vision but with a strong core of the artist holding it all together, in a unified vision of wholeness and healing,” he said.

Matthew Wein (10), a Drawing & Painting I student, attended one of Loewan’s workshops in class. In the workshop, he used tape and different colored markers to visualize his idea of peace: he constructed the Hebrew word for kindness as well as a scuba diving flag because he believes scuba diving is a very peaceful activity, he said.

Pierson Cohen (10), another student who contributed to the gallery, enjoys the installation.“It has

a special significance for the school,” he said. “I took away from this that each person has their own definition of peace.”

The process of installing the gallery was complex, as Loewan’s original design had to be modified to fit in the Rotunda. Loewan took every intricate detail into account during the construction. Specificities down to how the light would hit the

year, a hectic time.

The fabrication of the gallery was completed by Do and the Visual Arts

Amrita Acharya/Photo Editor

WEAVING PEACE THROUGH ART Loewan (left) and Kulik (above) installs art for the Weaving Art Gallery in Fisher Rotunda and Gallery.

gallery at different times of day were taken into account to ensure that the pieces were both backlit and front lit.

Furthermore, the construction was rushed because it had to be ready by the beginning of the school

Department’s new associate, Nakai Kulik. Kulik also aided Loewan in the project installation.

“After [the] exoskeleton was put up, we had each art class in the Upper and Middle Division put up a panel on each side to have different aspects of peace and serenity,” Kulik said. “For example, photography would have polaroids while the drawing class would cut out tons of peace signs for triangular panels.”

The complexity involved in the installation is not evident in the gallery, which serves as a quiet place to think and reflect. A small bench in the middle of the room provides the viewer a vantage point to sit and process each wall in the gallery, which features different pieces of Loewan’s project.

On one wall, doves fly across a mural, pasted upon a painted white brick wall. Upon closer inspection, small strips of writing are pasted throughout the piece. Each strip bears the word “peace” in different languages.

6

THE RECORD MIDDLE DIVISION SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2017

Abbamonte evaluates iPad effectiveness Nishtha Sharma Staff Writer After a long meeting with Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly and the Middle Division administration last spring regarding switching to newer iPads, Middle Division History Department Chair Eva Abbamonte decided to take on the initiative of researching the effectiveness of iPads in the educational environment.

“I got the idea to conduct a formal literature review when Dr. Kelly suggested it would be ideal to have institutional data or research done on [iPads] because they’re a pivotal part of the Middle Division curriculum,” Abbamonte said.

Additionally, she worked on a study

of iPads during the summer of 2016 with the help of a faculty-initiated grant.

“I’ve always been interested in technology, but back in 2016, there wasn’t as much research out there on their effectiveness. Most surveys were based on a limited number of participants and focused on the distractibility of iPads, rather than their overall influence in schools.”

However, as more studies are being published, she finds that there is hope for long-term research with schools that have been using iPads for at least five years.

Currently, Abbamonte is in the process of finalizing surveys regarding the orientations for both teachers and students. She hopes to use teacher reactions to understand

Surya Gowda / Contributing Artist

the level of comfort students have using the iPad both in and out of school. “Most teachers may have a gut reaction with the students when it comes to using the iPad, but that’s definitely something very difficult to officially evaluate,” she said.

In her sixth grade history classes, Abbamonte makes sure to allot time to helping all students grasp important everyday tasks on iPads, “I think that all teachers must take time to do this, on some level.

However, I do think it should be more uniform, which is another thing I hope to define through my research over the course of this year.”

In order to help familiarize new and returning students with iPads, the Middle Division hosted an iPad orientation for all students.

The session, led by the Computer Science, English, and History departments, offered an introduction to navigating the iPad and served as a platform to teach new students how to access applications and websites such as FirstClass, Haiku, Notability, and Google Drive.

“The iPad orientation was effective in refining the how-to’s and providing basic answers to problems we may face,” Dalia Pustilnik (8) said. She also believes it’s important to have “more personal question time and to know where to go if you ever have a technology problem.”

“The orientation is geared towards the sixth graders and new

Middle Division teachers investigate new advisory systems Sam Keimweiss Staff Writer The Middle Division may be making large changes to its advisory program.

This year, Middle Division faculty members are planning to travel around the country to visit other schools and observe their advisory systems. The information gathered from these trips may be used to adjust the current advisory system, Director of Middle Division Guidance Wendy Reiter said.

“We just think it’s time to get a fresh look on this and see what we might find more purposeful given our program,” she said.

In the Middle Division’s current program, students are assigned advisers in their sixth-grade year.

They are then assigned new advisers for their seventh-grade year, who they keep for both their seventh and eighth grade years. Teachers have found the current system to be a lot of work.

The need for advisers to reestablish relationships with advisees and families after just one year is “creating additional work and stress on your faculty and staff,” Reiter said.

On May 8th last year, history teacher and Advisory Committee Member John McNally went on a trip to the Kent Place School, an allgirls school in Summit, New Jersey.

McNally looked at their advisory system, in which students change advisers each year. The middle school there was about a third of the size of the school’s, with just 180 students.

“It’s just a different sort of program, but it’s definitely a lot more on the

advisers themselves,” he said.

According to McNally, many of their programs would not translate well to the Middle Division, and are best suited to the smaller sized, allgirls school he visited.

One change did come out of McNally’s trip. Starting this year, advisers will be writing letters to their advisees at the end of the year, a strategy which is practiced by the Kent Place School.

“It was so helpful to get out of Horace Mann and see what other schools are like,” McNally said.

This year, Middle Division Guidance is looking for more information before making a major change. “The real impetus for this is going to be happening this year,” Reiter said.

“The idea is that at the end of the year if we have eight different schools to compare to and talk about and think about it will help us maybe think outside the box, think outside what we know here, and make our program even stronger,” McNally said.

Many trips are in the works this year. McNally is planning on visiting German Town Friend School in Philadelphia with history teacher Caitlin Hickerson, math teachers Gabriel Cunha and Kyle Davidson are trying to schedule a trip to visit another school yet to be chosen, and history teacher Natalie Wiegand is actively trying to schedule a trip of her own.

“I specifically want to compare their advisory programs to see sort of the balance between administrative tasks like ‘get this announcement out,

get this signed,’ versus the direction we’re going towards, trying to keep track of the kids in a whole sense, and kind of know where they are as a student and a person,” Cunha said.

“Our program has come a really long way in the last three years, so we’re just trying to learn as much as possible from other places,” McNally said.

According to Reiter, a new advisory system could potentially look something like the advisory system in the Upper Division, where advisories are mixed between grades and kept for all four years in the division.

“As beneficial as that has been in the high school, I think it could be even more beneficial in the middle school,” Cunha said.

“I’m curious to see how that works in a middle school setting,” Wiegand said.

The process is still in its beginning stages, and more information is needed before Middle Division Guidance decides, but a change could certainly be on its way in the next few years. At this point, however, everything is still being planned.

“I think some of the ideas are with the change in infrastructure, the change in the buildings, I think it’s a two year out sort of thing, at least,” McNally said.

Reiter said that despite the long timeframe, the project has support from Head of Middle Division Robin Ingram and most of the Middle Division Faculty.

“We’re being encouraged to try to make this work,” Reiter said.

students,” Head of Middle Division Robin Ingram said. “We want them to understand how Horace Mann uses technology, because that can be very different from where they may be coming from.”

“The training really helped me understand how the iPad works when they showed it on the big screen. I learned how to use the new apps that we would need,” Hanah Cohen (7) said. As a new student at the school, she felt she was able to connect her previous knowledge of the device to the new information she learned in the orientation so that she was never worried about not understanding any tools. “Seeing how apps works made everything a lot easier.”

“I feel the training was helpful in teaching us the main tools and tricks for iPads, also for future usage,” Julia Phillips (6) said. “I think the transition into middle schools and iPads was pretty smooth because of the training, and the help from our teachers.”

The sixth grade and new seventh and eighth grade orientation consisted of two sessions. The first highlighted the basic functions of an iPad, including taking screenshots, setting a lock screen, while the second guided students through the educational apps most teachers use. The history department taught the introduction to Notability and Haiku Learning, while the English department led students through managing Google Drive and Docs.

“The orientation taught me how to organize my work in a different way than I did before with paper, which made using the iPad a lot easier,” Cohen said.

The returning seventh and eighth graders learned through a singlesession orientation that allowed them to review and refine their understanding of the iPad. Myra Singh (8) said she was glad the school switched to newer iPads.

“It made me more excited to use them than I was before.”

Overall, teachers find that the iPad has been a platform for collaboration and creativity. “As a science teacher, the iPad is an amazing tool for exploration and presenting material. I have the option to review for tests in more interactive ways,” Dean of the Sixth Grade Michelle Amilicia said.

“My teaching is much more student-focused now,” Abbamonte said, “I’m able to offer much more student discovery, rather than me having to lecture.”

Math teacher Tom Petras said the iPads were “versatile” and “terrific” because they allowed students to remain much more organized and on top of their work.

Likewise, Singh’s “favorite part of the iPad is how accessible it is. It’s great that I can have all my schoolwork and notes in the same place,” she said.

RECORD CROSSWORD

ACROSS

1. 9-square locale, the play____ 5. The first day of the week 7. Opposite of new 8. Laughing sound 9. Alcatraz escapee Capone 10. Dazzle 11. Country 13. Complain aggressively

DOWN

5. Zombie sound 1. US currency 2. Opposite of beginning 3. Obsolete way to listen to music 4. Game often played on iPads in class 6. Sound made when tired 12. SuPhy helper 10.What the volleyball team did this week

HORACE MANN LIONS’ DEN SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2017

Get you a coach that can do both

Gustie Owens / Editor-in-Chief

MULTITASKING Errol Spencer ‘16 coaches the Sea Lions

Megha Nelivigi Staff Writer Though it may not always be known, many of the school’s coaches have roles in the community apart from their coaching positions in the Athletics Department.

Physical Education Teacher Rawlins Troop, for instance, also bears the title of Associate Athletic Director, and of Admissions Associate. Troop helps with the admissions process and coaches Girls Varsity Tennis, both MD tennis teams, and the Varsity Ski team.

Troop was hired as a second grade teaching assistant in 1982 and, soon after, became a kindergarten teacher. He later switched to teaching fourth graders for around 20 years, specializing mainly in science and math.

Troop’s initial experience with the Athletics Department was as the assistant coach for the seventh grade girl’s basketball team when Physical Education Teacher RJ Harmon asked him to help coach.

After spending 25 years in the lower school, Troop was offered a position as Associate Athletic Director, along with Harmon and UD Physical Education Department Chair Ray Barile.

Part of his job was to teach PE classes, which he was happy to do, as he made connections with students that he would not have gotten to make otherwise, Troop said.

Errol Spencer ‘16, in addition to being an assistant coach for the water polo and fencing teams, attends NYU, where he is a physics major but comes to school four days a week to help coach.

Balancing his school work with coaching is difficult, he said, but manageable. “The reason I put so much effort into coming back

here is because the HM community gave me so much, and this is my way of giving back,” Spencer said.

Coaching is a little nostalgic for Spencer, especially because some of the students he coaches are people he had previously been on the team with.

“Admittedly, sometimes I forget I’m not actually on the team, but coaching has taught me that there are a lot of weird dynamics in life that I have to get used to. This helps the transition into ‘real life’: I get to stay a part of the community but remove myself slowly as well,” he said.

Many other academic teachers at the school also have a second role as coaches.

Computer Science and Robotics Department Chair Jason Torres, for example, is also coach for the Eighth Grade Girls Volleyball and Boys Varsity Volleyball teams.

Torres coaches because for him, coaching is a way to see students in a different light.

Some of the students he has gotten to know best are the ones he has coached, he said.

“Coaching is definitely a challenge for most teachers because you have a big commitment to both teaching and the sport you coach.

Especially if you have a family at home, it’s harder to make time for everything. I think a lot of teachers would love to coach but have other priorities that are higher,” he said.

Sixth Grade Dean Michelle Amilicia has an alternative position as the coach for the JV Volleyball and JV Softball teams. For her, managing her responsibilities is all about spreading her work out evenly, she said.

During busier, more stressful times of the year, being honest and communicating with your students and players is key, Amilicia said.

Because she also teaches a science class, if

7

she is a day late in grading a test because of a game, for example, the best thing to do is to be straightforward with her students, she said.

MD Science Teacher Michael DeGasperi helps coach Varsity Cross Country and Indoor Track. “Coaching is a great distraction for both players and coaches alike in a place where stress levels can become very high very quickly. It’s refreshing to go out there and just run or do whatever comes naturally to you; it’s a physical rather than mental stress,” he said.

Being an assistant coach makes it easier for him to manage his work; if necessary, DeGasperi can show up to practice a few minutes late, or leave a little bit earlier, he said.

Physics Teacher Oleg Zvezdin coaches the Varsity Swimming team.

“I like to coach because it is such a good way to teach things you don’t always have the opportunity to teach in a classroom-commitment, group work, cooperation, etc.

From a teaching perspective, there’s a focus on different things,” he said.

For Zvezdin, balancing his workload and coaching isn’t much of a difficulty.

“Coaching is somewhat a relief for my brain-- I don’t have to just go home and grade, but I can go over to the pool and hang out with the athletes and help them get better. For me, it’s not really a balance; it’s more of an escape,” he said.

Even though being both a coach and a teacher is often overwhelming for him-some days he is at school for more than 12 hours--, coaching is all about commitment for Zvezdin, and he is committed to doing both, he said.

Director of Athletics, Health & Physical

Education Robert Annunziata, serves a number of roles in the community.

Apart from being in charge of the Athletic Department and the sports teams, as well as helping the coaches and student athletes when necessary, Annunziata coaches MD Football, Varsity Fencing, and Varsity Golf.

Other than his love for coaching, Annunziata coaches for two main reasons.

Primarily, Annunziata coaches a middle school team to connect to students at that level, so that the students can get a sense for who he is, and for him to get to know the younger students.

“For me, the MD program serves as a theater for the Varsity and Junior Varsity teams-- parents and student-athletes can approach the game [of football] in a positive and safe manner and make an informed decision about whether or not the studentathlete will want to join a high school team,” he said.

Annunziata coaches fencing out of pure joy, but golf he considers “a labor of love.”

Though the golf team is one of his bigger coaching commitments, he enjoys the small group of students at the upper division level, as he gets to know his team members not only as golfers or even student-athletes, but as people.

Finding time for all his responsibilities all comes down to time management, he said.

Just as students have to balance schoolwork with sports and other extracurriculars, Annunziata said, coaches do the same.

“This will be my 30th year here, and though it is certainly a lot of responsibility, it is a joy to come to work, and I wouldn’t trade my job for any other position in any other place,” Annunziata said.

Mieu Imai / Staff Photographer

CHANGE OF SCENE Michelle Amilicia teaching what she loves and playing a sport she loves

Record Sports

LIONS’ DEN 8

SEPTEMBER 29TH, 2017

Gibby Thomas: she’s what’s next Noah Phillips Staff Writer

This year, at the U.S. Open in Arthur Ashe Stadium, an advertisement for television audiences featuring the school’s own Gibby Thomas (11) was played. Thomas was featured hitting paint-covered tennis balls against a wall to form a mural headlining the words “I Am What’s Next.” The ad was by Net Generation, an organization committed to serving youth and teaching them tennis.

Thomas’ ad was exciting for members of the Girls Varsity Tennis team, many of whom were in attendance and saw the ad live.

“I freaked out. I couldn’t believe that she was there (on the screen). We’re all really proud of her,” JJ Ryu (10), who was at the US Open when the ad aired, said.

Some didn’t recognize Thomas until the ad had been played multiple times Oliver Chonoles (12), said. “I think it’s really cool that someone from Horace Mann was able to do a high-profile ad like that.”

Thomas said the process was incredibly professional and efficient.

“I went in for some test shots and then in August we filmed it,” she said. “I had to wear the outfit that they chose for

tennis play as tenacious while Chonoles said her play as powerful and aggressive.

Yet, what truly distinguishes Thomas on the court is her sportsmanship and grace displayed to her opponent, so much so that an opposing coach complimented her on this trait, Coach Troop said. Even though she plays to win, her kindness to fellow competitors is a highly notable trait, Troop said.

“Gibby’s just amazing on and off the court. She brings incredible energy to the court, and is always a good sport,” said Isha Agarwal (10). Thomas has been a source of pride for the school community whenever she plays, Coach Troop said.

Courtesy of iSpot.tv

SERENA 2.0 Snapshot from Thomas’ (11) ad me. I dipped the balls in paint and then hit them so paint actually splattered all over me. The balls made marks on the wall, but they had painters come and make the final designs.”

Thomas described the opportunity to take part in the advertisement as impromptu and not heavily scheduled, but a great experience for her. “I don’t

have any plans to make any more ads right now, but if the opportunity presents itself that would be great,” Thomas said.

“I was really excited when I saw it. They sent it to me only about a day before a lot of other people saw it. It was really cool because I had no idea what it was going to end up like,” Thomas said.

“I didn’t get to see the ad in person. It was played during the opening ceremony in Arthur Ashe and I wasn’t there but a lot of my friends were sending me videos of it and they were all really excited for me.”

Thomas’ tennis skill has long been recognized by members of the school community. Girls Varsity Tennis Coach Rawlins Troop described Thomas’

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Boys Varsity Soccer suffers week of setbacks

KICKIN’ IT Melchior Lee (11) plays through the pain

Surya Gowda Staff Writer The Boys Varsity Soccer team was undefeated in in-league games, with a record of 3-0-1, leading into its much-awaited games against Riverdale this week. As of Sept. 22, the Lions were tied with Riverdale at the top of league standings. The team lost two tough matches against Collegiate and Riverdale, bringing the team’s record to 3-2-1, and leaving them tied for second.

The team has worked very hard to get where they are with the help of coaches Ray Barile and Neil Berniker.

“Our zonal defense is working pretty well, and our aggressive pressing from the middies and the forwards are causing a lot of turnovers from the opponents,”

Iliana Dezelic/Staff Photographer

Allen Park (11) said.

The team’s formation and its defensive tactics, which Barile and Berniker work hard to instill in the players, support the players’ natural strong points, Chris Ha (10) said.

“I think that we have a solid defense mixed with a very aggressive offense,” Park said.

Last year, the team had excellent players, but the communication between the senior captains and the team was not strong, Phillipe Boulas (11) said.

“I think we definitely have more talent and versatility. There are a lot of guys who can play multiple positions,” Simon said, “We have already formed amazing team chemistry in less than a month even though we have a lot of new players.

I think the new sophomores and

juniors have really elevated our team with regards to chemistry and skill.”

From the beginning of the season, the players were taught to “pick each other up” instead of putting each other down, leading them to work well together, Antonio Anaya (11) said.

The team, as a whole, believes that their connection with each other is a major factor in their success thus far.

With the help of the new sophomores and juniors, the players have strong chemistry and respect for each other, Boulas said.

“Everyone is really buying into the system of what our team stands for and what our team wants to achieve,” Ha said.

According to Berniker, the “early success is contributed to a combination of factors,” from the “maturity and development of the younger players,” to the confidence and senior leadership, he said.

Captains, Noah Simon (12) and Michael Benacerraf (12), play a large role in the team’s success thus far.

Other seniors, such as Julian Dubeck (12) and Arjun Khorana (12), have been instrumental so far in the season, Berniker said.

All of the players are vocal with their opinions, and the leadership is not only coming from the seniors, but also the underclassmen, Melchior Lee (11) said.

They do a great job of communicating in all three phases of defense, midfield, and attack, said Simon.

“We are playing with confidence and improved skill. It’s a pleasure to watch the team play, and I hope we can continue with success. We are really proud of the early season, and we hope it continues with the same work ethic,” Berniker said.

RO A R

BOARD 9/23

Football

18-0 Win

9/25

Field Hockey Boys Soccer Girls Tennis Girls Volleyball

2-1 Win 1-7 Loss 8-0 Win 0-3 Loss

9/26

Girls Tennis Water Polo

8-0 Win 6-10 Loss

9/27

Field Hockey Boys Soccer Girls Soccer Girls Tennis Girls Volleyball

0-1 Loss 2-9 Loss 0-2 Loss 4-1 Win 3-1 Win

UPCOMING HOME GAMES:

10/02 Fieldhockey, Boys Varsity Soccer, Girls Varsity

Volleyball 10/04 Boys Varsity Soccer, Girls Varsity Tennis, Girls Varsity Volleyball 10/06 Girls Varsity Field Hockey, Girls Varsity Soccer, Girls Varsity Tennis, Girls Varsity Volleyball, Varsity Water Polo