The Horace Mann Record HORACE MANN’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1903
APRIL 6TH, 2018 || VOLUME 115, ISSUE 22
RECORD.HORACEMANN.ORG
Latin students go to Italy over spring break
Abigail Salzhauer Staff Writer
READING STATION Emily St. John Mandel speaks at assembly with panel of students and a teacher.
Abi Kraus/Photo Editor
Book Day author presents at assembly Megha Nelivigi Staff Writer
Author Emily St. John Mandel spoke at this week’s assembly about her writing process and background, in advance of next Thursday’s Book Day, which will feature her awardwinning novel Station Eleven. Mandel was unavailable to visit on Book Day, but Upper Division Librarian Caroline Bartels felt that it would still be important for Mandel to visit, Bartels said. “What’s kind of nice with her coming ahead of Book Day is that she can talk about things and bring up stuff that people may have been thinking of about the book,” Bartels said. “What kids and teachers can come away with is new things to think about before Book Day, and if kids haven’t quite finished the book, it can spur them to read or finish the book.” Each year’s Book Day book is completely different from any other year, Bartels said, and “Station Eleven” is no exception. “People always say, ‘choose a book for Book Day that could cover all of the departments,’” she said. “Emily St. John Mandel covered just about all of them.” The assembly took place in an interview format, with Dean of the Class of 2021 Dr. Susan Groppi moderating and three students asking questions, with other students given the opportunity to ask questions later on in the assembly. Mandel covered a variety of topics, answering questions regarding the
novel’s plot, the writing process, character development, the path that led her to become a writer, her writing style, and more. Mandel’s explanation on character development and how she viewed her main characters added to Claire Yoo’s (11) understanding of the novel, she said. Other members of the community had mixed reactions. Josh Benson (11) felt that the assembly would have been more effective had Mandel came in on the actual day of Book Day. Because the book “doesn’t immediately lead into wider issues,” Benson said, he believes Mandel’s visit may have made more sense “after people had done various workshops, and were conditioned to understand the book better.” “I thought the assembly was good, but I don’t think enough people actually read the book to have a thoughtful assembly, especially with Book Day being next week,” Menon said. On the other hand, David Shen (11) felt that Mandel was an “interesting speaker with an interesting life story.” Hearing about Mandel and her own experiences gave Shen insight on the characters within Station Eleven; for instance, hearing about Mandel’s writing process connected with the way Miranda, a character in the novel, writes her own book, Shen said. However, Shen felt that the assembly “would not have made any sense if you didn’t read the book.” Groppi, who had originally suggested the novel as a Book Day
book for 2017, felt that the assembly went well. “I didn’t know much, if anything, about her background, and I liked hearing how she got into writing and how it fits into her life,” she said. Even though it is her first Book Day book, Jordan Ferdman (9) felt that Station 11 was not all that accessible to the student body, because “science fiction in general caters to a very specific group of people.” One of the reasons Groppi suggested the book is because “we’ve had a lot of books with this huge social impact, but this is a book that I wanted to celebrate just as a book,” she said. Apart from her writing, Yoo was intrigued by Mandel’s life story. Homeschooled until 10th grade and intensely focused on dance, Mandel graduated without a high school diploma and ultimately realized that writing was her passion, she said in the assembly. “It was surprising that she was homeschooled and went to a dance conservatory instead of getting a traditional education, and yet still found her passion,” Yoo said. Emma Jones (12) enjoyed hearing Mandel speak as well. “She was really articulate-- she answered all the questions asked in really specific ways, and talked about her writing in a very clear way, which is a skill not everyone has,” Jones said. “Station Eleven is such an abstract book, so it was helpful to hear the author talk about it.”
march in DC because he was curious to see what would be different when the march happened in the city where the country’s decisions are made, he said. Arya Patel (9) also went to the DC march. Patel wanted to go because she thought it was important that “we take things into our hands,” she said. She thought that there were a lot of people speaking about the issue but it didn’t feel like anything was really being done, she said. Bartels thought that it was amazing to see that the demonstration was organized by teenagers, she said. “I went with my friends, and they were all surprised to see the energy of these young people,” she said. “As a librarian here, I have this energy around me all the time, which is
amazing.” Maya Dubno (11), who also attended the New York march, was impressed by the young people involved, particularly those who spoke at the beginning “very eloquently,” she said. Beckman felt that it was important because this was an event organized by students for students, and he wanted to be a part of the first movement that’s intrinsically tied to our generation, he said. Dubno attended the march because she felt that gun violence was an issue that she simply “couldn’t not care about,” she said. For Dubno, as a teenager, she could imagine gun violence happening to her, which made the issue more real, she said. Silvia Wang (11) interviewed
Students visited various Roman landmarks and explored cultural artifacts in Italy over spring break to immerse themselves in Roman culture and bring context to Latin texts they studied in class. “The trip created a dimension of understanding that is impossible to achieve without being in the geographic location,” Foreign Languages Department Chair Susan Carnochan said. While Latin is a dead language, the trip provided cultural context to class lessons, as the students needed to travel to Italy to experience the ancient world, Spanish teacher and trip chaperone Pilar Valencia said. The students translated relevant passages as they toured historical sites. “The intent is to go over and read Latin passages at the various monuments about which they are talking about or which they represent. We try to do the Latin ‘in situ,’ in the geographical place where it belongs,” Latin Teacher James McCaw said. Reading texts where the events originally took place helped conceptualize what happened during that time, Josh Doolan (12) said. The group read specific poems and epigraphs that described some of the sites they saw, Doolan said. “I learned so much about Roman history and Latin and also a lot about
the Roman architecture and their different ways for constructing a lot of the different buildings that they had,” Doolan said. “People question why to take Latin because it’s a dead language, but being at the location of historical sites really puts things in perspective because we were actually living Latin,” Nina Gaither (9) said. The trip began at the Bay of Naples, where the group visited an amphitheater and then visited a cave referenced in the Aeneid. They continued to Pompeii and then spent the rest of the time in Rome, visiting cultural landmarks including San Clemente, the Catacombs on the Via Appia, the Vatican museums, St. Peter’s Basilica, and Tivoli. In addition to learning more about the language’s history and cultural roots, the trip offered a chance for students to form close knit bonds, Doolan said. “It was a very personalized experience with just 11 students, [and] it was really special to make all of these connections across different grades and students with a wide array of different interests.” “On our trip we had freshmen through seniors, so the Latin experience is different for every single student. I wasn’t catering the class literature to the trip because that would exclude some kids,” McCaw said.
VENI, VIDI, VICI Latin students tour the ruins of ancient Rome.
Courtesy of Josh Doolan
Students and teachers attend March for Our Lives Sandhya Shyam Staff Writer
inside
Members of the school community chose to participate in the March for Our Lives demonstration that took place over break on March 24th. The event was a student-led protest sparked by the recent mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schooling. The main march occurred in Washington DC, but over 800 marches took place across the world, including one in New York City. Chair of the Library Department Caroline Bartels attended the march in New York with her friends and decided to go because it was an important issue to her. Jake Beckman (12) attended the
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various participants in the March for her history research project that examined the effect of new technologies on protest movements. Wang found that social media played a large role as most of the people she interviewed learned about the event through social media. “With the newer generations having grown around technology all their lives, social media is the most used and accessible platform for people to get involved in the political process,” Wang said. Beckman wouldn’t have found out about the March without the help of social media, he said. “Modern technology has made it really easy to have access to a ton of information and other people’s opinions, and I think that it
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broadens our perspectives and helps us have a discussion,” Beckman said. “However, the same technology means our generation will have way more exposure to biased and fake information.” Another aspect of the march that was memorable for Dubno was that she went with her mother because of the fact that many parents who lost their children to gun violence were an integral part of it. “There was a moment where we just hugged each other and that was really important to me, to be able to be there with your parent or child,” she said. “I think the march opened people’s eyes to how mass shootings happen all the time,” Bartels said. “Change needs to happen.”
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