The Horace Mann Record
FEBRUARY 2ND, 2018 || VOLUME 115, ISSUE 16
HORACE MANN’S WEEKLY NEWSPAPER SINCE 1903
RECORD.HORACEMANN.ORG
Math Team hosts, wins third place in relay at math competition Betsey Bennett & Natalie Sweet Staff & Contributing Writers
Abigail Kraus/Photo Editor
AWAITING TESTS The current organization of the Testing Center.
Testing center reorganizes, changes policies Megha Nelivigi Staff Writer
inside
Over the past few months, a series of new policies have been put in place in the testing center, Psychologist Dr. Ian Pervil said. Most of these policies are to simply reinforce or clarify ones that already existed, he said. However, many students report instances of academic dishonesty continuing in the center. After noticing that a large number of students were using the testing center towards the end of first trimester – approximately 150 students were there during one day of the week – it was brought to the attention of Pervil and Test Center Coordinator Jesse Shaw that they needed to rethink how to keep students organized in the testing center, Pervil said. The first policy, a more organizational one, is that students and teachers must arrange the exact time when the student will be taking the test 24 hours in advance, he said. This helps Shaw make a plan of how he will manage the number of students arriving the next day. Another aspect of this policy is that students must arrive at the testing center at the agreed upon time or else their teacher will get notified, Pervil said. These policies are not punitive, he said, but simply a matter of organization and practicality. The second new policy requires students to place their phones into a basket at the front of the room before they begin an assessment. This is something the testing center had never explicitly said, so it felt like an obvious decision, Pervil said. This change isn’t a response to cheating, he said. It has nothing to do with any previous instances of cheating, but is rather an effort to diminish any opportunity a student might have to cheat. Rather than being a reaction to cheating, it is precautionary, Pervil said. Shaw may also ask students to sit towards the front of the room,
Students report seeing cheating during assessments Pervil said, but this is more about practicality and managing a large volume of students. These policies have not had much of an effect on her test taking, Kate Golub (11), who frequently tests in the testing center, said. One of the only changes she has noticed is that when it is more crowded, she may have to sit in a different seat than the one she is normally accustomed to. Despite the fact that most of the changes made were unrelated to cheating, a number of students have reported seeing cheating occur in the testing center. Some students reported seeing their peers on their phones in the testing center, often sitting towards the back of the room or towards the side, out of sight of Shaw, whose desk was previously located closer to one side of the room. Recently, Shaw’s desk has been moved towards the center of the room, where he can better see every desk. Other students have witnessed students in the testing center typing formulas or notes into their calculators before an assessment to help them during math or science tests. One student witnessed another student writing answers on the side of their legs before a test, so Shaw could not see. Additionally, several students claimed that the time limits on assessments in the testing center are not always as strictly enforced as they are in the classroom. In response to students’ claims about cheating in the testing center, Head of School Dr. Tom Kelly said, “We created an official testing center — at considerable cost to the School — because of allegations of cheating under the former, less formal and more inconsistent practice of making up tests in the library or outside of an office or classroom. If the School’s
Censorship and art
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Binah Schatsky (12) shares her opinion on the role of censorship in art
UD Honor Code is being violated in the testing center, there will be swift and immediate changes to how the Center operates.” Teachers also focus on how to prevent cheating during assessments taken in the classroom. English teacher Deborah Stanford’s approach to avoiding cheating on in-class essays is not allowing computers at all. Stanford’s students must hand write their essays in blue books, and although she prefers handwritten assignments for many other reasons, this is a large part of her preference, Stanford said. To combat cheating during in-class essays, some history and English teachers have begun using DigiExam, History Department Chair Dr. Daniel Link said. According to the DigiExam website, the program shuts off internet and locks down the computer during an exam to prevent students from leaving the page. “DigiExam reinforces that the school takes the Honor Code seriously and expects the students to do so as well,” Link said. “It allows both students and teachers to be assured that academic integrity will be upheld in the essays students write. I haven’t seen a downside to it at this point.” The testing center now uses DigiExam if teachers request it. There are a number of other Testing Center policies already in place to combat potential instances of academic dishonesty, including desks that prevent students from seeing each other’s work, a requirement for students to leave their belongings at the front of the room, and allowing teachers to split assessments into separate parts so students with accommodations cannot work on questions between periods. *Additional reporting by Katie Goldenberg, Staff Writer
A day in the life
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This past Saturday, various math teams from schools around the city competed to solve complex problems in the Horace Mann Math Competition (HoMMaC). The Math Team organizes and writes questions for HoMMaC, a biennial conference that includes three sections of competition: an individual round, two team rounds, and a relay round. This year, the school won third place in the relay round of the competition. In the relay round, math problems are passed off from team member to team member, event organizer Dora Woodruff (10) said. One student starts off with the question, and then another student takes over, using the answer that the first person calculated, she said. “That means if one person gets it wrong, every person would get it wrong, and the final answer would be wrong,” Richard He (11), an organizer of the event, said. Since the relay round required teammates relying on each other’s skills, the team became closer as a result, Max Chung (10), a participant in the competition, said. “It was really satisfying,” Chung said. “We only answered two out of the five questions with educated guessing.” According to Matthew Li (11), an
A glimpse at faculty members’ daily routines
Neighborhood stigmas
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Looking at the differences in the neighborhoods students come from
organizer of the event, the increase of math teams at HoMMaC this year in comparison to the previous HoMMaC suggests that the math community in New York City has grown. “HoMMaC two years ago was a lot smaller; there were only three teams,” Matthew said. This year, five other schools, Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Spence, Trinity, and Brearley, competed at HoMMaC, each sending about six to eight people. The questions involve topics such as number theory, combinatorics, algebra, and geometry, Matthew said. “We try not to use questions that would require a lot of prior knowledge, like calculus questions,” Stephanie Li (12), an organizer of the event, said. “We avoid topics that you have to read up on or study for.” This way, the competition is accessible to students who have not yet learned more advanced topics in school, like calculus, she said. According to Chung, the Math Team held a meeting three weeks prior to the competition to review concepts, practice questions, and discuss interesting problems. Now, the next goals of the math team include preparing for the American Mathematics Competitions (AMC), the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament, and Purple Comet, He said.
Ariella Greenberg/ Art Director
@hm.record @thehoracemannrecord Horace Mann School 231 W 246th St, Bronx, NY 10471
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THE RECORD OPINIONS FEBRUARY 2ND, 2018
Acknowledging the role of censorship in art Binah Schatsky (12) Censorship is an artist’s enemy. The key to art, particularly performance art, is complete honesty, total lack of inhibition, and extreme vulnerability. As a result, art is a productive setting to breed controversy. Restrictions of any kind detract from the authenticity of an artist’s voice and therefore compromise art’s integrity. For the last few months, as part of my Independent Study, I have been diligently working to piece together a sound score (a mix of musical and recording elements digitally clipped together into one solid piece), a major element of which was the Trump Access Hollywood Tapes, a 2005 recording of Trump making misogynistic, sexual remarks he later brushed off as “locker room talk.” As per my mentor’s suggestion, I signed up to choreograph for the student choreographed dance concert, and accompanied my several months of sound score work with several months of choreography, using experimental techniques to build a dance duet off of my music. Unfortunately, two days before the concert opened, the administration asked me to remove any profane or controversial language from my intricately devised piece. I could not comply with that kind of censorship. I experimented with altering the language in my piece, but these modifications fundamentally changed the piece’s intention. The integrity and honesty of my piece was sacrificed for the sake of audience comfort. Ultimately, I decided to perform the duet with me and my partner listening to the music through headphones while the audience watched the dance in silence. This past Fall, in what seems like total hypocrisy, I stepped down as co-Director from The Rappaccini Variations because of a lack of censorship. One scene in the show was directed in the style of Japanese theatre Noh. Noh Theatre is an extremely intense and highly trained form of theatre in which movement, music, and masks are used to communicate a heightened sense of emotion and ethereality. Our production made use of an array of Japanese cultural garb and accessories including Noh masks, which display traditionally Japanese features. None of the students performing the scene were of Japanese descent and, due to the limited rehearsal time, the scene
seemed a mimicry of the style without the necessary deep understanding of the fundamentals or context. I had not had any contact with this scene until the first costume run when, on seeing it, I felt the performance, particularly in costume, to be appropriative and disrespectful. Several members of the cast and crew confirmed their discontent with me. I raised my concerns, as well as those of members of the cast and crew, to the creative team. As a cast, we held a discussion about the scene. Some slight changes were made in the dialogue and a note was included in the program, emphasizing the necessity of this work as a kind of cultural exploration and way of learning about “outside the box” traditions. Some students remained upset by the scene, and I found the changes to be inadequate, so I quit.
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The integrity and honesty of my piece was sacrificed for the sake of audience comfort.
As a fierce advocate for uncensored art, furious about my own work being censored, why would I try to censor the work of others? Performance artist Harry Giles discusses the responsibility of an artist to their audience, particularly when they present controversial or shocking work. Giles asks that as artists, we consider who we exclude or alienate from a performance by making certain strong choices. If we understand who our choices alienate, and we choose to make those choices anyway, that is our right as free speaking artists. Given this, both the scenarios I listed above shouldn’t have even been debated. The Rappaccini team, as long as they acknowledged that their choices could alienate racial minorities from the performance, was free to proceed. I, acknowledging that profanity and commentary on Trump could alienate certain audience members, should also have been free to proceed. In both cases, I considered these elements. I quit Rappaccini because I was not willing to endorse the potential alienation racial minorities, whatever the intentions of the creative team. While the team celebrated the opportunity to explore non-Western
culture, I did not see this as worth the alienation of certain groups. On the other hand, I created my dance piece with Trump’s profanity because I knew it would alienate. I wanted controversy. I wanted people to squirm in their seats when they heard those words and I wanted there to be disagreement about my message in the audience. That is the essence of political art, something I wanted to explore. Of course, Giles’ model for controversial art does not actually hold here, because we are part of an educational institution where the laws of free speech don’t apply, and the administration has the ability to censor whatever they choose. In our case, the right of the artist to speak freely is being handed to the institution, so Giles’ process of asking who is alienated gets handed to the greater community. When I called attention to the racial alienation that Rappaccini could cause, the ICIE and the theatre department reviewed it, minor changes were made, and the scene proceeded. Apparently, the exposure to non-Western cultures in this harried and incomplete way was “worth” the concerns of participants and potential alienation of audience members. Further, the concern of it being just a week away from opening seemed to eliminate the possibility of any major changes. Conversely, the profanity in my piece was questioned and it was decided that whatever alienation it would cause, either to young audiences, to Trump supporters, or to those offended by profanity, was unacceptable and therefore needed to be censored. In my case, the two-day time constraint was not enough to rule out major changes. All of these choices were perfectly within the school’s right, but we need to seriously examine what message our school sends by making these choices. Why is concern regarding the alienation of racial minorities less important to the school than this other kind of alienation? Even if we concede to acknowledging that some changes were made to Rappaccini and a dialogue was facilitated surrounding the issues, racial alienation is potentially not being regarded as less important, but it is definitely being treated as equal. Are these really the values of our school, that alienation of racial minorities is less of an issue than profanity? If so, we are in need of a serious evaluation of our choices and principles.
Volume 115 Editorial Board Managing Editor Eve Kazarian
Editor in Chief Gustie Owens
Issues Editor Mahika Hari
Features Tiffany Liu Natasha Poster
News Sam Heller Yeeqin New
Opinions Seiji Murakami Rebecca Salzhauer
A&E Jonathan Katz Joanne Wang
Lions’ Den Peter Borini Ricardo Pinnock
Photography Amrita Acharya Freya Lindvall Abigail Kraus
Middle Division Ella Feiner Sarah Shin
Design Editors Evan Megibow Nikki Sheybani Lisa Shi
Art Director Ariella Greenberg
Faculty Adviser David Berenson
Columnists Lutie Brown Amir Moazami
Online Editor Michael Truell
Editorial
At the root of cheating Every school year begins with an advisory focused on academic integrity. We read, discuss, and sign individual copies of our school’s honor code. Unfortunately, for many of us, our commitment to academic honesty ends there. Many students spend as much time trying to game the system as we do working. As the front page article about new testing measures reveals, checking phones in the bathroom during tests, using Shmoop and Sparknotes for essay ideas, and paying tutors to crank out “original” essays are all common strategies for getting the “highest-quality” work done in the least amount of time. Students even resort to skipping school when healthy just to avoid taking a particularly stressful assessment. We can’t pretend that Horace Mann’s cheating problem can be pinned on a small group of “immoral” students. Rather, widespread academic dishonesty reflects the systemic pressure that students face to attain perfect grades while simultaneously participating in diverse extracurriculars and cramming for standardized tests. While parents, teachers, and peers continue to emphasize the importance of students’ college prospects, the pressure to cheat will only continue. Cheating isn’t just bad for the school: it hurts students’ education as well. The most important things we learn in school are not lists of French vocabulary or calculus formulas, but the abilities to study, collaborate, think independently, meet deadlines, and take ownership of our work. While getting a “bad grade” on a test is always disappointing, it provides valuable feedback about study habits, enabling us to improve in the future. We believe that it is more important for students to try their best, learn time management, and take pride in their schoolwork than to get a B+ instead of a B on that one test. Though the stakes for each assessment may feel high in the moment, getting a slightly better grade is not worth sacrificing the learning opportunities that we are lucky to have. Until we address the underlying pressures that push students to cheat, students will continue to find new ways to evade the system in order to obtain better grades. While we recognize the school’s efforts to curb cheating and plagiarism, these measures are not a solution to the greater problem. We need to re-examine students’ motivations and shift our priorities away from grades and towards learning.
Seiji Murakami/Opinions Editor
Staff Writers 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, Janvi Kukreja, Madison Li, Connor Morris, Megha Nelivigi, Noah Phillips, Eliza Poster, Julia Robbins, Abigail Salzhauer, Nishtha Sharma, Sadie Schwartz, Tenzin Sherpa, Sandhya, Shyam, Becca Siegel, Charlie Silberstein, Lynne Sipprelle, Griffin Smith, Georgi Verdelis, Ben Wang, Jeren Wei, Robbie Werdiger, Simon Yang Staff Photographers Iliana Dezelic, Eva Fortunato, Miyu Imai, Abigail Kraus, Daniel Lee, Mimi Morris, Benjamin Parker, Tatiana Pavletich Staff Artists Elizabeth Fortunato, Sofia Gonzalez, Surya Gowda, Damali O’Keefe, Spyridoula Potamopoulou, Jackson Roberts, Zoe Vogelsang
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.
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HORACE MANN NEWS FEBRUARY 2ND, 2018
Royal Shakespeare Company further implemented into English curriculum
Jeren Wei Staff Writer
Students animate the words of Shakespeare from paper to stage, as English teachers incorporate the instruction of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) into the classroom. This year, second cohort of English teachers have joined RSC and have been attending weekend workshops, planning exercises, and applying new teaching techniques in the classroom. This group of teachers plans to implement a “Shakespeare Week” from April 16-20, English Teacher Dr. Adam Casdin said. “Sharing the work we have done will hopefully show the school community the excitement that is coming in the classroom,” he said. The program has expanded tremendously since the school started working with them. RSC has worked with the Lower Division (LD) and Middle Division (MD), English teacher Harry Bauld said. “The RSC program is primarily a teacher training program comprised of two cohorts with upwards of about 35 teachers involved, and the core work is based upon active, experiential, hands techniques,” he said. “It’s an inquiry and discovery-based approach to learning.” History teachers in the MD are also excited because they have begun to work in “historical character” to try to bring that character alive,” Casdin said. “When you dramatize history you see it a different way.” Furthermore, integrating the techniques taught by RSC has allowed students to “engage bodily and intellectually with the text,” he said.
Not only have students benefited from the instruction of the Royal Shakespeare Company, but teachers in MD and Upper Division (UD) have as well. “Teachers love it because it opens up the possibility of different readings of the play and puts more power in the students’ hands,” said Casdin. In the classroom, students practice reading exercises with the text, allowing them to gain a new perspective on the material. “I always felt that reading Shakespeare out loud helps to process the difficult language, but hearing the diverse interpretations and delving extra deep in them in order to choreograph each step really did help in understanding not only the play, but also how incredibly versatile every word can be,” Nikki Sheybani (12) said. Last spring, students from LD to UD participated in a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Sheybani, who played a Peter Quince,
enjoyed “seeing every personality in class manifest itself into the roles we assumed,” she said. “I felt like the previously obsolete Shakespeare syntax came to life on stage,” sheybani said. “We could give the words any meaning we wanted and since two people acted for each character in the production, there were 12 distinct interpretations running around on stage.” The theatrical techniques have grown beyond the plays taught in class and have been used in poetry to understanding the setting in prose, said Casdin. “The idea of theater is that it is a dynamic and living art. By working with the RSC, we are trying to bring that energy and dynamic quality in the classroom,” Casdin said.
Courtesy of HM Flickr
SHAKESPEARE RSC led school in a performance of a Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Model Congress triumphs at Columbia conference Courtesy of Annabel Kady
FOR THE WIN Rae Rae Silverman (11) debates at Columbia conference.
Sandhya Shyam Staff Writer Model Congress brought home 22 awards, including best large delegation, from last weekend’s conference at Columbia University. “Of the 22 awards, 17 were individual, which is a really great ratio to have,” co-President Arianna Laufer (12) said. “We had at least one award from almost every committee, both in open and full session. Everyone did so well.” Going into the conference, the team was confident but “it was still nerve wracking for us at the closing ceremony,” co-President Annabel Kady (12) said. “We were so relieved when we heard our names.” “While I did not feel I performed that well, it was great seeing my friends and my peers succeed so well,” Julia Robbins (10) said.
Ermeen Choudhury (9) won an honorable mention in her full session. “I was surprised [to win] but really happy and was getting emotional,” she said. “Because I’m a freshman, I didn’t expect to get such a big award.” “I think I improved in clarity when speaking,” Choudhury said. “I also organized my points well.” Laufer was particularly impressed by the all of the freshmen’s performances, she said. “In my full session there were three freshmen, and every single one of them spoke,” Laufer said. “That was so exciting for me, because I know as a freshmen I was really nervous to speak.” “Some of our newer delegates were unfortunately placed in committees with kids from the West WindsorPlainsboro school, who are our rivals,” Govind Menon (12) said. “So there was a lot of pressure on them to be first.” Menon also thought that it was “really
cool seeing the growth of underclassmen that I’ve worked with and have seen get better over the years,” he said. “It was also really exciting to see that both our youngest and older members were some of the most well-informed delegates there,” Kady said. “I’m always impressed by how confident and knowledgeable they are,” faculty advisor Dr. Susan Delanty said. Another strength of the team was how people were collaborating and working together to come up with arguments between committee sessions, Kady said. “I think we saw the kind of camaraderie that we try to instill in the team,” Laufer said. “As a team, they work really well together and have a lot of cohesiveness,” Delanty said. “Arianna and Annabel called the team together constantly to give each other tips.” Some of the chairs of the conference were alums of the school, such as Mehr Suri ’17, Raag Agrawal ’16, and Spencer Slagowitz ’16. “It was great seeing them again, but I don’t think it affected how we did that much,” Laufer said. Moving forward, Menon thinks that younger kids should try to become less afraid when speaking at conferences, Menon said. “My voice doesn’t project very well, so I want to develop skills for that,” Choudhury said. “As seniors, it’s exciting to see that in three years, our new delegates will become even stronger and will be able to lead our team, and that our legacy will stand,” Kady said.
FAKE NEWS ALERT Kelly delivers the State of the School Address Aaron Snyder Not a Staff Writer “Dr. Delanty, Dr. Levenstein and members of the Community Council: I’ve come here today to announce to you that the state of our school is strong! I also want to stress the importance of putting HM first…” so began Head of School Dr. Thomas Kelly’s 12th annual State of the School Address, which took place during the CC’s meeting this Tuesday. Many of Dr. Kelly’s talking points, such as the switch from trimesters to semesters and the potential shift away from AP courses, were applauded by half the audience as the other half sat stone-faced. However, Dr. Kelly’s announcement that the field would reopen immediately should Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow on groundhog day was met with a lengthy standing ovation from the 7 members of the audience. Dr. Kelly made a point of recognizing Jason Caldwell, the school’s Director of Admissions, for his efforts to use a merit-based admissions policy. He also called for stricter vetting of students coming from places like New Jersey. Dr. Kelly also called on the CC to pass his $125 million infrastructure plan that he calls “HM in Motion.” The debate over the infrastructure bill has caused deep divisions in the CC. Fiscal conservatives threatened to shut down the student government to prevent the bill from passing, but ultimately decided not to, citing fears that their legitimacy would be undermined when nobody noticed. Dr. Kelly only moved on from discussing his vision for the project when one of his legislative aides passed him a note reminding him that he doesn’t actually need the CC’s support for this initiative. Dr. Kelly also used the speech as an opportunity to take credit for the fact that there have been no deaths due to choking in the cafeteria during his tenure. PolitiFact.com and the AP Stat teachers rated that statement as “Mostly False” because that statistic was likely due to chance, not any of Dr. Kelly’s policies. Most political pundits praised the speech, but some pointed out that Dr. Kelly didn’t address the rumor that the HMPSDI is just a conspiracy to get students to stop doing homework as a means of combating grade inflation. *Note: Dr. Tom Kelly dismissed this article as “fake news.”
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THE RECORD FEATURES FEBRUARY 2ND, 2018
Students discuss neighborhood stigmas Lynne Sipprelle, Spencer Kahn & Gabby Kepnes Staff & Contributing Writers According to a student ambassador information packet about students in the Middle and Upper Divisions, 1,043 live in New York (736 in Manhattan), 126 live in New Jersey, and 16 live in Connecticut. Although the majority of school students come from Manhattan, each morning students arrive from all over the metropolitan area, some with commutes of over an hour and a half. Students inevitably must deal with judgements about their homes, whether confronting negative stigmas surrounding their neighborhoods or facing difficulty convincing friends to visit. Many students agree that living in Manhattan is often perceived as more prestigious and allows for a more active social life.
BRONX:
The first time Akida Joseph (11) realized there was a stigma around living in the Bronx was on her birthday. “I wanted some people to come to the Bronx for my birthday to hang out at the mall, but their parents wouldn’t let them come,” Joseph said. People often think the Bronx is far more dangerous than other parts of New York City, Joseph said. “It is definitely true that the Bronx isn’t as wealthy as other boroughs of New York,” Arriana Serrano (12) said. “There are some parts that are good and some parts that aren’t.” “When people think of New York City, they think of Manhattan and Times Square and the Empire State Building,” Eric Ohakam (11) said. “They don’t think of the Bronx.” Ohakam sometimes feels embarrassed telling other students where he lives, he said. When Faijul Rhyhan (11) began attending the school in seventh grade, he encountered micro-aggressions about his neighborhood, he said. Rhyhan, who lives in Parkchester in southeast Bronx, said he has heard students make comments such as “Oh it’s the south Bronx, it must be bad,” or “Aren’t you scared to walk home?” Once Sofia Gonzalez (12) was taking an art class at a museum when students began discussing where they lived. “When I said I lived in the Bronx, they immediately thought of a terrible neighborhood and said, ‘Oh wow, I’m so sorry.’” Joseph said she used to feel uncomfortable telling people she lives in the Bronx, but now she does not. “I feel perfectly fine about living in the Bronx, so why should I care about what other people feel?” Joseph said. Serrano doesn’t feel living in the Bronx has impacted her experience at school, she said. “Other people don’t know that I don’t have as much as other people do, but it doesn’t really make a difference because my friends don’t
make a big deal out of it,” she said. For Gonzalez, living in the Bronx close to school has been convenient, but people still make snap judgements about her for living there, she said. “There is a very specific culture of students who live on the Upper West Side versus the Upper East Side versus the Bronx and New Jersey,” Gonzalez said. Even though the school is located in the Bronx, it feels like attending school in Manhattan, Ohakam said. “It made me see that you can be born lucky. For me, I’m not rich, but I’m not poor either. I’m just not as high up there on the economic ladder as some people are,” Ohakam said. Rhyhan sometimes feels different from other students at the school, he said. “I feel like some things that people take for granted I appreciate more. I feel like the way people grow up is very different from how I grew up,” Rhyhan said.
CONNECTICUT:
L e s s cosmopolitan, more rural, predominately white, preppy, and mostly wealthy, James Chang (12) said, describing common stereotypes of his hometown, G r e e n w i c h Connecticut. “Stereotypes are often exaggerated, so even if these have some degree of truth, they’re not the full picture,” Chang said. “I think there’s definitely a perception that it’s really far and rural and disconnected from the tri-state area,” Honor McCarthy (12) said. Living in Greenwich makes it more difficult to see friends, McCarthy said, but she enjoys being close to the beach and having a retreat from the chaos of school life and the city. “It can be a little bit of a joke that some of our friends say,” Emily Yu (11) said. “Like, ‘Oh, you live out there. No one wants to go all the way to Connecticut.’” Although many students living in Connecticut said that they were sometimes teased by other students, none said they were ever made to feel embarrassed or hurt. Ben Hu (11) has enjoyed growing up closer to nature in the suburbs, he said.“Most people in the city have apartment buildings, but I have a backyard where when I was younger and had free time I could go outside,”
Hu said. “I think what it’s done is it’s really forced me to get out of my comfort zone in terms of navigating public transportation,” McCarthy said. “So I think compared to my friends from middle school who live here in Connecticut and go to school in Greenwich, I’m definitely much more open to going to new places and I’ve learned how to navigate the subway and Metro-North,” McCarthy said. Hu takes the train frequently into the city since for the most part friends aren’t willing to drive over an hour to his house in Connecticut, he said. Chang feels especially close with other students at the school who live in Connecticut since it’s also difficult for him to see friends in the city, he said. “Two of them are in my grade, so it’s like a small community over here,” he said.
NEW JERSEY:
“You always hear people refer to New Jersey as ‘the armpit of America’ or ‘the most boring place.’ They talk about it like ‘Oh, you live in New Jersey,’” Eva Fortunato (11), who lives in Fort Lee, said.
differently if you live in New Jersey,” Bae said. “It’s almost like looking down on you.” However, everyone living in New Jersey interviewed for the article said that they did not feel uncomfortable or inferior telling other students where they lived. The only part of the school experience that living in New Jersey changes is the commute, Liz Fortunato said.“Granted, I could drive into school, but I take the bus and there’s usually traffic in the morning, which can make it a little bit annoying.” “The fact that it’s a little harder to get to school limits what kind of activities I can do,” Bae said. The week before break, Bae had to stay late after the six o’clock bus for chorus rehearsal, the music concert, and then a fencing meet. “So that’s three times a week, which is a pretty big deal in terms of money and in terms of the amount of time it takes,” Bae said. All of Deveraux Mackey’s (11) extracurricular activities and closest friends are in the city, and she feels disconnected from New Jersey even though she lives there, she said. “I like to say I’m a part-time resident of New York City,” Mackey said.
UPPER EAST SIDE:
“There’s not so much as a negative stigma,” Sam Keimweiss (10) said. “In general, in any area that has high wealth, there’s a little stigma that you identify with that group.” Many people describe the area as “very pretentious,” Gaby Moussazadeh (10) said. Moussazadeh feels comfortable sharing where she lives, she said. “I do think there’s a stigma of private high schools, and Spyri Potamopoulou/Staff Artist socio-economic status,” Reina McNutt (10) said. There seems “I get made fun of for living in New to be a stereotype that only white, rich Jersey,” Eunice Bae (11), who lives people live in the area, she said. in Englewood Cliffs, said. “I don’t really understand why. I don’t really People tend to picture Gossip Girl understand the reason behind it.” with the extravagant parties when they People assume that New Jersey is think of the Upper East Side, Samantha very different or smells bad or is very Sladkus (10) said. far away when in reality New Jersey is “Everything is nearby; there’s a deli very close to New York, Allen Park (11), around the corner, subway as well, a few who also lives in Englewood Cliffs, said. nice diners, everything is really close,” “I wouldn’t really call it a stigma,” Keimweiss said. Liz Fortunato (11) said. “It’s more “I like that I’m close to Central Park,” like sometimes people tease you, but McNutt said. “There’s a large family it’s never meant in an intentionally community in my building. So it’s nice harmful way.” to live here around people I know and “It’s joking, but I do think the who I’m friendly with.” sentiment is there,” Josh Benson (11) said. “It is annoying, but not stigmatized.” UPPER WEST SIDE: The people who make comments The West Side is perceived to be a about living in New Jersey don’t actually little less fancy than the East Side, Marli know anything about New Jersey, Park Katz (10) said. said. “Some avenues and areas on the “I think kids who live in the city Upper West Side are considered less or New York just tend to look at you elegant than others,” Daisy Wheeler
(10) said. Like a typical neighborhood, the UWS has less “privileged” areas, the trendy areas, and the super high-end-specifically the deluxe Central Park West, she said. “People think it’s dangerous when in reality, it’s the same thing as the East Side” Katz said. “Whenever I tell someone where I live they always say, ‘that’s in the middle of nowhere,’” Nelson Gaillard (10) said. “The things said about where I live are totally appropriate because it’s usually the truth,” he said. “It’s almost a bit petty when people think negatively about the West Side, exclaiming it’s dangerous,” Katz said.
QUEENS:
“When HM people ask me where I’m from, they don’t add any follow up questions,” Lutie Brown (12) said. Most people are familiar with Flushing and Jamaica, but no one acknowledges the other smaller towns in Queens, she said. Eddie Ahn (11) has not heard of much stigma about his neighborhood, but he has heard people say that it is far away, he said. “It’s the only known characteristic about it,” he said. Ahn is comfortable sharing where he lives, he said. Brown attends many admission events, which gives her the opportunity to talk about where she is from, she said. “I feel singled out for being the only one answering admission questions from Brooklyn or Queens residents.” Brown said.
WESTCHESTER AND FURTHER NORTH:
“In the suburbs, there’s a ton of space; you have greenery everywhere,” Madhav Menon (9) said. “You may have to go a little bit further to get stuff and meet friends, but I still prefer the suburbs.” “I think the majority of people from Horace Mann live in Manhattan,” Shrey Sahgal (10) said. “It becomes awkward when friends are making plans that don’t include people that aren’t from Manhattan.” “There is a stigma that upstate is somehow worse than the city because people who live in the city are rather proud of where they live,” Ben Lee (9) said. Malhaar Agrawal (10) does not believe there’s a stigma around where he lives. “I like how quiet it is. I like going to the train station and visiting the small businesses there. I have a great commute getting to school; it’s only 20 or 25 minutes.” Lee’s community is essentially the opposite from the city: not loud or crowded, he said.
Ariella Greenberg/Art Director
5
HORACE MANN FEATURES FEBRUARY 2ND, 2018
D AY I N T H E LI F E .. .
Reporting done by Leonora Gogos (10) and Surya Gowda (11)
“Some of the serene moments are looking at the Hudson River as I’m going to and from school. To breath deeply, that’s time for me.” 5:00 am: Wakes up 7:15 am: Arrives at school 8:25 am: First class of the day or Seminar on Identity (SOI) (Wednesdays) 9:10 am-3:15 pm: Teaches classes, meets with students 3:20 pm (Mondays): Meets with teachers about (SOI) classes 3:20 pm (other days): East Wind West Wind Asia Night rehearsals, plans Gender Inequality Conference 4:30/5:00 pm-9pm: Gets home, checks emails, reads the New York Times online, finds time to call a friend, eats dinner (which she does not make herself) 9:30 pm: Falls asleep to a CD of bird noises
Deborah Stanford “I feel as if my life revolves around Horace Mann during the school year. My wishlist is to have the time to read what I want to read, when I want to read.”
“I get to spend an extra two/two and a half hours to be a part of my kids’ life [during the winter]. I do homework and play with them. When I am coaching, I don’t get that same amount of time.” Matthew Russo 5:30-6:00 am: Wakes up, relaxes, makes a cup of coffee 6:00 am: Everyone in the house is awake, makes breakfast for his daughters and gets ready for school 8:25-3:15 pm: 5-6 gym classes during the day 4:00/4:15 pm: Not coaching during the winter, goes home 4:15-7:30 pm: Starts to cook dinner, plays with his daughters and get them ready for bed 7:30 pm: Daughters are in bed 9:30-10:00 pm: Goes to bed
“The changeover of classes is constant, which I don’t think anyone other than the bridge-art teachers really do.”
Alison Kolinski 6:10 am: Wakes up, eats breakfast 7:30 am: Arrives at school, opens doors and turns lights on in Gross Theater, the dance studio, and the Black Box Theater 8:00 am: Reads CNN and news briefings 9:15 am: Teaches a dance workshop 10:20 am: Teaches “Happy Feet” dance to kindergartners for their penguin unit 11:05 am: Meets with Theater, Dance and Film Studies Department or goes over
upcoming productions 11:55 am: Teaches a sixth grade arts rotation class 12:45 pm: Lunch 1:35 pm: Free period, catches up on work 2:25 pm: Teaches a dance performance class 3:20 pm: Rehearsal with either HMTC or HMDC 7:00 pm: Goes home 7:30 pm: Takes yoga, pilates, ballet, or tap class 9:30/10 pm: Sudoku, TV time 10:30 pm: Goes to bed
Nicholas Perry
“Everyday usually has one surprise event, something that comes out of nowhere that I have to deal with during the day.”
5:45 am: Alarm goes off, hits snooze 6:00-6:40 am: Wakes-up, showers, spends time with wife, checks to see if anything crazy happened on the internet 6:40-8:10 am: Leaves home, plans class or grades assessments on the train 8:10-11:55 am: Arrives at school, gets breakfast from the Cafeteria, attends meetings 12:00 pm: (Thursdays) Seminar on Identity (SOI) class
Jason Caldwell 5:00 am: Wakes up/checks personal and school emails 5:30 am: Cleans kitchen 6:00 am: Morning routine 6:30 am: Gives his children their asthma medication 7:00 am: Makes beds 7:15 am: Showers 7:30-7:45 am: Leaves house 7:45-8:00 am: Arrives at work 8:00 am: Speaks informally with families applying as they arrive. 8:30 am: Administrative tasks, interview reports, review applications 9:15 am- 4:00/5:00 pm: Interviews parents and students 5:00 pm: Writes interview reports, returns voicemails/ reviews emails 6:00/9:00 pm: Leaves the office
12:50 pm: Teaches math class 1:40-3:15 pm: Meetings, work 3:20-4:00 pm: (Thursdays) 11th grade-wide meeting, attends clubs, meetings with students 4:00-4:30 pm: Catches up on work 5:15 pm: Leaves school 6:45 pm: Gets home 7:15-10:30 pm: Eats dinner, watches Netflix with wife 10:30 pm: Goes to bed
(9:00 p.m. during JanuaryMarch) 6:15 pm: Eats dinner with family 7:00 pm: Bath time with his youngest daughter or homework review with his older daughter 8:30 pm: After kids are asleep, does more work, writes, or reads 10:00 pm: Final email check 10:15 pm: Bedtime or watches MSNBC or CNN.
“I love to write. I write screenplays and teleplays. When I have the time, I love working on different projects. It is hard to do that between January and March. I also love the time I spend with my wife and daughters.”
Look in future issues for more profiles! Ariella Greenberg/Art Director
6
THE RECORD ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT FEBRUARY 2ND, 2018
SPOTLIGHT: SHEILA FERRI, LOWER DIVISION ART TEACHER From teacher to student: Ferri explores art forms beyond the school setting
Eliza Poster Staff Writer Lower Division (LD) Art teacher Sheila Ferri spends weekdays in her art classroom, where students’ ceramic pieces glisten under the sunlight that bursts through the windows. However, during her free time she creates her own works of art, one of which is being displayed at the “Me, Myself and I” exhibit at the Clay Art Center in Port Chester, N.Y. Ferri’s piece is titled “Too Much on My Plate?” It is composed of a woman’s head surrounded by several loose pieces of ceramic sculpted into images which represent different aspects of her life. These include an apple, a wedding ring, and a paintbrush, which illustrate her role as a teacher, a wife, and an artist, respectively. After reading a series of articles exploring female identity, Ferri was inspired to examine her own. This included her experiences while starting as a sculptor. “When I went to Art school, very few women were doing sculpture,” Ferri said, “At the time, men were very resentful of women working in this art form. I always had to find ways of working where I didn’t need to have a guy helping.” Her introspectiveness about the various roles she plays in her life led her to begin creating the piece displayed at the exhibit. “It’s about trying to balance your life between your work, taking care of your family, taking care of your home, having a husband, and wanting to do your artwork— not as a hobby, but as an artist.” she said. Ferri’s love for art began far before she began teaching. Growing up in
Philadelphia, she was influenced by her artist mother. In high school, she took a ceramics class and went on to study at the Tyler School of Art and the Rhode Island School of Design. “I’m really not a potter: I’m a sculpter, so I work in all different medias,” Ferri said. Throughout her eclectic career, she has experimented with numerous techniques, including wood carving, figure modeling, and bronze casting. She even pursued glass blowing with the renowned artist Dale Chihuly. After graduating, Ferri realized that the resources that were available to her at school were no longer at her disposal, so she decided to resort to more elemental mediums. “When I left art school, all of the sudden all the equipment that you get— a kiln and all the different machinery, was gone,” she said, “I couldn’t do any work with my glass anymore, but I worked with wire. Wire you could do anywhere.” When she began teaching, a small kiln was available to her where she worked before coming to the school, and she was able to delve back into the ceramics art form once again. In the midst of her 34th year at the school, Ferri has introduced countless students to ceramic arts, some still reflect fondly on their experiences in her class. Working with clay gave students the capability to create something with their own hands, Jessica Thomas (10) said. Thomas recalled crafting ceramic birds in her class, she said. The birds still maintain their vibrant pastel hues in the arboretum on the LD campus. “It was one of my favorite ways to express myself in lower school,” Rhys Shepherd (9) said. “[Ferri] gave us an outlet.”
“
“It’s about being an artist: just trying to balance your life...” -Sheila Ferri Courtesy of Clay Art Center
TOO MUCH ON MY PLATE Sheila Ferri at the “Me, Myself, and I” exhibit, next to her featured art work.
Annual Asia night celebrates culture Student-Written One-Act Festival preview
Katie Goldenberg Staff Writer
Tonight from 5:30 to 9, students will take to Cohen Dining Commons to feast on Asian cuisine as well as the Sanders Recital Hall stage to showcase talent from the Asian community at the school’s annual student-led Asia Night, run by East Wind West Wind (EWWW). The night’s acts will involve singing performances, student-choreographed dances, student reflections, as well as the widely popular fashion show, in which students dress up in traditional Asian clothing, including Bhutanese, Japanese, Korean, and Thai styles, Senior Board Member Grace Sander (12) said. This year’s repertoire will
also include a performance by Peng Li, a Chinese mask changer whom Madison Li (10) invited to the event after seeing him perform at her old school’s assemblies, Li said. Mask changing is a type of traditional Chinese dance that mirrors a short play, in which the performer acts and uses magic to switch masks, she said. Tenzin Sherpa (11) will give a student reflection about her parents’ journey to the U.S. “I wanted to celebrate all the hard work they accomplished so that I could get my best life,” Sherpa said. “Many of the values they learned through their struggles and triumphs are values that have made me the person I am today.” Parent volunteers will bring in a variety of Asian foods for the event, ranging from
noodles to sushi to dumplings, Allison Li (12) said. Philip Shen (11), who performed at Asia Night last year, will return to participate in the fashion show as well as a group dance to the BTS K-pop song “DNA.” “I think the dance is definitely the most exciting part,” Shen said. “Even if you’re bad the crowd loves it. It’s a really fun outlet to express the many cultures that a lot of us at Horace Mann have.” Planning for the event began last October and involved logistical tasks such as contacting talented members of the community to perform, Sander said. Rehearsals for student acts were held after school, with some members staying as late as 8 p.m. to perfect their performances, she said.
Micheye Trumpet Jones/Staff Artist
Katie Goldenberg Staff Writer
From February 8 -10, the Horace Mann Theater Company (HMTC) will debut four scripts envisioned by the school’s young playwrights at the Student-Written One-Act Festival, directed by Theatre Arts teacher Alexis Dahl. The festival celebrates creations written by the school’s playwriting and production classes. In addition to three individual student works, “Hareway to Kevin,” a ten-minute play written collectively by the playwriting class of 2016-2017 will also debut, Dahl said. The piece was created by last year’s playwriting class, as a collaborative piece was part
of the curriculum, Dahl said. “I simply loved the humor and idiosyncratic characters, and that’s why I wanted to produce it,” Dahl said. The festival will “be a good way for people to explore places they’ve never been before and see into the mind of a writer,” Amrita Acharya (12), one of the playwrights, said. Acharya’s play “A Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes” follows a friendship between two adolescent girls in the U.S. during the Vietnam War, Acharya said. “For me it’s easier to relate because I know the playwrights, so having that intimate knowledge of who these people are and to see they created something so big
is really inspiring,” HMTC co-President Ben Rosenbaum (11), who will perform in two of the productions, said. “These are studentwritten, and they still cover remarkably sophisticated subjects,” Rosenbaum said. “I hope people see that no matter what age you are you can always be creating art.” Because the One Acts are smaller student productions, actors only rehearse with their cast once a week for about an hour and a half each, Rosenbaum said. The shorter rehearsals heighten the responsibilities of actors, who work on scripts at home and often meet outside of the rehearsal environment, he said.
Courtesy of Rivers Liu
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HORACE MANN MIDDLE DIVISION FEBRUARY 2ND, 2018
Middle Division focuses on student mental health during annual Wellness Wednesday Tenzin Sherpa Staff Writer MD students participated in activities as part of Wellness Wednesday this past week. This year, some of the main activities that the students were able to perform were sleep activities, which included watching a video on sleep, drinking nutritious smoothies, writing letters of hope, and making their own buttons. This year, one of the themes is the importance of sleep, Middle and Upper Division School Nurse Patricia D’Avanzo said. “We formulate activities that go with the title, so students will be working with their hands to make lavender sachets… we are going to have a healthy smoothie station, and somebody from the cafeteria will tell the students about the ingredients in the smoothie,” she said. The school purchased a button maker so that the students could make buttons that have to do with positive aspects of themselves, D’Avanzo said. Every 10 to 12 years, D’Avanzo has been asked to plan a Wellness Wednesday, she said. “We do a different core value every year… so one time it might be taking care of your eyes… another one might be the importance of sleep, and some years it matches with an assembly,” Head of Middle Division Robin Ingram said. This is the first of two Wellness Wednesdays this spring, Ingram said. We don’t want to overdo too many weekly events, Ingram said.
“This has been a formula that started long before the weeks, and we like it because it’s simple,” she said. All the activities offered through Wellness Week are easy and effective ways for students to practice self-care and maintain a healthy lifestyle so that they can succeed in their day to day lives, Elliot Weinstein, fellow at the Center for Community Values and Actions said. Weinstein led the station where students could make lavender pouches to facilitate sleep. “I was asked by Dr. Nichols and Ms. D’Avanzo to assist with Wellness Wednesday because of my background in public health,” he said. Outside of Wellness Wednesday, D’Avanzo always encourages students to drink plenty of fluids during the day, she said. “Many times, I see students complaining about dizziness because they do not drink enough fluids.” Teachers also encourage self-care and respect towards classmates throughout the year, she said. The nurse, life skills, and guidance all think of things that kids might be concerned about, she said. Ingram said she thinks that topics that kids might be concerned about are getting enough sleep, good nutrition, reducing anxiety, taking time to have fun, and getting plenty of exercise. The idea of Wellness Wednesday is to promote different ideas for kids to be self-aware about, Ingram said. “We do not have a health program, except what they do in
PE, so it also supplements things that aren’t happening in the PE health program.” Weinstein thought that at first, the kids seemed to be suspicious of lavender’s effect on sleep, but after watching the TedEd talk and actually making the lavender pouches, they were totally on board. “Wellness Wednesday teaches me how to take care of myself and how treat myself well,” Melissa Migdon (6) said. “I think that all the activities include me because, everybody can improve,” Sam Siegel (7) said. Siegel thought that Wellness Wednesday was important because it makes middle schoolers step back and give them a new perspective, he said. “It really makes them think what they can do to improve their life, whether its sleeping more, spending less time watching TV, and doing homework earlier,” he said. While self-care and a healthy lifestyle are important in everyone’s life, they are particularly important for students because of all the stress kids face from school, extracurricular, and social life. Siegel went to most of the workshops available at the event, he said. “I think the workshops paved the way to achieving their goal, but I think there is always more that they can do.” He thought that there could be more activities at the stations, and that they could have branched out more, he said. Daniel Lee / Contributing Photographer
WORKING ON WELLNESS Students participate in Wellness Wednesday activities.
MD students participate in first MUN conference Gabby Kepnes Contributing Writer Middle Division Model United Nations (MUN) just held their largest conference, HoMMUNC Jr., where Upper Division students hosted and organized a conference for middle schools in the area. UD MUN team members try to grow the MD program by getting more kids involved. “When making positions, we try to pair more experienced delegates with less experienced students to ensure the continuation of the program,” Julia Hornstein (11), one of the MD coordinators, said. “It also benefits the older kids in UD MUN from getting to teach the younger MD kids and getting them the skills to become involved.” The MD program is led by high schoolers, specifically Hornstein and Shant Amerkanian (11), who visit their atrium meetings and make announcements about joining the team, MD MUN faculty advisor Eva Abbamonte said. “As a member of MUN I have the ability to discuss problems that are facing the world today with people who share my
interests,” Walker McCarthy (8) said. “Whether it be solving the conflict in the South China Sea or expanding access to healthcare in war zones.” Valerie Maier (12) and Jenna Freidus (12), two of the Secretary Generals (SGs) on the UD MUN
team, said that the UD team benefits from having kids who were previously on MD MUN join the team. “For the kids, it helps them feel more confident walking into the high school team as well as gives them the advantage of already
MUN-CHKINS Middle Division students in committee during HoMMUNC Jr.
knowing how MUN works,” Maier said. “Before my first conference I was daunted by the task of finding my country’s position on a certain issue and how to present that in committee, but the SG’s at the time were very helpful both during and
Joanne Wang / Arts and Entertainment Editor
after meetings.” McCarthy said. UD leaders also help teach other new kids how the team works, Freidus said. MD MUN hosted HoMMUNC Jr. for the fifth time this year as a way to introduce middle schoolers to the functions of a conference. “Its purpose is to give middle schoolers an experience of Model UN apart from the upper schoolers,” Abbamonte said. During the conference, they go over parliamentary procedure and how to write a resolution, Abbamonte said. For McCarthy, the most difficult part about Model UN is the very beginning of conference preparation. “Often times country assignments don’t come out until three or four days before the conference so I have had to learn how to quickly find the best sources for my research,” he said. According to Hornstein, most students are challenged by their first conference experience, but afterwards, they adjust to and become more comfortable with the MUN format.
Lions’ Den Record Sports
8
FEBRUARY 2ND, 2018
Fencing team performs well despite tough competition at ISFL Julia Robbins Staff Writer This past Saturday, Prettyman Gym was filled with excitement during the Independent School Fencing League Individual Championship. The tournament was broken up into girls and boys competitions, and then broken up further into the three weapon groups: épée, sabre, and foil, Captain Emma Jones (12) said. “Even though we are broken up into boys and girls and into three weapons, we are still very much one collective team,” Deveraux Mackey (11) said. The whole team supported each other at the competition, she said. The tournament started with several random pool rounds, and later, matches were power ranked, Captain Tasfiah Tabassum (12) said. During the tournament, there were quite a few Lions that were pitted against each other during matches, coCaptain Lucinda Li (12) said. One of these matches was between épée fencers Edward Ahn (11) and Muhaiminul Ashraf (11), Mahdid Uddin (12) said. Ashraf beat Ahn, but lost in the very next round, Uddin said. All members of the school’s foil
team placed at the competition, with the top three women’s foil slots going to Lions, Jones said. Leading up to Saturday, “foil worked on point control and various defensive moves with the newer fencers,” fencing Coach Errol Spencer ’16 said. Sabre worked on the In-and-Out move as well as other actions that helped score points at the competition, he said. For this meet, the sabre team worked on “pulling distance and being aggressive off the line,” Mackey said. Mackey placed 2nd in the girls sabre pool, and Celine Owens (9) placed 3rd, Mackey said. Owens lost in the semi-finals to a girl that she hopes to beat later on in the year, she said. While Owens knew the tactics that the opponent was using, she couldn’t figure out how to stop her opponent in the moment, Owens said. During practices, fencers are constantly faced against the same teammates, so leading up to ISFL, Uddin focused on improving his skills as a fencer instead of just improving how he fences against his teammates, he said. “Our new coach, Coach [Rafael] Western, has implemented a lot of new training that has been really beneficial,
and we have a new epée coach, Coach [Yoshua] Ortiz, who has been really good about making new training regimes for us,” Jones said. The sabre team practiced doing 15-point bouts leading up to the ISFL tournament in order to increase the team’s fencing endurance, Tabassum said. Ortiz worked on correcting each fencer individually before the tournament, teaching them new movements and reinforcing the movements that the fencers had already mastered, he said. Jones was the only épée fencer to win a medal, and while Ortiz had hoped that épée would win more medals, he recognized how high the caliber of fencers at the tournament was, he said. One unexpected success was that Pierson Cohen (10) placed eighth in men’s sabre, Jones said. Another sophomore that did very well was Phillip Chien (10), who placed 1st in men’s sabre, spectator Natalie Sweet (9) said. “From the previous matches we had, we learned a lot about teamwork and about creating a style of fencing that is uniquely your own,” Tabassum said. “This weekend we were really
playing matches nearly every day. While they are tiring, matches serve as some of the best preparation for the national championships, Ryan Hoang (11) said. In Wednesday’s match, Head Coach Ron Beller simulated the format of the national competition by using the order of play the Lions will follow at Nationals. Projected to finish second in a competitive Ivy League, the team enjoyed a successful regular season, winning 11 matches and losing only twice to Poly Prep and once to Dalton. Four different Ivy schools have players ranked in the High School US Squash top 100 rankings. Tripathi and Peter Lehv (10) said the strong competitors in
the league made for close matches. In recent years, the school has developed rivalries with Poly Prep and Hackley on the squash court. The team won both meetings with Hackley this year, breaking a twoyear losing streak. The squash team’s strong results are unsurprising as many of its starting players have climbed to the top of national rankings. CoCaptain Aman Sanger (12) and Lehv are ranked seventh and 159th, respectively. The squash team attracts nearly all the top players in the school, Sanger said. He believes the camaraderie built in high school squash is useful in preparing for the next level. Nonetheless, the squash team faces challenges from the new attendance policy, which forces team members to attend nearly all practices. Previously, Sanger had attained more practice time with club training, which ranged from one and a half to four hours. “[The new attendance policy] has hurt me as a player because I haven’t been able to see my regular coach as often outside of school,” Lehv said. Nevertheless, the new attendance policy has also improved the team’s camaraderie, attendance and dynamic, Beller said. Unlike most squash programs, the Lions have a co-ed team. The school often competes against allboys teams. While the majority of male
FIRST STRIKE Emma Jones (12) lunges at her opponent.
able to take what we know and make it our own.” Fencers from other schools were friendly and willing to give advice about how to go up against other fencers, Li said. Later this year is the ISFL TeamsTournament, where the fencing
Courtesy of Edward Ahn
team is looking to defend its three trophies from last year and hopefully win even more this year, Tabassum said. “We have a really good new generation of fencers,” Jones said. “I think the team is in really good hands for the future,” she said.
Varsity Squash roars into National Championships Edwin Jin Staff Writer The Varsity Squash team comes into today’s US Squash National Championships with an 11–3 record. The team will be competing in Div. III throughout the next three days against some of the top high school squash teams in the country. Co-Captain Siddharth Tripathi (12) said the team has set a strong nationals performance as a key goal this season. “From the very beginning, the team has worked hard on fitness, doing court sprints, long runs, and interval training,” Tripathi said. The team prepared this week by
Courtesy of Siddharth Tripathi
OH CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN Squash captains Sanger (left), Morris (center), Tripathi (right)
Courtesy of Siddharth Tripathi
SQUASH ME GO! Co-captain Siddharth Tripathi (12) returns a volley.
players battle opponents on the court, many female players face an imbalance of opportunity. This year, Sofia Jiang (9) is the only female player in the starting lineup. Chloe Kim (10) said she feels that boys hit with more power, which girls need to compensate for with more speed. “It strengthens you as a player because they hit so much harder,” Kim said. However, Beller said the prospect of an all-girls team is in
the preliminary stages. “I think it would be a great experience to have our own practices, and compete against other all-girls teams,” Rhea Sanger (10) said. “I’d love to have an all-girls team, and the girls on the team are really pushing for it,” Kim said. The possibility of a new team would depend on how many players it can attract, Beller said.