Issue 21

The Record

Volume 119 Issue 21

record.horacemann.org

Horace Mann’s Weekly Newspaper Since 1903

March 11th, 2022

SCHOOL GOES MASK OPTIONAL Celine Kiriscioglu, Emily Salzhauer, and Emily Wang Staff and Contributing Writer All divisions went mask-optional on Monday, allowing students and employees to attend school masked or unmasked as each individual sees fit. Head of School Tom Kelly announced the change on Sunday, after Governor Kathy Hochul eliminated the mask mandate for NY schools last Wednesday.

According to a Record poll to which 244 members of the Upper Division (UD) responded, 37.5 percent of students have never worn a mask at school since Monday, 12.7 percent have always worn one, and the remaining 49.8 percent fall somewhere in between.

A Record poll to which 55 members of

ographer /Staff Phot

Lynn Egan

the UD faculty responded found that 40 percent of faculty members have never worn a mask, 23.6 percent have always worn one, and the remaining 36.4 percent fall in between.

Sasha Martire (9) kept her mask on for the majority of the week, but decided to remove her mask for one class. “It felt

Do you agree with the decision to make maskwearing optional?

Based on 299 student and faculty responses to an anonymous UD poll

Nicole Au/Staff Photogra pher

so liberating, but so terrifying at the same time,” she said. “The whole class was just staring at me,” she said.

Martire got used to not wearing her mask during that class quicker than she expected, she said. “It took me five minutes to get used to it,” she said. “I’m really surprised by that, but I’m also really happy.”

Members of the community have varying degrees of comfort taking their masks off at school. When ranking their comfort in removing masks on a scale of one to five, 2.5 percent of student poll respondents said one (completely uncomfortable), 10.7 percent said two, 20.5 percent said three, 27.9 percent said four, and 38.5 percent said five (completely comfortable). Additionally, 5.5 percent of faculty members said one, 12.7 percent said two, 18.2 percent said three, 27.3 percent said four, and 36.4 percent said five.

Although the majority of polled community members support the school’s decision to make mask-wearing optional, many do not. 75 percent of polled students agree with the decision, 4.5 percent disagree, and 20.5 percent are unsure. Additionally, 83.6 percent of teachers who responded to the poll

On a scale of 1 to 5, how frequently have you been wearing your mask at school since masks became optional?

Based on 299 student and faculty responses to an anonymous UD poll

rapher a/Staff Photog Aanya Gupt

agree with the decision, 5.5 percent disagree, and 10.9 percent are unsure.

Lifting the mask mandate made sense to Kelly in light of testing data collected both in and outside of school over the last several weeks, he said. The school will continue testing students in the coming weeks to ensure a safe environment for all community members.

Ben Wu (11) is glad that the mandate was revoked. “It seems that there’s still a decent amount of people who are wearing masks, but some people are bringing it and just using them during certain times then taking them off where they don’t feel comfortable. And I think that’s totally fine,” he said.

However, Isabel Mavrides (11) thinks the mandate lift is premature. As a high-risk student, Mavrides has felt more unsafe at school since the change, she said. “Considering that we’re a pretty big student body and we don’t test everyone all the time, I am worried that it [the lifting of the mandate] is going to make the rates go up,” she said.

Ellie Campbell (10) is worried about the safety of immunocompromised family members and her high-risk peers, she said.

Ashley Coburn (10) is concerned that the mask mandate removal could cause another uptick in COVID cases, she said. “I’m excited because it means that we’re going in the right direction, but I’m still cautious that things are not going to go back to normal and we’re going to have another spike,” she said. “We need to be mindful of not just only ourselves, but the whole HM community and family.”

Coburn no longer wears her mask during the day, but she puts her mask on near high-risk people and keeps her mask with her for emergencies, she said.

Sophie Li (9) understands the

removal of the other COVID precautions, but masks are a different story, she said. “The masks are the biggest thing stopping the cases at school from spreading,” Li said. “I’m still not very confident of the safety [of the school] after spring break,” she said.

Max Feng (10) is concerned about the lifting of the mask mandate.

“Keeping [the mandate] is still better for the general health of HM and we shouldn’t risk another spike in cases.

Wearing your mask is more about protecting others than protecting yourself,” Feng said.

In the days leading up to the lift of the mandate, math teacher Charles Worrall felt pressure because not all teachers or students would be wearing or not wearing a mask, he said. Now, he is comfortable with his choice to not wear a mask. “I worried only in the sense that I think someone on campus might have a problem with the lift of the mandate, but I trust Dr. Kelly and all the people who are making decisions to make a good decision here,” Worrall said.

Campbell anticipated that the removal of the mask mandate would bring the HM community closer. “It’s easier to connect with people when we’re not wearing masks,” she said.

Campbell was new last year and found it difficult to start a conversation when it was hard to read people.

It has been exciting for Miller Harris (11) to see the faces of his friends which he hasn’t seen in almost two years, or ever for those who came to the school during the pandemic, Harris said. “I didn’t know what [my teachers] looked like.”

It was funny for Emma Chan (11) to see people walking through the hallways with the same expressions, she said. “It’s almost like they got used to not smiling under their masks,” she said.

see MASKS on page 3

Speaker Series addresses historical intersections of race and class Ariella Frommer and Allison Markman Staff Writers

Guest Speakers Dr. George Sánchez and Dr. Ellen Wu discussed issues of race, class, and their intersections with civic engagement, gentrification, and socioeconomic divisions in the third installment of the Upper Division (UD) speaker series: “Intersectionality: Exploring Race, Ethnicity, and Class” yesterday evening. History teachers Melissa Morales and Dr. Steven Fabian moderated the event along with student moderators Emily Sun (11) and Scarlett Goldberg (11).

This year, the speaker series focuses on ways in which race and ethnicity intersect with other forms of identity, with this installment focusing on class, Fabian said.

“Both Professor Wu an and Sánchez use class as a way to understand how different racial groups have behaved in the past.” Wu studies how class distinguishes between different groups of Asian-American, while Sánchez studies how a shared economic background unites those in a multiracial community, Boyle’s Heights, he said.

Sánchez is a professor of American Studies & Ethnicity and History at the University of Southern California. His studies focus on the experiences of immigrants and ethnic minorities in the United States, specifically how their identities have shaped their experiences. Sánchez explores how immigrants integrate into the US in Boyle’s Heights, CA in his study, “Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 19001945,” his book “Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy,” and establishing the Boyle Heights Museum. In 2010, the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education honored him with the Outstanding Latino/a Faculty in Higher Education Award, according to the speaker series website.

Wu is an associate professor in the Department of History at Indiana University Bloomington (IU), teaching courses on migration. Her work centers on the intersection between race, migration, and belonging for Asian Americans in the United States. From 2015 to 2020, she directed IU’s Asian American Studies Program

(AAST) with a focus on intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches towards social justice, according to the speaker series website.

In her book, “The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority,” she focuses on how the view of Asian-Americans has changed over time. It won the First Book Award and Honorable Mention for the Theodore Saloutos Book Award from the Immigration and Ethnic History Society in 2015, as well as the Association for Asian American Studies History Book Prize in 2016. Dr. Wu has also served on the board of the Immigration and Ethnic History Society, which hosts awards, academic conferences, and the “Journal of American Ethnic History.”

Fabian looks at similar themes as Sánchez in his own research about community building in East Africa, he said. “We do spend a lot of time in history talking about what drives people apart, but I hope Professor Sánchez will remind us that there are things that bring people together.”

In response to a question about what we miss when viewing race as a fixed category,

Wu discussed how this understanding ignores the social and geopolitical features of race and ethnicity. “I try to think in my work about race as a process and when we don’t put the dynamism of race as a process in the forefront, what we miss in a lot of ways is accountability; the agency of individuals and institutions who do the work of producing and reproducing racial categories,” she said.

Additionally, Wu discussed the problems and opportunities of categorizing people of Asian descent. “The problem is that 23 million people of so many different backgrounds and classes are viewed as the same, but sometimes this can lead to productive outcomes because people can be forced to recognize that they have something in common,” Wu said.

Malcolm Furman (11) was particularly struck by this question because it was a new perspective that he had not considered previously.

Sánchez discussed his work with the Boyle Heights community in California and its transformation throughout history. “Boyle heights is constantly changing,” he said. “It

see SPEAKER SERIES on page 4

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THE RECORD OPINIONS MARCH 11TH, 2022

AAPI hate, one year after the Atlanta Shootings

Louise Kim I can only remember fragments.

But I remember them vividly, intensely. The date is seared into my memory. Headlines too. “8 Dead in Atlanta Spa Shootings, With Fears of Anti-Asian Bias,” from The New York Times. What I remember most though, like a muscle memory of sorts, is the paralyzing sensation of fear and terror. More than a year of shocking and sustained violence against the Asian American population, stemming from racism and xenophobia, had culminated in this mass attack. In response, I spiraled into a state of

having processed the attack, frankly, to any degree. My mental health consequently worsened — I endured exhaustion, panic and anxiety attacks, nightmares, and dissociation when entering unsafe spaces. The key factor that exacerbated this decline was my overwhelming feeling of isolation following the shooting, after the media coverage and attention died down. Although conversations with the school’s AAPI community sparked sentiments of allyship and togetherness, I still felt a striking sense of invisibility; it felt as if the shooting was erased from the timeline. The flood of support from a few weeks prior had diminished to a slow trickle.

It was then that I experienced the consequences of conversations about fighting back against antiAsian violence which arose primarily in reaction to a traumatic event. Much of the school, like the rest of the country, seemed to move on without the lives of the eight people and without seriously addressing or acting to heal the pain faced by its AAPI population.

But trauma doesn’t just go away — many continue to suffer long after the triggering event, and I am one

“Going out in New York City — and particularly, taking the train — used to feel liberatory at most, mundane at least. Now every excursion, alone or not, feels like I am walking onto a battlefield.” mental collapse. I scheduled an urgent meeting with my guidance counselor, and while there was an APIDA affinity group meeting held in its wake, I partly chose not to attend because I just knew I would burst into tears. I wasn’t ready to cry in front of a group that was already mourning.

The next day, only one of my teachers mentioned the shooting in class, and, even their offered space for open discussion quickly devolved into a debate centered solely around the moralities of gun control and gun violence, rather than an acknowledgment of the racist nature of the attack and the mounting violence targeting Asian Americans. I appreciated the gesture, but when the conversation hurtled down a path it wasn’t originally meant to, it stung just as much as the violence not being addressed. Still, I found some support from those around me. One teacher offered me an extension on a paper when I was suffering from anxiety attacks.

I saw peers reposting infographics and resources on social media and sharing messages of solidarity.

However, the aftershock of the shooting, for me, was debilitating.

I spent the majority of that spring break attempting to recover, but upon returning, I was forced to grapple with the fact that school life continued on without my

of them. Not only have there been prolonged consequences that still harm us, but these assaults have only persisted, with no end in sight.

In May, October, and November of 2021, three Asian people, including a 73-year-old woman, were pushed onto subway tracks in New York City.

My mom and I have barely taken the subway since the beginning of the pandemic, but in the rare moments we do, she constantly reminds me to stand away from the platform edge, look for the nearest exit, and to never enter a subway car where there are few people inside. Although she had always cautioned me about public safety, the driving reason now for these warnings was the danger of racially-motivated attacks and the surge of anti-Asian violence on the MTA. Going out in New York City — and particularly, taking the train — used to feel liberatory at most, mundane at least. Now every excursion, alone or not, feels like I am walking onto a battlefield. The death of Michelle Go, killed on January 15th by being pushed onto subway tracks, was indescribably tragic, and I cannot help but imagine myself in her place. Moreover, I know several other AAPI individuals who were harassed on the train, often troubled by a slew of racial slurs. When my peers take the train without voicing this same fear, I long for a world

Volume 119 Editorial Board Head of Design AJ Walker

Editor in Chief Hanna Hornfeld

Managing Editor Liliana Greyf

Features Mia Calzolaio Emma Colacino

News Claire Goldberg Katya Tolunsky

Opinions Devin Allard-Neptune Yin Fei

A&E Purvi Jonnalagadda Arushi Talwar

Middle Division Jade Ciriello

Lions’ Den Lauren Ho

Art Directors Vivian Coraci Lauren Kim Riva Vig

Design Editors Avani Khorana Arin Rosen

Photography Sean Lee Sam Siegel

Online Editor Lucas Glickman

Faculty Adviser David Berenson

where I can take the subway without my race being at the forefront of my mind.

Many cases of anti-Asian violence are taking place in our very city.

GuiYing Ma, a 62-year-old Queens woman, passed away on February 22 from her injuries, three months after being beaten by a man with a rock.

On February 13, Christina Yuna Lee was stabbed in her bathroom by a man who followed her into her Chinatown apartment. A few days after her passing, I heard from my mom that we had belonged in closely overlapping communities.

Learning that Lee and I — with whom I already shared identities as a Korean femme living in New York — shared a mutual relationship filled me with feelings of sorrow and loss. What hurt almost as much as hearing about her death was the news that a memorial dedicated to her was desecrated — twice.

There are people so full of hate as to destroy her sacred space of remembrance. Our right to exist peacefully is violated — even in our homes, even in death.

It may be easy to ignore that many AAPI people in the HM community, including me, are also facing racebased harassment. These incidents don’t make headlines. Strangers have called me slurs online, replying to my comments expressing grief and frustration under AAPI news posts. As I waited to cross the street, a person standing next to me muttered, “These [expletive] Asians.”

In an unforgettable incident in my apartment’s elevator, a child who could not have been over the age of six pointed at me and my mom and said, “You’re Chinese — you have coronavirus!” Their guardian rushed to whisper, “We don’t say things like that,” which I knew was code f o r , “ Thos e a r e t h i n g s we only say inside the house.”

The truth is that for more than two years, harassment has been the lived reality for many AAPI people, particularly AAPI women, who make up 68 percent of the victims of antiAsian hate incidents, according to Stop AAPI Hate. I’m terrified for myself, but even more, I’m

terrified for my mom, my friends, and other people in the AAPI community.

After each assault and killing, I watch names of victims fade into obscurity in mainstream discussion,

Every individual must do the necessary work and think about what they can do to help foster longterm discussions and structures in HM, as well as in the broader world.

The AAPI community is not an

“Much of the school, like the rest of the country, seemed to move on without the lives of the eight people... But trauma doesn’t just go away — many continue to suffer long after the triggering event, and I am one of them.” only to reappear once a year in a memorial post or email. I will not stand the Atlanta shooting turning into another annual day of memorial without sustained action to prevent anti-Asian violence and support those who endure it. People naturally tend to find it unpleasant to enact and sustain confrontation with the darkest acts of humans. As difficult as it may be, it is important to stay conscious of the importance of that work, even if the triggering event has passed. It is only through this unceasing commitment that communities can support their Asian American members and the AAPI community.

If you only pay attention to this continuous barrage of violence after a particularly brutal incident until it fades from the headlines, it leaves no room for sustained action, no commitment to antiracism beyond a moment of crisis.

The AAPI community faces severe, destructive, and omnipresent violence.

If I have one takeaway from watching and participating in justice

movements in the past few years, it is that every individual must actively and c o nt i nu o u s l y contribute to the struggle against bigotry to create, preserve, and grow more sustainable models of support a n d care.

Staff

Staff Writers Alex Lautin, Alexandra Yao, Allison Markman, Audrey Carbonell, Audrey Moussazadeh, Ayesha Sen, Cecilia Coughlin, Celine Kiriscioglu, Divya Ponda, Emily Salzhauer, Emily Sun, Hannah Katzke, Jillian Lee, Jiya Chatterjee, Max Chasin, Rachael Baez, Sean Lee, Vidhatrie Keetha, Zack Kurtz, Ariella Frommer, Athena Rem, Ben Rafal, Ella Shaham, Erica Jiang, Etta Singer, Heidi Li, Kate Beckler, Lucy Peck, Maeve Goldman, Naomi Yaeger, Neeva Patel, Nia Huff, Rani Ogden, Samantha Matays, Sophie Rukin Staff Photographers Aanya Gupta, Allyson Wright, Amelia Hirsch, Anna Miller, Aryan Palla, Ben Rafal, Catherine Mong, David Aaron, Dylan Greenberg, Harper Rosenberg, Jiwan Kim, Lynn Egan, Madlyn Yoon, Matthew Jacobson, Nicole Au, Oliver Konopko, Trisha Tran Staff Artists Aashna Hari, Addy Steinberg, Aimee Yang, Amira Dossani, Christian Conner, Dani Brooks, Dylan Leftt, Elena Zhu, Felix Brener, Isabelle Kim, Ishaan Iyengar, Karla Moreira, Kayden Hansong, Kristy Xie, Lauren B. Kim, Sam Gordon, Samantha Strasser, Samuel Stern, Serena Bai, Sophia Liu, Sophie Li

Editorial Policy

invisible community and we will not stand being treated as such. We deserve to feel safe — and seen, and heard, and listened to. We will not be reduced to a group onto which weakness or silence is projected. We deserve to celebrate our solidarity, resistance, and joy, and have it celebrated by others. Though justice would served be if Hyun Jung Grant, Xiaojie Tan, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andrew Michels, Yong Ae Yue, Suncha Kim, Soon Chung Park, Daoyou Feng, and more fellow Asian Americans were alive and safe, we can practice kindness and love by siding with the AAPI community throughout this period of heinous violence. It is the least you can do to make HM, and our world, a safer, more compassionate space for both the AAPI community and for all of us.

Karla Moreira/Staff Artist

About Founded in 1903, The Record is Horace Mann School’s award-winning weekly student newspaper. We publish approximately 30 times during the academic year, offering news, features, opinions, arts, Middle Division and sports coverage relevant to the school community. The Record serves as a public forum to provide the community with information, entertainment, and an outlet for various viewpoints. 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. Horace Mann School is not responsible for the accuracy and contents of The Record and is not liable for any claims based on the contents or views expressed therein.

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THE RECORD OPINIONS AND NEWS MARCH 11TH, 2022

The school can do better during Black History Month

Allyson Wright & Ashleigh Conner Last year, in the wake of George Floyd’s death, our school made a point to recognize the struggles of the Black community. Horace Mann was determined to prove that it supports and celebrates the different cultures that make up our community. Whether it was in emails from our division heads or in-depth discussions in our classes, the school was committed to raising awareness about the issues facing Black Americans. However, as time progressed, the school has stopped addressing those issues as a full community, outside individual classroom discussions..

It is no coincidence that since #BlackLivesMatter is no longer trending on Instagram, Horace Mann has put the Black community on the back burner. Over time we gradually saw #BLM fizzling out of the news, Instagram feeds, and the mouths of people around us. Protestors no longer fill the streets demanding to be seen and heard. Oftentimes it feels like the movement was just a passing phase, a

moment in time that has now become irrelevant.

This year’s Black History Month gave Horace Mann the opportunity not only to highlight the still present inequalities Black Americans face every day but also to show how far the Black community has come over the course of American history. Instead of taking full advantage of this opportunity, our school failed to make our voices heard. We needed workshops and lively discussion spaces where the Black community and its impacts were celebrated. Instead, we received a decorated bookshelf in the library and five posters in Olshan lobby, none of which came with the context needed to understand their significance.

One thing that Horace Mann did offer was a flawed assembly in which the words “Black History Month” were never mentioned. We expect more from our school; our struggles and successes as Black Americans should be recognized.

The assembly was thoughtlessly ambiguous, leaving most students confused or completely unaware of its correlation to Black history. While we thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated Samantha Speis’ presentation, the connection between Black history and dance was only briefly discussed.

Having a “Black History Month” assembly in which the correlation between Black culture and tap dance was mentioned in a matter of minutes is unfair to the Black Horace Mann community.

While we acknowledge that this is a predominantly White institution, we feel that at the very least, Black students should have played a key role in the

assembly.

Before we all start blaming Black students for not participating and saying that “they could’ve been in the dances if they wanted to,” let’s think about why some Black students would not want to be in the performances.

We believe that it was because many of the dances originally planned for the assembly were blatant examples of cultural appropriation. Once students were aware of this fact, many naturally did not want to take part in the performances. Only two out of the four dance classes performed in the assembly, partly due to this discomfort.

Students should have never been put in a situation where they felt that by participating they would be hurting the Black community.

Another unacceptable aspect of the assembly was that it took place in March. While we acknowledge that COVID-19 restrictions limited the school’s assemblies, there were several missed opportunities to have a Black History Month assembly during the month of February. The assembly felt like a last-ditch effort to avoid controversy. The Black students at Horace Mann deserve better. The fact that the assembly did not happen during February is a testament to the lack of attention and respect that Black History Month received this year. Along with an assembly, Horace Mann should have made it a priority to educate its students about the significance and impact of Black people and Black culture.

The disparity between the amount

of effort demonstrated by our school for Music Week and the “Black History Month Assembly” astounds us. For Music Week, Horace Mann did a great job curating a week full of fun and intellectually exciting music performances. Unfortunately, the same could not be said with regard to the entirety of Black History Month.

As a predominantly white institution, the school must acknowledge and celebrate its diversity. We find the decision to overlook Black History Month offensive and disheartening.

It is difficult to succeed in a space where you do not feel seen. We are embarrassed that our school decided to do the bare minimum while claiming that it supports its students of color. It is certainly not a question of resources, but one of effort. Horace Mann needs to do better.

We all know that our school is capable of much more. The students deserve more. This nation succeeds on the backs of the Black community. By not putting the necessary effort into Black History Month, Horace Mann disregarded the pivotal role Black people played in our nation’s history. In the future, Horace Mann needs to collaborate

The Union sponsors BLVD Bistro cafeteria takeover Audrey Carbonell Staff Writer The cafeteria featured soul food from Harlem’s BLVD Bistro in celebration of Black History Month last Friday. Union Presidents Ajani Green-Watson (12) and Rachel Fearon (12) planned this event.

Items on the menu included fried chicken, collard greens, biscuits, tofu, and lemon pound cake.

The Union, the school’s social justice club, worked with Senior Director of Dining Service Brenda Cohn to plan the event, Cohn said.

“When Rachel Fearon and Ajani Green-Watson came to me with their idea to have a local black owned restaurant come to HM in honor of Black History Month, I was super excited,” she said.

“We thought it would be a good collaboration for Black History Month to support a Black owned business and bring the culture to Horace Mann, which is something we don’t really do a lot,” GreenWatson said. “The other effect is to really introduce [the community] to soul foods in our neighborhood,” she said.

The Union wanted a unique way to bring a part of African American culture to the school, Green-Watson said. Instead of a workshop, where attendance would be limited, they wanted to reach a broader scope of the community, she said. “The cafeteria is a place that everybody goes to, and it’s not even just high schoolers, it’s also the middle school.”

The student body tried a variety of different foods. Isabella Ciriello (10) had the tofu and the biscuit, she said. “Everything was really good — I usually am not a person that likes tofu, but I thought it had a lot of flavor and the texture was good.”

To further introduce African American culture to the community, the Union set up an informational table and put together a playlist of Black artists’ music. “We chose the menu, decided we would decorate a table and have music, [in order to] really have a time of community for everyone,” Fearon said.

Cassandra Ortiz (9) visited the information table, where she learned about the importance of soul food in the African American

Trish Tran/Staff Photographer

APPRECIATION Fearon (12) and Peralta (12) with community at the bistro.

community, she said. “It [was] really informative,” she said.

When walking by the table, Ortiz witnessed many of her classmates and peers asking questions to the Union presidents about African American culture, she said.

During the event, Ortiz felt that she was able to engage with African American culture, she said. “I really like food, so trying [these dishes] that were really good and seeing the culture aspect of it was really important for everyone in the community,” she said. “Food is an important aspect of many cultures, as it tells stories passed on from generation to generation.”

On the other hand, Peter Yu (11) enjoyed the chicken but thought it was overcooked, he said. Yu was not aware of how fried chicken connected to Black History Month and was more focused on the flavor aspect of the dish, he said.

Daniella Herman (9) also had the chicken and biscuits, she said.

Although she had tried these foods before, she found that BLVD Bistro prepared the dishes well, she said.

Planning for the event began in January, Fearon said. “We first talked to Dr. Kelly and the original plan was to have a food truck,” she said.

However, Kelly did not know if a food truck would be feasible since the prominent soul food trucks in Harlem were unable to spend an entire day at the school, GreenWatson said. Instead, he gave the Union the idea for a cafeteria takeover, she said.

The Union started with a list of four potential restaurants for the event, Green-Watson said. “We emailed them and we weren’t sure what their COVID protocols were so we tried to keep our options open,” she said. BLVD Bistro, which was one of Kelly’s initial suggestions, was the first restaurant to respond to the Union, she said.

Cohn also reached out to the owner of BLVD Bistro, Markisha Swepson, to review food allergen ingredients, delivery logistics, packaging, and service, she said.

Additionally, Cohn estimated the quantity of items to order based off of the school’s production records, she said. “We were spot on.”

They did not encounter difficulties when planning the event, Cohn said. “It was absolutely seamless — the owner of the BLVD Bistro was such a pleasure to work with.”

When deciding the menu, the Union wanted the most effective way to introduce soul food to the community, Fearon said. “We wanted to make sure that we were including staples of African American culture, but also we made sure that we included the HM community and considered what our peers actually eat,” she said. So, Fearon picked meal options that she thought other students would enjoy, she said.

BLVD Bistro’s main establishment prepared the food, Cohn said.

Once they arrived at the school, FLIK chefs reheated the dishes and transferred them to serving dishes, she said.

The Union hoped to have a positive impact on the community, Fearon said. “We hope that this [event], in addition to our newsletter, is a way for them to see into African American culture and engage with it in a respective and appropriate way without limitations,” she said.

“We also hope that in the future, our other board members who are juniors and sophomores will use this as inspiration to continue having opportunities like this for the student body.”

with its students of color to determine what would be the most appropriate and impactful ways to honor and uplift their communities.

We suggest that our school feature its amazing Black students and bring in guest speakers to discuss the past, present, and future of the Black community. We should have discussions in class surrounding themes like racial profiling, mass incarceration, and the impact of stop-and-frisk laws in NYC. The key to change is educating those around us. These are only the first steps.

It is no secret that Horace Mann has struggled with racism and discrimination in the past. Giving more thought to Black History Month is a necessary step for us to take in moving beyond that ugly past. We hope that next year Horace Mann will give Black History Month the time and appreciation it richly deserves.

Vivian Coraci/Art Director

from Masks on page 1 Many aspects of Head of UD Jessica Levenstein’s day have been different.

“My ninth grade class on Monday spent the first 10 minutes looking at each other like ‘is that what you look like?’” She also feels that the lift has brought joy to the HM community.

“People are realizing that others were smiling at them and didn’t know it,” Levenstein said.

For Clementine Bondor (11), it has been different in class to see her friends’ faces, she said. “We make eye contact and we both start cracking up because we’re not used to seeing each other’s faces,” she said.

“Honestly, I just forgot that people can see the facial expressions that I’m making because I’m so used to hiding it.”

Li also enjoys seeing her friends’ faces. “It’s nicer than I thought it would be to see people’s faces again,” she said.

Beyond socializing, Molly Zukerman (9) said the removal of masks may help her academic performance. “It will make it easier to learn from my teachers, because I’m more of a visual learner so I can read their lips and it will help me,” she said.

Although UD Dean of Students Michael Dalo is glad the school has gone mask-optional, he finds it hard to adapt. “I think those of us who are not wearing masks are feeling like you don’t have all of your clothes on or something like that. There’s something that you’re supposed to have that you don’t and that was kind of [a] weird sensation,” Dalo said.

Almost everyone seems mindful of peoples’ choices, Clio Rao (11) said. “I know, based on hearing others, that some people are judging others for wearing a mask, but for the most part, people are respecting each other’s decisions, which is the thing I was most worried about,” Rao said. “It’s definitely something our community has done a fantastic job with and I’m excited to let it continue during the spring,” Rao said.

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THE RECORD MIDDLE DIVISION AND ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT MARCH 11TH, 2022

Surprise meeting boosts MD Faculty morale Julia Bouchut Staff Writer Middle Division (MD) faculty and support staff met in the cafeteria on Tuesday to celebrate, socialize, and have a good time, Head of MD Javaid Khan ’92 said.

February and March tend to be difficult months for the faculty, especially since COVID has cut off the natural flow of conversations and interactions, Khan said. “We were feeling that people were working hard, feeling stressed out, I just felt like the faculty needed to spend time together enjoying themselves,” he said.

Khan secretly planned the meeting with the MD Dean of Faculty Eva Abbamonte three weeks ago, he said. They thought of ways to recognize the faculty and show their appreciation for their hard work and dedication.

To keep it a surprise, the administration told the faculty that they would have a routine professional development meeting, Khan said. Teachers first met in the Recital Hall, after which Abbamonte redirected them to the cafeteria where the doors were covered with paper so that the teachers could not see inside until they walked in.

FLIK staff set up the cafeteria for the event with dinner tables covered with tablecloth and adorned with floral arrangements. “The tables looked really pretty with the flowers and decorations,” Spanish teacher Rachael Cooper said.

There was a buffet and a dessert table with an array of food including chocolate covered strawberries, pigs in a blanket, chicken, potstickers, and cookies. Each person also found a bag with a Starbucks gift card and notepad on their seat.

“I was definitely surprised,” computer teacher Dr. Glenda Guerrero said. “It was the first time that we’ve experienced this kind of

meeting.”

The faculty was particularly touched by Khan’s introduction, where he thanked them for giving so much to the students and to each other in the past few years, Guerrero said.

“I would have never in a million year expected that we were going to do that instead of professional development and it was the most welcome surprise,” Cooper said.

It felt nice to be appreciated after a hard couple of years, English teacher Stephanie Davidow said. “It was really important and valuable just because nobody really knows what it’s like to be a teacher, especially a teacher at Horace Mann, except for other teachers.”

The first activity was the “penny social,” which was a mix between a raffle and a silent auction. The faculty and staff received raffle tickets at the door of the cafeteria that they used to bid on items and prizes. Winning tickets were drawn at random and prizes included a Tiffany harmonica, a rare comic book, tickets for a Broadway show, and dinner at a local restaurant.

The high point of the afternoon was a mentalist performance, Khan said. The mentalist went from table to table and performed a show at the end, which included telekinesis and mind reading.

Using theatrical trickery and sophisticated sleight, his performance left the faculty spellbound, Cooper said. “I had seen an illusionist or mentalist before, but I had never seen anyone this good.”

The mentalist used telekinesis for his first trick, Davidow said. He set two faculty members, history teacher Justin BakerRhett and Senior Director of Dining Services Brenda Cohen, 10 feet apart with their eyes covered. When he touched Cohen’s arm, Baker Rhett also felt his arm get touched, Davidow said.

In the psychic part of the show, the mentalist read volunteers’ minds, including Guerrero. “I was intimidated at first,” she said.

He gave Guerrero a baton and distracted her with make-believe scenarios, making her believe she was reading a book at a library. He then asked her to pick a word from a deck of cards, Guerrero said. “He asked me if this was the word I was thinking of and he was right, the word was love.”

It was important for the faculty to reconnect in a personal way once the school’s COVID measures relaxed, Khan said.

This meeting was also the first time that teachers who joined the school in the past two years met with the entire faculty, so teachers were instructed to sit with people they did not know well, Davidow said. “By hour two of this it was like we were all fast friends and making jokes,” she said. “I left feeling very positive and very understood, feeling like I had a lot of friends in this school.”

“The mental health of teachers is also something we need to be concerned about,” Guerrero said.

“It was great to see smiling faces, to see people relaxed.”

The meeting gave Cooper a chance to reconnect with people she knew but did not see often, she said.

“I haven’t sat at a table and just had a conversation as a normal person, outside of meetings.”

Khan was pleased with the feedback he received from the teachers, he said. “Those who came told me that they were really thankful. It was a good reminder to all of us that we always need to recognize our faculty.”

from Speaker Series on page 1

BOYLE HEIGHTS Sanchez discusses gentrification. goes from a multiracial community made up mostly working class people and immigrants from all over the world in the early part of the 20th century, to after World War Two an increasingly Mexican Latino neighborhood as other groups, particularly their white ethnic groups leave Boyle Heights move into the suburbs in Los Angeles.

Goldberg found this part of the discussion particularly engaging.

“I thought his work on Boyle Heights, a specific neighborhood in Los Angeles, was really interesting because it addressed kind of a mix of different communities and how Mexican immigrants as well as Jewish people are kind of integrated to American culture as the effect on democracy,” she said.

The speakers were also selected for the event due to their ability to combine the intersectionality between socioeconomic status in their respective fields of study, Morales said. “His most recent work looks at moments in which people of different racial backgrounds can organize themselves collectively around class issues, and then moments when that doesn’t happen,” she said. “Professor Wu does something interesting with Asian Americans, particularly her work studies Chinatown in San Francisco, and she looks at the way

that people within this community try to demonstrate middle class values as a way of showing their worth of assimilation.”

Prior to the event, Braden Queen (11) read an op-ed written by Dr. Sánchez and a video featuring Dr. Wu in his history class. He learned from Dr. Wu about the idea of a “Model Minority” and why that stereotype is problematic.

“There’s a lot of diversity among different Asians, for example, there’s certain Asian subgroups where there’s not very high college enrollment, there’s others where it’s high,” he said. “Asian subgroups are not monolithic and we can’t always generalize.”

Morales hopes students get a better understanding of intersectionality and the way different identities interact with each other. “We hope that people will understand not just the complexities in terms of various experiences of people within racial or ethnic groups, but also the way that those can be complicated by other identifying factors, like gender or sexuality or class or religion,” she said. I hope that people understand that issues around race and ethnicity are much more complex than we often think at first.”

Worrall and Kirschenbaum ’08 talk Tycho Brahe on podcast Ayesha Sen Staff Writer “Charles Worrall, give me a name,” Benjamin Kirschenbaum ’08 said on his podcast “Give Me A Name” that featured Upper Division math teacher Charles Worrall last Tuesday. “Tycho Brahe,” Worrall responded. The two spent the episode on Brahe, a 16th-century Danish mathematician and astronomer.

Kirschenbaum reached out to Worrall over email and explained the podcast’s format, Worrall said. In each episode, a guest chooses a historical figure they find interesting and know a lot about to discuss with Kirschenbaum for an hour. While the podcast initially focused on comedians, Kirschenbaum has recently invited people such as Worrall who know more about various academic subjects.

When Kirschenbaum first asked him about the podcast, Worrall deliberated saying no, Worrall said. “I’m busy and tired and there’s just a lot going on with the pandemic,” he said. “But then the more I thought about it, I realized that I really do like talking to people about fun things that I enjoy so I thought ‘what the heck, I’m going to say yes,’ which was definitely out of my comfort zone, but I’m glad I did it.”

Kirschenbaum then instructed Worrall to select a historical figure to discuss, Worrall said. “While I was brainstorming, I could think of four or five or six mathematicians from history who I knew some stuff about,” he said. “I don’t know as much as an actual historian, but I did know quite a bit about them and I knew a couple of fun stories about Tycho Brahe, so I suggested it, and Benji agreed.”

During the Zoom conversation, Kirschenbaum began by introducing Worrall and their personal history together and letting Worrall speak about himself as well. Kirschenbaum credits Worrall with helping him discover his love for math after a more difficult experience in eighth grade honors math, Kirschenbaum said in the episode. “I was

debating whether or not to take the honors class in ninth grade, and I decided why not, I could always drop out,” he said. “And Mr. Worrall was my teacher and completely changed my interest in math, and I went on to study it in college and that is largely thanks to the person that I am talking to today.”

Shortly after, Kirschenbaum introduced Brahe to the listeners. As Kirschenbaum explained during the episode, although Brahe is described as an astronomer, the title of being an “astronomer” or “scientist” in the 16th century was strikingly different from current understandings. “He was super into astrology and religion and alchemy,” Kirschenbaum said.

For the rest of the episode, Kirschenbaum discussed Brahe’s life chronologically, first introducing Brahe’s youth and then transitioning to his adulthood, highlighting his key achievements and discoveries, Worrall said. “Then, within each of these transitions, [Kirschenbaum] would pause and let me talk about some of those parts, putting in my own thoughts and stories.”

While Worrall and Kirschenbaum did not prepare a script, they both did more research on Brahe, Worrall said. “I discussed him in college quite a bit but I definitely was no expert, so I got a biography of him and crammed,” he said. “It was very fun because Ben had also done some of his own research, which took him in different directions than me,” he said.

For example, Kirschenbaum came across scholarly speculation that Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” took plot points from Brahe’s life, which was something Worrall had not noticed, he said. Kirschenbaum found that Shakespeare wrote“Hamlet” around the time of Brahe’s death and Brahe had family members named “Rosencrantz” and “Guildenstern,” which are character names in the play.

Although the recording ran smoothly, Worrall was worried that he might run out of things to say, he said. “Students get nervous about their

Dani Brooks/Staff Artist

presentations in school and as a teacher, I never run out of things to say because I know my subject matter so well,” he said. “But, even though I love Brahe, this wasn’t my subject matter, so I was scared. It turned out I had researched enough and so I felt comfortable in the moment, but I was really nervous that I wouldn’t have enough to say.”

Since recording the episode, Worrall has thought more about the intersection of history, math, and science, and the ways in which he can explore the three subjects together in the future, he said. Ever since he took a class on astronomy and cosmology in his senior year of college, Worrall has been very interested in the history of science and mathematics, doing his own research in his free time and even incorporating it into some of his classes, he said. “I don’t know if I’m going to do more podcasts, but I do think this has rekindled my love for the topic, which is really nice to experience.”

In fact, participating in Kirschenbaum’s podcast has inspired Worrall to consider bringing the history of math and science to the school, he said. “Maybe at some point, I’m going to teach a class in the math department that’s more closely connected to the history of mathematics than things that I’ve taught before,” he said. “Nothing’s confirmed, but it’s definitely something I want to play around with.”

Participating in the episode was amusing and beneficial, but Worrall’s favorite part of the podcast was reconnecting with his past student, he said.

“That was super nice to have had that relationship form and now it has continued for 15 years,” he said. “This experience has made me feel very close to Ben in a way that wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t called me up.”