The Lion's Roar 34-7 by The Lion's Roar

R AR

VOL. 34 ISSUE 7

the LION’S

Out

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Old

Page 12 Alternative learning programs aim to foster creativity and community By Sophie Goodman and Dorra Guermazi

Photo Illustration By Netta Dror

Newton South High School

· Newton, MA · Est. 1984 · Apr. 30, 2018

NEWS page 2|April 30, 2018|THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM

NEWS@thelionsroar.com|VOLUME 34, ISSUE 7

Residents divided over proposed dispensary Julian Fefer, damian matthews and charles weinstein

News Section Editor, News Reporters Last November, Massachusetts residents voted in favor of the legalization of recreational marijuana. The results came out 53.7 percent in favor to 46.3 percent against. The close polling on the resolution signals that the legislation remains divisive, especially in suburban areas like Newton. While Newton voted in favor of the initiative, some residents, like freshman Maya Makarovsky, said they remain conflicted about the implications of the legalization. “Marijuana is … a gateway drug. It hurts your brain [and] it’s dangerous if under excessive use,” she said. “Now anyone can use it and there’s just no more boundaries. There really is no clear reason why marijuana should be open to the public.” The Newton City Council is currently accepting applications for the placement of a new marijuana dispensary, creating an argument over the dispensary’s potential effects on Newton. On March 5, the Newton City Council voted on a moratorium with the intention of extending the deadline by which they must accept a proposal. The moratorium, which passed unanimously, sets the new deadline Dec. 31, 2018. Planning Director Barney Heath said that the moratorium gives the Planning Committee more time to decide the new dispensary’s placement. According to Heath, the moratorium also gives Newton residents time to consider the possible side effects the dispensaries could have. “Like most things, people see [the dispensaries] differently. I think some folks thought that it shouldn’t be that complicated and that marijuana retail is no different than that of liquor stores,” he said. “Other people think this is something brand new, and the rules are still evolving a little bit.” While the dispensary has been the

subject of much controversy among Newton residents, state law mandates the Newton City Council review 20 percent of the applications they receive. City Councilor Jake Auchincloss said he believes that marijuana can benefit communities, but cities should not be legally required to provide their residents with means of acquiring it. “I support legalizing the use of recreational marijuana by persons over the age of 21 [but] I do not support this idea of requiring cities to have all these facilities that sell it recreationally in our village centers,” he said. One of the possible locations for the new dispensary is the Beacon St. and Walnut St. intersection near Zervas Elementary School. Some parents in the Zervas area said they are concerned about the implications of opening a marijuana dispensary near the elementary school. Barbara*, a mother of two Zervas students, said she believes that her community will change for the worse with the dispensary in place. “I have a child in kindergarten and the reality … of drugs being dispensed around the corner from [Zervas] makes me a little sick to my stomach,” she said. Maggie Schmidt, another Zervas parent, said she believes that the dispensary will help Newton. She also said she believes that this marijuana dispensary will be just like the liquor stores currently on Beacon St. “Marijuana is a drug just like alcohol is a drug [and] some might argue marijuana is safer,” she said. “There are already two liquor stores very close to where this dispensary is planning to open that have not caused any safety concerns in the neighborhood.” Barbara agreed that a marijuana dispensary would be comparable to a liquor store.

“I recognize that part of my reaction comes from the fact that I am still thinking about marijuana as an illegal substance,” she said. One major difference between liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries, however, is the high taxes on dispensaries. According to City Councilor Susan Albright, the city will place a three percent tax and additional three percent impact tax on recreational marijuana dispensaries as well as select taxes on medical marijuana dispensaries. Albright said that if Garden Remedies, currently the only medical marijuana dispensary in Newton, was permitted to sell recreational marijuana too, the city could gain large sums of money through the sales and impact taxes. “If they were approved to sell recreational marijuana … we would make about $450,000 by next December,” she said. The city of Newton has pledged that all money raised from dispensary sales taxes will go towards anti-drug-use education, run by the Newton Public Schools and Newton Police Department, Albright said. Auchincloss, on the other hand, said there were less drastic ways of collecting the same amount of tax revenue. “It’s important that we get the tax revenue, but I do worry about the effects on the village centers from having retail marijuana in every single one of our villages,” he said. Freshman Nathan Gelman said that the dispensary should follow rigorous regulations to ensure that it is distributing marijuana legally. “They just [need] stricter policy checks. At a liquor store anyone can come in with a fake ID and get alcohol,” he said. Albright said that ID checks will be enforced at the door, which will stop students from being able to purchase marijuana directly from the

dispensaries. “The security is very tight and the requirements to security are very tight. There are tools that will actually tell whether if it’s a fake ID or not,” she said. “It’s not the kind of operation where kids can get in the front door and steal anything.” Auchincloss, however, said that the regulations on these dispensaries may be inefective, especially the ones regarding the consumer’s age. “There are very good studies that show that marijuana used by people even a little older than the age of 21, up to the age of 25 or 26 when cognitive development is still occurring, [impairs] cognitive development, so I don’t know if 21 was the right age [to begin sales] necessarily,” he said. Albright added that the Cannabis Control Commission (CCC), which regulates resident marijuana usage in Mass., set multiple other statewide restrictions on March 15. “For a child who needed medical marijuana, you have to have two physicians agree to it, two pediatricians, and one of them has to be actually certified in this field,” she said. “It’s pretty hard [to] even get medical marijuana if you’re a kid.” Junior Bella Hamilton added that no matter the regulations, students will be exposed to marijuana. “I feel like students that do drugs find ways to get them anyway,” she said.“I don’t know how much of an impact [regulations] will [have].” Sophomore Gustav Ter Haar said that a dispensary near Zervas poses little danger to the school itself. “It’s just a dispensary. People are just going to go there, get the stuff and leave. They won’t use it around the school,” he said. Barbara said that despite her mixed feelings, she hopes customers adhere to the rules. “I would hope that those that want to use marijuana will do so responsibly and in accordance with the law,” she said. *Name changed to protect identity

Graphic by Chris Jang

April 30, 2018|page 3

THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM|News

FY19 proposed budget levels NPS funding Jennifer Wang & Rachael Wei Copy Editor, News Reporter

Fleishman agreed that the administration most prioritizes students’ mental health. “At our high schools, we have not been able to add mental health [support systems] for a while, and I think it’s really important, as we think about students feeling connected, [that we continue] supporting students,” he said.

Following budget cuts during the 201718 school year, which surpassed $2 million, the superintendent’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19), presents an $8.4 million increase that will exceed last year’s budget by 3.8 percent. According to Superintendent David Fleishman, the proposed budget will serve the educational and social needs of students and work towards the NPS system-wide goals. “We want to continue to make progress on our goals of academic excellence, educational equity, providing excellent social and emotional learning for the students,” Fleishman said. According to Assistant Superintendent for Student Services Karen Shmukler, one grap focus of the budget is providing hic b y Al i ce Z mental health support for all students. ilber berg “One of the things that I think is very important in this year’s budget and particularly for the high schools is the addition of Another focus of the mental health support. It’s really designed budget is finding the right balance between to support all students and make it acces- the number of teachers and students, acsible to all students at the point of need,” cording to Eich. Shmukler said. “[The goal] is to [balance] the high Assistant Superintendent for Teaching school staff, so [schools have the] right and Learning Mary Eich added that mental number of teachers for the number of kids heath services provided at school will allevi- that we have,” she said. ate student stress. This year, Newton high schools will “[There is] a general concern that gain five new full-time employees (FTE) to high school kids seem to be more and more address the enrollment growth, according to stressed and that we need mental health Chief Financial Officer Liam Hurley. professionals to help with that,” Eich said. With the additional FTEs, both stu“Having kids know that there’s some place dents and teachers will benefit from smaller that they can go and talk to a person can class sizes, Eich added. really help them sort stuff out.” “Teachers will probably have fewer

kids in a class,” she said. “The difference between a teacher having 22 kids and 30 kids is a lot, just in terms of getting feedback on work, and getting to know each student individually.” Principal Joel Stembridge, however, said that even with three and a half FTEs coming to South, the situation with class size will not improve due to increasing enrollments.

“That will help offset the additional 150 students, but we’re still going to be in a tight budget situation because it’s not enough to alleviate ... class sizes that we’ve been experiencing this year. It’s enough to keep pace, but not improve,” Stembridge said. The FY19 budget, however, will sustain the same number of librarians from last year. Cuts to library staffing from the FY18 budget were strongly opposed, according to librarian Jennifer Dimmick. Stembridge added that South could

benefit from more librarians. “I would like us to have more librarians because that’s a heavily used area around here,” Stembridge said. Despite an overall budget increase this year, Director of Facilities David Stickney said that various components of the budget have restricted the development of the Facilities Department, which is responsible for the maintenance and utility of NPS buildings. “There are a lot of other budgetary considerations this year [so] it’s a fairly static budget.” Stickney said. “We spend about $ 2.6 million a year on the 23 buildings, taking care of everything from plumbing, electrical, HVAC, elevators, repairs, the flooring, walls… you folks know you had some sprinkler leaks this year, so we have to take of those.” The FY19 budget will nevertheless continue to fund most of the current programs, according to Fleishman. Looking to the future, Stembridge said that the budget will likely stay on track with the current level of funding. “We are not on the same funding level that we’ve had several years ago … and it looks like it’s going to continue that way until the city is able to put additional resources [into] the schools,” Stembridge said. Nonetheless, Hurley said that the school district should strive to improve their budget for the future. “In an organization, you always want to look at ways to make it more efficient and we’ve tried to do that in this budget and last year’s budget,” he said. “There are always ways that we can do better and that’s what we’re striving to do ... there is always room for improvement.”

Jazz ensemble invited to national competitions Peri Barest & Jennifer Wang Sr. News Editor, Copy Editor

This February, South’s honors jazz ensemble was selected to attend the Mingus and Essentially Ellington jazz competitions after submitting taped recordings of their performance. Nationally, the festivals choose only nine and 15 bands respectively to attend these competitions. At the Mingus competition on April 21, senior lead alto Abigail Miller and junior trombone player Benjamin Romanow received outstanding soloist awards and performed that night with the Mingus Big Band. The ensemble will perform in the Essentially Ellington competition from May 10 to May 13. According to sophomore pianist Daniel Sivachenko, the festivals are two of the most prestigious jazz competitions in the United States. Senior pianist Danny Silverston added that these acceptances are some of South music department’s biggest accomplishments ever. With special opportunities to meet reputed jazz musicians and perform on stage, both festivals will serve as memorable and meaningful experiences for students, Silverston said. “Once you get to the festival, it’s really just an experience for jazz education, and a lot of people say it’s life-changing. We get to eat dinner and hang out with members of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, which is

regarded as probably one of the best, if not the best of big bands in the world, and we get to perform at possibly one of the biggest stages for jazz in the country, which is Rose Hall at Lincoln Center,” Silverston said. Miller agreed that the festivals present great opportunities and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. “People come from all over the country, and [the festivals] have a lot of programing during [them]: things like workshop, jam fishing, opportunities to speak with the best of the best,” she said. Freshman trumpet player David Kim added that these competitions provide students with an exciting opportunity to learn and grow as musicians. Beyond the learning experience at both festivals, Silverston said that jazz itself incorporates unique and important lessons taught outside of classrooms. “There are a lot of skills that you can develop in this kind of setting as opposed to your ordinary academic classes. Sitting through an hour-and-a-half rehearsal or perhaps a four hour recording session requires a level of focus that I think otherwise teachers don’t push their students to achieve,” Silverston said. Rather than obsessing about competitive success, Sivachenko said that jazz focuses more on the process of self improvement. “A lot of the growth isn’t in school. It’s the personal development of your musical ideas and musical identity,” he said. Jazz ensemble director Lisa Linde

photo courtesy of Eu Ro Wang

Honors Jazz ensemble performs at invitational Mingus festival in New York on April 21 added that jazz goes beyond mere notes. “It’s beyond playing at this point. It’s about the background of the piece, the history behind it, which is going to form how we play it,” she said. “It’s like how to live your life in some ways.” While South’s jazz programs are highly accomplished, Sivachenko said the programs do not receive enough support and attention from South. “It’s a really strong program, and the school needs to support it better because there is a lack of staffing relative to the number of students that do it, and there is a lack of general care for the facilities,” he said. To address this lack of support, Linde

said that one of her main goals as jazz ensemble director is to provide proper support for students who need creative outlets at South. “I wanted to be able to bring this kind of experience to a place that doesn’t already have it. I felt like that was kind of my mission,” she said. “I think in any school there are students who need music and who need creative outlets, and I don’t think schools support that in this day and age. I’m here to make sure that there’s still a voice for that kind of outlet for students.” Addtional reporting by Julian Fefer, Daniel Li, Eu Ro Wang and Hope Zhu

page 4|April 30, 2018

News|THELIONsROAR.com|THE LION’S ROAR

Marching for Our Lives

On March 24, sophomore Erin Acosta (top left) joined thousands of marchers to converge on the Boston Common to rally for gun control measures and support those impacted by gun violence

Q&A Photos By Netta Dror

The Roar’s Peri Barest asked Principal Joel Stembridge about possible new security measures that South may implement.

What new safety measures might South implement? We would put access points on a number of the exterior doors and then share that code with our students, and then teachers could either use that code or use their [ID badges to enter]. Maybe we’d have all those doors simply unlocked from 7:15 [a.m.], or 7:00 [a.m.], to 7:45 [a.m.] or something like that and thereafter you have to use the keypad code to get in.

These measures would come in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland. Do you think locking doors is enough to prevent something like that from happening? In almost all of the school violence that we have seen, ... the perpetrator knows the school or has been known by the school well. So I think any security system that you could come up with for a school, short of like a federal type prison environment, any student could figure out. ... The safest thing we can do is have students feeling like the school is welcoming, that they feel connected and respected in the school.

How can students help create a safe environment at school?

Keeping the school safe is everybody’s responsibility. Just having more doors locked is not sufficient. It’s still important that students, especially high school students, are old enough to help be a security measure themselves. ... A few years ago we had some suicides and we said ... if you’re concerned about somebody share it. I think the same thing goes here too. If you’re worried about someone’s state of mind or how they’re thinking, share that information. This is not meant to take the place of students and faculty participating in the safety measures. It’s just meant for us to be another increment safer.

April 30, 2018|page 5

THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM|news

Carlson Ave. Woods future remains uncertain Peri Barest & Shoshi Gordon

decrease the amount of oxygen present in the atmosphere, which could have a negative effect on the environment. “Ruining the environment to make Since Mount Ida College was foundmoney, is something I never really suped in 1899, the 12 acre parcel known as Carlson Ave. Woods has served as a buffer port,” sophomore Jamin Liu said. According to Burton, the 20 acres of zone between the college and residents of land sit on a ridge line that is 26 feet higher the Oak Hill Park neighborhood. Nevertheless, in 2017, Mount Ida put forth a plan than the houses in Oak Hill Park in places, to sell the property to developers, allowing which would put the houses next to the them to build luxury homes as well as a parking lot for a Mormon church. In lieu of continuing financial struggle and pushback from Oak Hill Park residents, Mount Ida announced in early April that it reached an agreement with the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass Amherst) to acquire all 74 acres of the campus, selling all of the college’s land, facilities and property. Starting this fall, Mount Ida’s campus will serve as a career preparatory center for UMass Amherst students in high-demand STEM fields. Some Oak Hill Park residents, like Pamela Burton, said they are still concerned that there is no written agreement preventing any long term development on Carlson Ave. Woods. Burton said that she is worried Newton’s zoning laws are unfavorable toward her environmental conservation cause. “We are stuck between the old zonconstruction in danger of flooding. ing laws, which are disastrous for us and Oak Hill Park resident Kumar Chalthe new zoning laws that will be too late for la, whose backyard is adjacent to Carlson us, so we can only fight,” Burton said. Ave. Woods, said he is concerned about “It’s privately owned land so they the environmental impact of development are allowed to do what they want,” South both in the Oak Hill area as well as in his librarian Margaret Schoen said. “It’s nice to have open spaces and we don’t have that home. “My home basement got flooded last many of them are still around in Newton.” year completely, and if you go down now Oak Hill Park resident Patrick you can see some pumps running; they O’Toole said that, in the 47 years he has have been running for the last one month lived alongside Mount Ida College, the and they will go on until at least the 15th woods have always been a natural buffer or the end of April,” he said. zone between the neighborhood and the According to Challa, many residents college. Burton added that the buffer zone was put in place so that neighbors wouldn’t of the Oak Hill Park neighborhood are very concerned about the traffic at the need to be aware of thousands of college intersection of Dedham and Brookline students on the other side of the ridge. Streets, which has been considered a top Sophomore Carissa Moy said that she is concerned having fewer trees would 5 percent of worst crash ‘hot spot’ in the Sr. News Editor, News Reporter

Boston metro area. “This year alone there were five major accidents,” Challa said. Karen Chow, who lives close to the intersection, said that the combination of construction and a new parking lot would further escalate traffic and the potential for accidents in an already dangerous location. To stop their concerns from becoming a reality, a cohort of neighbors

Mount Ida only fueled the neighborhood coalition’s drive. “We feel terrible, we have been fighting from the moment we came to hear about this, all of us. We all get together every Sunday ... in my place, we have a Twitter account, we have a huge WhatsApp group [and] we have websites,” he said. “We are trying to fight … from different angles.” “We are asking for a delay,” Burton added. “We do not think [the city has] enough information because the church has not submitted their plans [even though] they are right next to each other.” English teacher Alan Reinstein said he believes the process is a balance between the pros and cons of the construction and hopes that a thoughtful decision is made with both the both groups’ concerns in mind. “There’s a sadness to it because I assume people use those woods and get great pleasure out of it but … if their decision is to use that money to improve the education of the people [Mount Ida] serves, then that’s a different kind of beauty that may have great benefits,” Reinstein said. graphic by Matthew Cole Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said that in the wake of UMass Amherst’s acquisition of Mount Ida, she encouraged the UMass Amherst administration to preserve the land that Mount Ida had previously organized representatives to compromise planned to develop. with Mount Ida College, Burton said. “I’ve spoken with both the ChancelResidents formed a group called lor of the UMass system, Marty Meehan, Save Carlson Woods!, which was largely as well as on the phone and in person with ignored, Burton added. the Chancellor of UMass Amherst and I “We did speak to Mount Ida in Despoke about our strong desire to keep the cember of 2017, and we made a proposal of parcel that was going to be sold, to reverse compromise to them, which they agreed to that decision. Both chancellors assured me review after they summarily refused to an- that if the agreement between UMass and swer our calls, to meet again or to respond Mount Ida goes forward, those [woods] to our emails. So we have reached out to will not be sold,” Fuller said. them on numerous occasions [but] they Burton added that the survival of have never once responded after the initial Carlson Ave. Woods demonstrates how meeting,” she said. “They have slammed community activism can lead directly to the door in our face.” change. Mount Ida College did not respond “The community activism of the to The Roar’s request for comment. residents near Mount Ida play an imporChalla, who is involved in the group, tant role,” Fuller said. “Community voices added that the lack of cooperation from matter.”

ASO hosts 2018 Asian Night variety showcase Sebastian Tsao & Hope Zhu

enough plates and forks for the reception.” Senior Eunice Kim, a student leader, said she had many responsibilities. “I run around and help arrange the On April 6, South’s Asian Student Organization (ASO) hosted its 2018 annual acts and make sure that they are all ready. … We sell tickets leading up to the event variety show, Asian Night, showcasing a and try to set a goal for the number of tickrange of cultural performances. ets that we want to sell. Advertising is very Science teacher Marianne important because a lot of the time, people McChesney, history teacher Lisa Soo Hoo and science teacher Suzy Drurey, the club’s around the school simply aren’t aware of the actual show, but would be interested in advisors, helped produce Asian Night. it if they found out about it,” Kim said. McChesney, who has been workAccording the Kim, the team’s hard ing with the club for 15 years, said that work filled the auditorium seats. although the advisors help with technical “I was really worried at first that details of the event, the student club memthere would only be around 30 people who bers are integral to the event’s planning. “The advisors are in the background would come because these were my close friends who had already told me that they making sure that things like the building would be going,” Kim said. “In actuality, permit gets done,” she said. “Our student 300 people came. This was an extraordileaders were very diligent… advertising and securing all the facilities, coordinating nary number for an Asian Night turn out.” McChesney said that ASO hopes to all the practice times and planning out the bring the South community together and show, getting the MCs and doing things showcase Asian culture through the event. like counting up to make sure there are News Reporter, Sr. News Editor

“One purpose [of the event] is community building with the students who are involved in putting the show together, from the performers to the backstage workers. … The other part is involving the audience, getting them some exposure to Asian cultures, both traditional and modern,” she said. “I hope there’s some awareness developed for different cultures and the fact that it’s not just one culture that’s Asian, but that it’s a multitude of cultures.” Asian Night serves as entertainment through performances and cuisine, and as a charity event. This year, ASO raised roughly $2,000 for the International Save the Children Fund, as well as the local nonprofit, Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence. “Our main goal was to earn money for charity because we understood the importance of giving back to your community, and we wanted other people to get involved as well,” Kim said. “Besides raising attention for certain performances, Asian

Night is a great example of how the Newton South community can come together from all different races and cultures and put on a good show.” Senior Tiffany Tang attended Asian Night and said that the night met McChesney’s goals of cultural exposure and unity. “It helps connect the Asian students more. It shows that Asian culture can be really cool and interesting, and there can be a lot of different aspects to it. … You don’t have to be a certain race or ethnicity to enjoy another culture.” Junior Rebecca Bojar was also in the audience and enjoyed the event’s diversity and variety of performances. “Having one night dedicated to our Asian students is progress towards letting everyone have a voice and show their talents,” she said. “I learned a lot about Asian culture. The fashion show had amazing outfits from different countries and opened my eyes to wanting to learn about different cultures.”

EDITORIALS page 6|April 30, 2018|THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM

editorials@thelionsroar.com|VOLUME 34, ISSUE 7

South must prioritize preemptive safety measures Students spend hundreds of hours at school each year with the expectation that their school keeps them safe at all costs. Due to the recent gun-related tragedies in schools, many in our own community have begun to propose measures attempting to heighten security to ensure that no incident of such a frightening magnitude could ever reach South. The reality, however, is that the call for additional security is inherently flawed. Schools are designed to have multiple entry points — especially large public schools like South. By locking school doors, adding checkpoints or installing metal detectors, we only hinder movement within the school. Despite adding security, there can never be a guarantee on safety. If we pile on more and more security, we’d

go down the rabbit hole of making South operate like a prison, not a center of education. A recent proposal gaining popularity is hiring additional resource officers on school grounds. The problem with that decision is that adding excessive police presence on campus will only make students feel uncomfortable, not at ease. Furthermore, it’s unclear whether officers would actually be able to quickly subdue an aggressor in the event of a shooting. In essence, it’s neither feasible nor smart to increase the number of officers on school grounds because we can’t assure they’ll protect students at all costs. Similarly, arming our teachers would be ineffective, impractical and dangerous. In a state of emergency, it’s unlikely teach-

ers, using weapons of their own, would have the training to properly protect their students. By arming teachers, schools undertake a logistical nightmare replete with paranoia when figuring out where and how to store guns in classrooms. Not all reforms are futile. If America is serious about keeping our schools safe from shooters, it must enact stricter gun reform legislation. That being said, there are ways schools can keep themselves safe from domestic terrorism in the long term. While safety isn’t guaranteed, it’s important that we make our school a supportive and inclusive environment. Without strong support systems, we run the risk of letting estranged students fall through the cracks — academically, socially and mentally. We cannot afford to leave behind struggling

students, isolating them from our communities. Even after building community, we can’t just hope that everything will be okay, because there will always be outliers. As such, South must instill in its students a “see something say something” mentality that helps catch activity that could lead to something more deadly. Additional security measures will inevitably cause fear within the school community. By allowing ourselves to overindulge this fear by intensifying security, we are only submitting ourselves to the terror of harmful people in our society. As students, we should stand up for what’s right and fight for reform, but in the end, it’s not worth it to jeopardize our education in search of more never ending protection.

Volume XXXIV The Lion’s Roar

Volume XXXV The Lion’s Roar

Newton South High School’s Student Newspaper

140 Brandeis Road Newton, MA 02459 srstaff@thelionsroar.com

Editors-in-Chief

Carina Ramos

Catherine Granfield

Michelle Cheng

Managing Editors

Managing Editors Thomas Patti

Eu Ro Wang

Celine Yung

Opinions

Features

Centerfold

News

Sophie Goodman Sophie Lu Sebastian Tsao

Rachel Gu Kimia Tabatabaei

Graphics Managers Ellen Deng Eunice Kim

Business Manager Gaby Smith

Emily Belt

Faculty Advisers Ashley Elpern Faye Cassell

Opinions

Features

Cam Miller Ilan Rotberg Eu Ro Wang

Sophie Lewis Carrie Ryter

Sports

Centerfold

News

Peri Barest Julian Fefer Hope Zhu

Sophie Goodman Dorra Guermazi

Catherine Granfield Dorra Guermazi

Content Manager

Dina Zeldin

Section Editors

Section Editors Aviva Gershman Dina Zeldin

Ilan Rotberg

Photo Managers

Graphics Managers Ellen Deng Alice Zilberberg

Netta Dror Adam Baker

Local Government Correspondent

Business Manager

Michael Ryter

Editorial Policy

Javid Kasraie

Andy He Caleb Lazar

Sports

Aron Korsunsky Jackson Slater

Copy Editor Jennifer Wang

Photo Manager Netta Dror

Faculty Advisers Ashley Elpern Faye Cassell

The Lion’s Roar, founded in 1984, is the student newspaper of Newton South High School, acting as a public forum for student views and attitudes. The Lion’s Roar’s right to freedom of expression is protected by the Massachusetts Student Free Expression Law (Mass. Gen. Laws Ann. ch. 71, Section 82). All content decisions are made by student editors, and the content of The Lion’s Roar in no way reflects the official policy of Newton South, its faculty or its administration. Editorials are the official opinion of The Lion’s Roar, while opinions and letters are the personal viewpoints of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Lion’s Roar. The Lion’s Roar reserves the right to edit all submitted content, to reject advertising copy for resubmission of new copy that is deemed acceptable by student editors and to make decisions regarding the submission of letters to the editors, which are welcomed. The Lion’s Roar is printed by Seacoast Newspapers and published every four weeks by Newton South students. All funding comes from advertisers and subscriptions. In-school distribution of The Lion’s Roar is free, but each copy of the paper shall cost one dollar for each copy more than ten (10) that is taken by any individual or by many individuals on behalf of a single individual. Violation of this policy shall constitute theft.

april 30, 2018|page 7

THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM|DESK

Giving up our impossible quest for EDITOR’S the perfect high school metaphor DESK from the

Thomas Patti & Celine Yung Managing Editors

Celine: Thomas and I tried so hard to write a grand metaphor about high school. We were going to relate the past four years to Wii — the instantly recognizable doodoo-DOO-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo of the Mii theme as the soundtrack that’s been playing our whole lives. No matter what game was in the Wii console, there was always a home button to click and a Mii plaza to return to. Yes, Wii was our grand metaphor, and maybe if we stretched it out a bit more, it could’ve worked, and you could’ve been reading about self-frustration analogized as playing doubles tennis with your Mii as every player or taking hit after hit in Wii baseball or boxing. But maybe through our struggle to flesh out this metaphor, we’ve found that high school simply doesn’t have one. Maybe things just end, and we search for metaphors to make their ends seem bigger and more important. After all, the only thing we’re losing is time, which we have the rest of our lives to lose. I distinctly remember graduation day last June, handing out issues of The Roar and overhearing a classmate of mine saying, “How is high school ending so fast?” In his subtle brand of humor,

Thomas muttered, “Really? Because it’s felt really long to me.” Almost a year later, his lasting comment has clarified something to me: everything feels like forever when there’s no end in sight and too fast when there is. Endings are scary. There are certain things that you’ll never get back, like time, food and eyesight, but very few ever come to terms with this reality. I know that I, at least, find comfort in being able to go back — whether it’s going back to my paused

Thomas: Even with just five weeks remaining of my NPS career, I still stand by my tongue-in-cheek junior year observation: high school has felt pretty long. When I think back to freshman year, I can only remember scattered, inconsequential moments: Ms. McNally’s fascinating aside about seizure treatment in the Middle Ages, the jarring thwack of Ms. Kinel’s heel slamming the desk behind it as a warning to us all. My recollection of supposedly significant tests, essays and grades

Everything feels like forever when there’s no end in sight and too fast when there is. Zoella vlog or back home after a track meet to play Smash Bros with Thomas. I’ve never been one to plot my escape to a West Coast college. With the May 1 deadline approaching, I’m choosing between Boston and Newton. But still, it wasn’t until a visiting South grad who goes to school in California lamented seeing his family only twice a year that I realized how much I’ve grown to value home as a centerpiece in my life. Even though I’ll have to rediscover my comforts regardless of which college I choose, at least I’ll always have the option of returning home with the click of a blue home button on my Wii remote.

has failed the test of time. Perhaps this discrepancy between what’s important and what’s remembered is partially why our Wii metaphor fell through. In the moment, that history presentation worth half your term grade might feel critical — and honestly, it might be. But give it a couple years and the wisdom of a nostalgic senior’s brooding reflection and it’ll feel almost worthless — you presented, and life moved on. In this way, a comparison between failed essays and Mario Kart deaths would’ve given the former far too much respect. Absolutely nothing is worse than an incoming blue shell. Bombed explications can only hope

to be half as tragic. But there is something in that homebutton piece of the metaphor that’s worth expounding. Unlike Celine, come September, Newton will be farther than a click away. Instead, I’ll be in suburban Maine, the inspiration for several Stephen King novels. The notion feels foreign; will my frequent interactions with squirrels and rabbits here be replaced by run-ins with bloodthirsty vampires and carnivorous clowns? (No, I don’t want a balloon.) I look forward to new experiences in college, but I also anticipate times when I’ll want to recede to the far corner of my room and absolve myself of adult responsibilities. I want to find a place like home, where Smash Bros on a Thursday night is doable. Maybe I can. After all, it wasn’t my house where I played Smash Bros for the first time a few weeks ago (and beat a seasoned veteran, mind you) — it was Celine’s. And without the hours and hours of scarcely-attended weekend paste-ups, her house would’ve been foreign to me, too. This is all a long-winded segue into our final point of business — a farewell to The Roar. Thanks for all the laughs and late proofs, V34 Staff. And a trade secret for V35 SS: the only way to get people to paste-up is by putting them on Senior Staff. Congrats, you’re already there!

SCIENCE MATH AND ART SCHOOL 2018-19 Ongoing Enrollment

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SAT-1 Math Summer Intensive Review

OPINIONS page 8|april 30, 2018|THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM

opinions@thelionsroar.com|VOLUME 34, ISSUE 7

IS STUDENT ACTIVISM EFFECTIVE? NO

YES

By Michael Lezhnin

n her article, “The Renaissance of Student Activism,” Alia Wong writes that “There has been a real powerful sense ... that the future [students] were promised for has been taken away from them.” Wang’s article was published in 2015 — three years before the Parkland high school shooting, but three years after Sandy Hook. She was not talking about gun control, she was talking about #SlashThrasher, a social media campaign opposing the appointment of Florida Republican state senator John Thrasher to be the president of Florida State University. Needless to say, it failed. Over the past several weeks, sensationalized student activism has become arguably detrimental to the fundamental message the students represent; it changes the narrative from a factual based debate, to one of emotional tension and quick action. Moreover, as media spreads and the content we put on it becomes more revealing, new dangers can rapidly turn vulnerabilities into realities, especially for the students who are most vocal about civil liberties. American partisanship is a problem that affects everyone on a daily basis, as we live in a more connected, digital world. Modern student activism, however, no longer argues for more freedoms, but instead a crackdown. Other “successful” student movements were not led by high schoolers, but college students. It isn’t the age that matters, but the leverage they held second to the government in power: higher education. Attempting to ignite change has back fired with high school activism as activists’ have become the primary target for leaders of opposition groups. No one wants to be lead by people they deem inferior, so in an ageist America that despises millenials and Generation Z, teenagers are the worst leaders to advertise. Although many student activists have been pushing the right messages, their ages provide an effective target for the opposition to derail the movements’ popularity. Yet, making the students the tagline of political posters also detracts from the movement, shifting the focus from the subject matter to the leader. Plastered across thousands of home pages are the pictures of David Hogg, a courageous student from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Ad hominem aside, misrepresentation of teenagers makes the issue more divisive than ever before, preventing any actual debate from taking place. This change in message has also been defining factor for failure and success in the past. Brown vs. Board of Education succeeded because it was no longer about Linda Brown, but instead about the matter at hand: a racist policy. Linda

Brown may have brought attention to the issue, but progress was achieved when they shifted the focus from Brown to the actual problem.We see the same virulent debates spread across the nation erupt under the guise of new eyes, because it comes from teenagers. After something has been debated for decades, a new pair of eyes won’t solve the problem. At the end of the day, the final problem rests in our nation’s codified laws: teens can’t vote. In a divided nation, few people will have their hearts changed by the actions of Hogg or any student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Beyond this polarization lies the weakness in any student activism movement: lack of suffrage. If they can’t change the opinions of those who can vote, then they have only entrenched an enemy come time to vote. Unfortunately for many students, it may be, in the words of Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet.”

By Laila Polk

couple of days before the walkout, I turned up the radio volume as NPR mentioned the massacre in Parkland and the upcoming walkout. After the segment ended, I told my mom that I wanted to create change like children who fought against inequality in South Africa.From the flower power of the ‘70s to March for Our Lives, students have created change by disrupting the status quo. Today’s children and teenagers are undermined. Adults simply assume that teenagers are up to no good or aren’t up to anything at all. When teenagers say controversial opinions, adults often ask “who told you that?” or say “you’re just repeating what someone else said.” Not only are piercing comments like these hurtful, but they are also untrue. Teenagers have the world at our fingertips because of

photo illustration by Netta Dror

the internet. We are powerful and have the ability to create change because of our voices, are tech-savvy and want it bad. First, we have fresh voices to shake up debates. Young adults have taken up contested issues like immigration and gun control, fostered dialogues about these issues and aspired to find solutions by bringing new perspectives to old issues. In an ever-changing world, our policies need to cater to an increasingly diverse group of people with a wider range of desires. With more diverse voices advocating for change, our policies will suit a wider range of needs. Because of the internet, we have the world at our fingertips and should use it to make our voices heard. For example, groupchats and committes voted to plan South’s Walkout. One collective group chat held everyone from all the committees so there could be open dialogue about all that we needed to accomplish. We mobilized virtually even if we did our work in real life. Furthermore, the organizers created a Facebook event to make sure information about the walkout was available, polls went up in class Facebook groups to get estimates for attendance and the organizers also used the internet to make flyers to print and hand-out. Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2003, has the tremendous advantage of growing up in the age of technology. We can promote our agenda through multitude of digital platforms. This advantage practically allows us to organize more quickly and efficiently We are one step ahead of the the game. Lastly, we have passion. One of the benefits of being young is that our passion comes unbridled. We are not as jaded as those of the establishment and we still have hope that change is possible and the power of our hope should not be underestimated. When we get knocked down, this hope is what allows us to get back up. Ultimately, passion is the cornerstone of change. In the end, student activism is effective because students have unique skill sets, and when used together, these skill sets become an inredibly powerful tool for change. Activism hinges on the ability to organize and collaborate which we here shown during March for Our Lives. Now, we just have to work hard and keep up the stamina.

april 30, 2018|page 9

THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM|opinions

“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN?” Young Americans should look further into the past to model true greatness By Mikael Rotberg

“M

ake America Great Again” — we hear these words every day from the Trump administration, so it’s easy to write them off as propaganda from an aspiring autocrat. This phrase, however, may hold more meaning than President Trump just wishing to fire up his political base. To me, it’s clear that America doesn’t need to be great again; it always has been. In fact, the world has never seen a greater country where kids like us can grow up and be nurtured. Because I moved to Newton from Mexico, I have grown up as an outsider in the United States and have developed a unique perspective regarding the country. I believe America is the freest country in the world; America’s social equality is greater than that of any other society. Futhermore, the country has gone further in establishing equality of rights regardless of gender, race or religion than any other nation. America also has the strongest economy in the world fostering more job opportunities and entrepreneurship more than many other countries. These standards allow American children to get a college education and careers. Although America nurtures its young people to reach their full potential, many foreigners and Americans alike think that the nation has reached a period of decline. We have a big contradiction: America is indeed great, but not as great as it was before, and has thus fallen into Trumpism. Although it is valid for Americans to address their decline — real or perceived — with urgency and vigor, they should not look to the Baby Boomers — born 1946-1964 — and Generation X — born 1965-1984 — for remedies. While America’s greatness can be found in the values and achievements of its past generations, we mustn’t believe that the generations who brought us Trumpism will bring back the elusive greatness that we seem to have lost. Baby Boomers and Generation Xers will keep looking for solutions in the wrong place. They hope to restore America’s glory with the same values that

brought about this decline in the first place. Instead of looking at Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, we should look at the generation whose values and achievements made America great in the first place: the Greatest Generation, those born between the beginning of World War I and the end of World War II . We should credit them for much of the freedom and affluence that makes America great today. The Greatest Generation entered World War II with a noble cause: to save the world from Hitler and Nazism, which oversaw the killing of almost 12 million innocent people. All arguments justify America fighting in World War II, whereas during the time that Baby Boomers and Generation Xers have been in power, America has fought unnecessary wars for geopolitical power and oil, such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. America maintained the justification that the war in Afghanistan would prevent the destabilization of nearby Pakistan, which was growing unstable. The Pakistani rebellions, however, originated from the United States’s attempt to remodel traditional Afghan society, which we disguised as a justifiable smashing of al Qaeda. After the Gulf War in 1991, rather than leaving Iraq as a “solved” problem, Iraq became a long-term American legitment issue, leading to the second Iraq War in 2003. We now know that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and the war was actually fought over oil. According to Gen. John Abizaid, former head of U.S. Central Command and Military Operations in Iraq, rather than solving a foreign policy problem, the Iraq War cost $2.4 trillion and 4,500 brave American lives. The war also reinvigorated radical militants, set back women’s rights, weakened the healthcare system and crippled local food

graphic by Kaila Marie

distribution systems. Economically, the Greatest Generation is also a better role model than its predecessors. It had a fraction of national debt, even though they had just pulled the country out of the Great Depression and fought in the biggest war in history. In contrast, Baby Boomers and Generation Xers ended up giving America the huge debt it has today, not only because of the unnecessary wars they fought, but because they lost the traditional American value of frugality. During the Great Depression, Americans did what they could to find work and to pull their country out of the economic plight. Today, Baby Boomers and Generation Xers buy more than they can afford, and our Generation Z – born 1997-2003 – will end up having to pay for their unnecessary luxuries. This financial recklessness ignores basic rules of economics and ends up feeding the national debt. The Greatest Generation accepted immigrants and welcomed new blood into the country as an asset. Such as by passing the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. Also known as the “Hart-Celler Act,” the act abolished an earlier strict quota system based on national origin and established a new immigration policy based on reuniting immigrant families and attracting skilled labor. Over the next four decades, the policies put into effect in 1965 greatly diversified the demographic makeup of the American population, as immigrants entering the United States came increasingly from countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as opposed to only Europe. Culturally, Baby Boomers’ and Generation Xers’ pop culture and reality TV lifestyle ulti-

mately elected a reality TV star as president.This lifestyle set the ground for the Trumpism, that wants to “Make America Great” by closing borders, building walls and taunting immigrants. These trends affect me personally. If Trump gets his way, my brothers and I might not be able to continue growing up in the greatest country on Earth. Our generation will need to work extra hard to keep America great, but we should not look for guidance in the values and deeds of Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, falling for the Trumpism that they brought with them. Instead, we should look up to the heroes of the Greatest Generation.

page 10|April 30, 2018

opinions|THELIONsROAR.com|THE lION’S ROAR

Sizes Don’t Measure Up By Isabel Flessas

We’ve all heard this myth: the primary reason we become self-conscious about our bodies is because we’re constantly assaulted by a never-ending onslaught of sexy, appealing and perfect models who set unrealistic standards. While this media inundation is indeed a contributing factor, it doesn’t explain where the mindsets “heavy and curvy is wrong” and “skinny and tall is ideal” come from. As children, most of us were not explicitly taught that being heavier or looking different from the women in movies or on billboards was wrong. Instead, we were taught that if we eat a certain way, exercise and act like we’re enjoying it, we would look “perfect” and fit into size 00 jeans, just like the models. These ideals, however, left me asking where our idea of perfect started. The unfortunate reality is that the image we label as ideal is seldom attainable. Dieting and exercise may improve health, but having done so myself, I can promise that although I may look a bit thinner than I did in the past, no amount of dieting and exercise will make body confidence issues disappear. In sixth grade, I lost 20 pounds. The sure-fire combination of obtaining a new Razor scooter and going two months without dessert or fast food led to my decreased Body Mass Index. After losing weight, however, I still was not the perfectly uniform stick I had always wanted to be. Regardless of my weight loss, when I walked into my local department store, the most comfortable and well-fitting size for me was still labeled Large and my pants size was still in the double digit range. But I had lost weight! Why wasn’t I able to joyously have the privilege of wearing a long-coveted Medium shirt? The crux

of the body image issue is, in my opinion, this dilemma. It’s all about the labels. If you walk into your average Target, you’ll likely find that the shirts and blouses sport labels with single-word descriptions that we use to indicate size, such as my aforementioned Large. What does a Large mean anyway? Is it large on the average woman, or is it large on the average runway model? And what makes someone Large? Does being tall make you a Large, even if you’re thin, or should Large be reserved exclusively for those with larger abdomens and busts? The concept of Large becomes senseless when applied to clothing sizes. The same goes for the jean sizes 0 and 00. No body part measures 0 inches, so how can 0 and 00 serve as accurate measures of the size of an article of clothing? By labeling clothes, we are also labelling the people in them. For some, a world without adjective-based clothing sizes is a reality. When it comes to men’s pants sizes, each number simply represents a

measurement: waist and inseam. On the other hand, women are left with everlasting questions, like “what the heck does a size 0 mean,” and, “how do I get small enough to wear it?” A few adjectives or size numbers cannot accurately represent body shapes and sizes. I frequently help out in South’s costume department, which clothes all of South’s actors in the plays and musicals, and a vital part of this process is gathering measurements of all of the actors. When collecting this often very personal information, however, we usually don’t ask about letter or number sizes. In fact, we seldom use the labels on clothes as indicators at all. Instead, we use the raw measurements to help select the best fit. I am able to see people not as Small, Medium or Large, but as a variety of different dimensions and factors. Someone could have short legs and a small and compact waist, but could also have broad shoulders and a larger chest, which could mean that they wear a size traditionally labeled Large. The same could occur with an incredibly tall and slender person with a smaller chest, despite the two people having comgraphic by Grace Karl

pletely different builds. The only way to find the perfect size is by gathering measurements and finding a store that labels clothes objectively. The other day, I was heading to Target on the much-dreaded first swimsuit scout. I found myself surrounded by photos of women who looked like me: they did not have perfect bodies, but they were neither people whom some would consider plus sized, nor mainstream skinny. Surprised by this finding, I looked around, suspecting that I had stumbled into the plus-sized section (what does plus sized even mean?). I was astounded to find that I was still in the section for teenage girls. In fact, a sign that read “now selling bathing suits for every body” hung on a nearby rack. Something about those words felt like an apology for all of those years of torment, of feeling I would never be anything but Large, but at the same time, a triumphant remark that felt like a fresh welcome into the store. Even more surprising, the swimsuit tops they sold were not labeled as Small, Medium, Large and beyond, but with actual numbers corresponding to chest measures and bra sizes. For the first time in a very, very long time, I walked to the changing room with confidence. Instead of being self-conscious about my handful of large and extra large clothes, I felt just fine with a pile of clothes labeled with numbers that represented my body. Perhaps someday, clothing retailers will realize the harmful effects of the standard sizing system and change it for the better. Until then, remember that while many numbers and words can describe your body, your own feelings about your body are the only words that matter.

Students for Students: A Voice in Planning By CaLEB LAZAR Back in the fall, when I initially heard that South was going to do a Lip Dub, I had two reactions. I first wondered who thought of such an idea, and then I started scheming to get out of it. I was not alone. Most people I talked to also hated the idea of having to film South spirit for the world to see. When the day of the Lip Dub actually rolled around, however, I found myself caught up in the enthusiasm. Despite this, many students never realized the potential to have a good time because they chose to skip the Lip Dub altogether, and students skipping school events is not a new trend. South’s events are not bad ideas — a lot of them had the potential to be lots of fun, build spirit and form community. Yet, without any interest or enthusiasm from the student body, there’s no way these events can fully serve their intended purposes. Of course, students are too busy with other priorities to care about the faculty’s new plans. Still, if students were given the opportunity to have a say in the event planning process, they would certainly be more invested in the final result

and much more likely to participate. Some South students, however, do have a say in event planning. Class officers invest a lot of effort into planning events such as this year’s sophomore Blacklight Bash and senior prom, and clubs are able to organize their own events like Asian Night. Despite this level of involvement,

students should not be given a say. Personally, I would care much more about South events if I had some say in what was happening. Events would actually be based on what students want instead of what the faculty thinks is best for us, sparking more interest and participation. For example, the original concept of

If South increased student representation in planning events, they would actually be based on what students want to do instead of what the faculty thinks is best for us, sparking more interest and participation. the majority of students do not get to make decisions regarding the events they are supposed to attend. South faculty took a step in the right direction when they asked students to vote for the Lip Dub song. What they should have done first, however, was ask whether students wanted to do the Lip Dub, or at least give options for events that students could choose. Obviously, some students simply do not want to do anything, but that does not mean that the majority of

Passing Time was a really good idea. The first Passing Time of the year gave students the opportunity to exhibit their musical talents. While I understand the importance of showcasing spoken word and visual arts in the second and third Passing Times, I found them to be a lot less exciting with fewer student choosing to take part. The organizers were so focused on creating such an overly-inclusive community that part of the original appeal of the project was lost. There are many other ways to

feature the various art forms at South, but taking the fun out of Passing Times was not the way to go. While I cannot be sure that students would not have chosen to have various iterations of Passing Time, I can say the decision should reflect the views of the student body. South administration habitually overrides students’ wants in favor of what administration thinks is the best for our school community. The administration even strongly influenced the walkout by making non-participating students go to the cafeteria and preventing the Tab from speaking to students. It was great that South encouraged students to safely engage in such a momentous event, but the entirety of this occasion should have been student decisions. Although other events like Lip Dub certainly do not hold as much importance as a national protest, students’ voices should still be heard. To be clear, I understand that the South faculty is trying to build a community. Still, the best way for them to succeed in their efforts is to allow the students to have a say in planning.

April 30, 2018|page 11

THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM|opinions

UPGRADE Movie Review: “Love, Simon” by ANYA LEFKOWITZ Tertulia Promposals Slightly warmer weather Celtics and Bruins in the playoffs Artsy vacation photos

DOWNGRADE Snow in April Allergies Returning to a normal sleep schedule Upcoming APs Obnoxious vacation photos

“Love, Simon” is a film about a closeted gay teen, Simon, and his journey to embrace himself and his sexuality. The plot begins when a mystery student under the pseudonym “Blue” shares his feelings about being a closeted gay teen on Simon’s school’s social media. The messages catch Simon’s attention, and he begins an ongoing email thread with Blue in order to uncover the anonymous author’s identity. After some time and effort, Simon finally ends up dating Blue, whose real name turns out to be Bram. Although seemingly a simple romantic comedy, “Love, Simon” challenges many cultural stereotypes about the LGBT community that we, as a society, need to lose. Initially, Simon plans to stay closeted in high school and only present his sexuality in college. During one of his daydreams, he imagines himself coming out in college, filling the scene with rainbows and dancers. With this imagery, the film acknowledges stereotypes that surround the gay community. Despite these stereotypes, Simon doesn’t want to change his personality to better match people’s assumptions. Not all people in the LGBTQ community are the same or have a similar personality; everyone is unique in their own way. Just

because someone is straight doesn’t mean they’re the same or have a similar personality to the person next to them, so why does our society assume that all people in the LGBTQ community fall under just one stereotype? As a society, we need to break these bonds between sexuality and personality and acknowledge each person’s individuality instead. Simon and Bram hold secret email conversations, in which Bram states that he is celebrating Hanukkah for the holidays. When they meet, Simon appears somewhat shocked that Bram is both black and Jewish, which Simon sees as an unexpected combination. Bram’s acceptance of his identity breaks our societal assumptions about race and religion. Simon’s opinion on Bram remains the same, regardless of his race and religion, showing that Simon’s appreciation of Bram is more than superficial. Overall, “Love, Simon” celebrates acceptance of different cultures and sexual orientations. It breaks commonly spoken stereotypes and truthfully shows everyone’s inherent uniqueness. The film does an excellent job giving viewers an insight into Simon’s life as a closeted teen and gives an entertaining look at the challenges Simon faces while searching for love.

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photos from 20th Century Fox

creative thinkers Alternative learning programs provide students greater oppurtunities for exploration By Sophie Goodman and Dorra Guermazi

ection one of the “2018-2019 NSHS Program of Studies” is titled “Newton South’s Smaller Learning Community Interdisciplinary Studies Programs,” or “ID” for short. The program of studies describes the ideal student as a “problem solver, creator and innovator … Interdisciplinary Studies is built on collaboration, respect and innovation.”

Da Vinci

Da Vinci, a three-year Science Technology, Engineering, Art and Math (STEAM) program is the newest ID program which combines CP, ACP and honors levels. Students can at the start of sophomore year. Junior Carter Benoit-Myer said the da Vinci program makes him feel more connected with his peers and his teachers. “You can always walk into da Vinci and feel confident. You know that they are all your friends and no one is going to judge you,” he said. “You can ask more questions, so you don’t need to feel afraid to say something.” Divya Shannon, a da Vinci math teacher, said that teaching in da Vinci has altered her teaching. “Teaching da Vinci is very different than teaching any other math class or any other class in the school mainly because we focus a lot on building community in addition to learning the content,” she said. “We learn through more group tasks and less of my standing in front of the class giving information and then people practicing. The kids still practice, but they usually discover most of the concepts on their own.” Benoit-Myer added that he likes that the three teachers collaborate and link the curriculums between classes. “When you go into a class, you learn in one class and go to the next class, and you still have that knowledge of the class that you just had,” he said. Sophomore Libby Jin agreed that the connection between the three subjects sparked her initial interest in da Vinci. “I would love to take a program that keeps me in a loop with these three subjects, connecting them and having all the teachers talk to one another, like in a middle school [team], which I thought was a good way of communication,” she said. “Having separate teachers for everything can be kind of difficult.” Despite the benefits of da Vinci, sophomore Claire Olson said the multi-level class structure was not an effective method for her learning style, prompting her to leave the program. “When you are teaching to multiple levels of kids, it’s really hard

to make it challenging for people who need an honors education,” she said. “I think it’s certainly a step in the right direction, but I don’t think that it was ready to be opened up to my caliber of honors students,” Jin added. Olson said that the many levels seemed to overwhelm the classroom. “If you had questions, it was hard to ask them because the teacher seemed so disorganized,” she said. “If you had a really specific question, it was really hard to get the teacher’s attention so they could answer it for you.” Jin added that the divided attention of the teacher negatively impacted her learning. “I got the idea that the teacher’s attention is split between three different levels of kids in one class,” she said. “Especially as an all honors kid, I didn’t feel like I was being challenged in the right ways, so I decided to leave.” Olson added that figuring out the reasons students want to join da Vinci would limit the number of uninterested students, as the program could deny those seeking an easier courseload. According to the description for da Vinci in the program of studies, the program’s lack of challenging material

Global Communities

Another popular program, which is similar to da Vinci, is the Global Communities Program, another multi-level program that begins in sophomore year. The program aims to make students “global citizens” by connecting the history and English curriculums. Global history teacher Michael Kozuch said that the history department created the program 11 years ago to prevent major changes in students’ learning. “The school was being renovated, and we were going from a school of about 1,200 to the 1,800+ that we have now, and we were concerned that that was going to change the school environment a lot,” he said. “Global was about trying to get people more connected in a place that is becoming more disconnected.” Global English teacher Joseph Golding said that he tries to teach students about being “global citizens” in his class. “In order to be a good global citizen, you have to know something about the culture, so you should have a deep understanding of where you

“You can always walk into da Vinci and feel confident. You know that they are all your friends and no one is going to judge you in there.” - Carter Benoit-Myer, ‘19 should not exist: “Applicants should be eager to work collaboratively, to construct their own understanding and to approach problem solving with curiosity and tenacity.” Shannon said she structures her class to match the expectations written in the handbook. By incorporating real-life situations into her lessons, she provides students with a deeper understanding of content, she said. “When I give students assessments, I allow them to have resources because in the real world, you’re not going to memorize a bunch of equations or chemical formulas, but the questions I give them are more in depth than what a traditional test would look like. I’m expecting them to take that information, and rather than just putting it on a piece of paper, actually using it to do something. That’s what the real world is all about,” she said. “We’re teaching them how to work in groups with people who they might not necessarily always work with or don’t always get along with, but they have to [learn] how to take something that they learned and how to actually apply it.”

are from,” he said. “It is not impressive to go to another country and not understand your own.” Sophomore Katie Gundal said that the program strives to create a tightly-knit community. “Every Friday, we all get together and talk about what our weekend is going to be like, and some people bring in food,” she said. Junior Kiran Maypole, who has participated in the program for two years, said that Global has helped her connect with more peers. “I know everybody in my Global section really, really well, so I can … know which strategies work with which people,” she said. “That’s made me more dynamic as a leader because I’m more able to adjust to what people are doing.” Guidance counselor Christopher Hardiman said that Global, as well as da Vinci, benefit students who want more collaborative work in their classes. “If a student really works well with others and likes the group model and the collaboration model, then a lot of these programs would be good fits.” Golding added that Global can benefit any student.

“I can think of kids who fit almost any different demographic and say ‘that kid was very happy in global,” he said. Global English teacher Jasmine Lellock added that students gain deeper contextual understanding when English and history classes connect. According to sophomore Julia Ronkin, however, the connection between the classes is not always obvious. “I feel like we aren’t as connected with the English class as they advertise,” she said. “I also expected to have more discussions in English, which I wasn’t getting.” Gundal added that the “global citizen” aspect hasn’t been incorporated into her classes as much as expected. “I think it could have a little more emphasis on [being a global citizen] because at the beginning of the year our teacher told us that we had to do one community service effort each week,” she said. “We’ve only done that about three times. We don’t really talk about it too much.” Kozuch said that Global focuses on students who are willing to take risks and get to know their peers on a personal level. “It’s about learning and working with people to learn in community, and so if people are willing to take that challenge and … step out of their comfort zone a little bit, then I think people are going to have tremendous success [in Global],” he said. “[Global] is a really good way to get a better sense of the world, because in the world you’re not going to be isolated, and if you’re an honors kid, you’re not going to have just honors classes,” Maypole said. “You’re going to have to deal with … people that aren’t at the same level as you are, and I think that Global is a great exercise in that it helps you learn how to adapt to situations that are not ideal.”

Linked

Ninth Grade Literature and World History — more commonly known as Linked — is a program similar to Global, but designed for freshmen to connect their English and history classes. History teacher Robert Parlin said that the idea for Linked came from a similar program at North. “About 28 years ago, I had seen the model over at North where they linked English and science” he said. “I saw how it created a smaller community of students who really clicked together, and I thought it would be great to bring that to South.” English teacher Alan Reinstein graphic by Alice Zilberberg

creative thinkers Alternative learning programs provide students greater oppurtunities for exploration By Sophie Goodman and Dorra Guermazi

Da Vinci

Global Communities

Linked

page 14|april 30, 2018 Continued from previous page said that Linked creates a supportive community for students both socially and academically. “[Linked is] a socially supportive and emotionally supportive place where students begin their freshman year feeling as if they have more support from teachers who are thinking about them more often about them regularly,” Sophomore Kat Wagner said that she found the collaboration between her English and history teachers helpful. “Let’s say you had a test coming up in history. In English, you wouldn’t have a lot of work to do that week in order to study for the test in history.”

New Media Communities

New Media Communities, a program that follows the global model will start next year. According to English teacher David Weintraub, the program will have a focus on media literacy. “I think [media literacy is] such an important subject for young people to gain some mastery over so that they can turn into active consumers and active producers of content in our media saturated world,” said Weintraub. “I want people to leave this course feeling like they have expertise in a certain media production skill, while also gaining awareness of how media affect and shape our lives.” Weintraub added that the program offers an alternative to students who wanted a spot in Global, but were not accepted into the program. “New media is a way to offer an option for students that may have wanted that same kind of Global model that’s immersive and that’s project based and that’s interdisciplinary, but that focuses on a slightly different kind of competency,” he said.

centerfold|THELIONsROAR.com|THE LION’S ROAR Modular Chemistry

While da Vinci, Global and Linked provide alternatives to taking the standard core classes, South offers other programs within the core curriculum such as the sophomore Modular Chemistry class. The course centers around modules, similar to units in a standard class, with four per term, allowing students to work at their own pace and learn independently. According to chemistry teacher Alan Crosby, the students in Modular Chemistry initiate the learning process themselves, which is sometimes more effective than lectures for students. Crosby added that Modular Chemistry teaches students valuable skills like selfadvocacy and independent learning. “[They learn] how to seek support for themselves instead of waiting for someone to tell them what to do,” he said. Although South offered students the option to take Modular Chemistry this year, students were involuntarily placed in the program last year. Junior Ross Halpern said that the forced placement caused some students to succeed while others fell behind in the self motivated enviornment. “It was definitely challenging to create a cohesive atmosphere in such a diverse atmosphere,” he said. According to sophomore Nora Swidey, students have more freedom to learn how to manage their time effectively in Modular Chemistry. “It makes you take responsibility for your own learning because no one is telling you to do it. If you don’t want to do anything that day, then you have the option not to, and that can be dangerous for some people, but that also can give you a lot more freedom because you are choosing to learn,” she said. Halpern said that not all students can succeed in an independent learning classroom.

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“There were some kids who just didn’t have that inner motivation to learn the material, so some people fell behind,” he said. South also offers the course Physics and Engineering, a class where students alternate between a week in a classroom and a week in a workshop, as an alternative to the freshman physics class. Sophomore Danny Collins said the program helped him understand ties between both subjects. “I could see the direct connection between what we had been learning in the classroom and testing those theories … in the workshop,” he said. Collins did see a drawback in that spending only half of the time learning physics. “I feel like we moved at the same speed as the other classes, which means we only got to about half of the physics, so I did feel a little bit behind,” he said. Despite this difference, Collins said the challenges he faced in physics and engineering taught him to persevere. “I think [in a standard physics class] you wouldn’t have learned that you are always going to be failing if you are in the workshop and you are building, but that’s part of building,” he said. “You are going to have to fail, and you have to learn from your mistakes and build it better, and that’s the process of failing and learning from your mistakes and trying again.”

WISE and Independent Study

Seniors have two programs that allow them to explore topics and fields not offered by other courses: WISE Individualized Senior Experience and Independent Study programs. The WISE program takes place during fourth term of senior year with a preparatory class during third term. Students take part in an internship or independent project with a final presentation in late May.

According to senior Katy Ronkin, the program teaches students valuable life lessons that standard classes would not necessarily teach. “I think the long-term planning of the project … is something that’s a really good skill to learn for the future,” she said. Ronkin said that the WISE project can give students a greater sense of purpose when school may feel pointless. “[School] can feel really unfulfilling, especially fourth term after being accepted into college, and it’s like ‘why am I still here?’” she said. “But having WISE, doing something that you’re really interested in and being able to focus on that is super awesome.” The independent study program also allows seniors to learn in a smaller setting than other classes. According to senior Thomas Garrison, who participated in an independent study class for history last year, South should encourage students to do independent studies more because it teaches students to learn on their own initiative. “You get to choose what you’re learning,” he said. “You lead the project and the teachers advise it, rather than the teacher assigning the project.” Junior Yarden Levy, who participated in an independent study for physics last year, said that having an independent study allowed him to learn without stress and put a focus on learning for the sake of learning as opposed to learning in order to get good grades. “In other classes, … it feels like grades [are] the first thing and learning is the second part,” he said. According to Hardiman, alternative courses help students learn in a variety of ways. "We don’t just have every student being forced into this exact path of doing the same thing that everyone else is doing,” he said. “Each program has its unique focus.”

FEATURES page 15|April 30, 2018|THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM

FEATURES@thelionsroar.com|VOLUME 34, ISSUE 7

Spotlight on the Dark

South Stage has favored dark-themed musicals in recent years, while North’s Theatre Ink has opted for more family-friendly shows, despite often sharing similar underlying messages By Linda Chang and Lisa Jiang

outh freshman Abigail Arndt has been an actress for as long as she can remember. Arndt said that, for her, theater has been a vessel to merge reality and fantasy. “I just fell in love with acting and becoming a whole [new] person and portraying another world to an audience,” she said. In early March, Arndt performed in South Stage’s production of “Cabaret.” The musical has a dark reputation due to its themes of anti-semitism, abortion and substance use, according to Arndt. Across town, Theatre Ink at North put on its production of “Cinderella.” Although the musicals’ themes were vastly different, both succeeded in sending powerful messages to their audiences. According to Jeff Knoedler, South’s director of theater, choosing shows is a multifaceted process. “[Over] the last few years, there have been a lot of things happening in our community, both [in] Newton and also [in] America,” he said. “So it’s kind of a rich, fertile ground to make art.” Knoedler said, however, that he prioritizes shows that he thinks are optimal for the casting pool and most beneficial to his students’ theater education. “In the end, I have to pick shows that fit the people who are going to audition for them, stretching [the actors] a little bit, but not being so difficult that they can’t feel successful with them,” he said.“The North and South theater programs share this idea that this is educational theater, and we’re here not just to put on a show, but also to help our students grow.” Adam Brown, director of Theatre Ink, agreed. “We never think, ‘hey, we want to put on a great show.’ We want to put on a good process and [have] kids learn through that process,” he said. Brown added that he aims to spread the joy of theatre to the younger generation by bringing children to Theatre Ink’s productions, something he said “Cinderella” succeeded in. “There’s this spark and this joy that kids have when they see theater because they’re there. They’re with it,” he said. “You

just see that joy, and its priceless ... it’s why we do theater.” Senior Elijah Lawrence, who has been involved in 13 South Stage productions, said that he enjoys sharing funny and lighthearted characters with the audience. “I love making people laugh, and I love just sort of being crazy, and that’s a big part of being an actor,” he said. Lawrence added, however, that acting in darker shows is equally important. “When you do a show like ‘Cabaret,’ it reminds you very seriously why we do theater in the real world,” he said. Sophomore Elijah Sarvey, a fellow member of South Stage, said that

e Liu

in darker Jasm ic by h p a gr shows like “Cabaret” can leave a more lasting impression on the audience. “Shows with deep messages like ‘Cabaret,’ have the ability to really impact the audience,” he said. “Having my work stay with people is really moving.” “Cabaret” director Paige Perkinson said that the lasting impact made the show a better teaching tool. “In ‘Cabaret’ you learn how to advocate for political justice … which you will never learn from ‘Cinderella,’” she said. Brown, however, said that the modernized script enabled “Cinderella” to portray ideas of social justice. “This is a better story to tell to especially young kids,” he said. “They see

this is a strong woman who’s not afraid to advocate and make change.” North junior Maddie Ranalli, who played the title character, agreed that the adapted script allowed for an impactful performance despite the lighthearted nature of the show. “A lot of people after ‘Cinderella’

Ranalli added that the fear of offending the audience may have been a reason why Theatre Ink has chosen darker shows less frequently in recent years, citing Theatre Ink’s 2014 performance, “Thoroughly Modern Millie.” “It was written at a time when racial stereotypes were okay to put on stage, so as to stay true to social commentary, [Theatre Ink] embraced that and a lot of [the] audience got upset,” she said. While both theater directors said they do not shy away from difficult subject matter, Knoedler said South Stage takes steps to guarantee that productions such as “Cabaret” are performed in a tasteful and appropriate manner. “We make available counselors, and we educate our actors and the crew-people on the subject matter,” he said. Arndt added that during the audition process, the directors asked the students whether or not they would be comfortable performing certain unorthodox actions, like kissing someone of the same or opposite gender. Knoedler said that theater provides came an optimal medium to educate students up to me about mature topics. and [were] like “Our students need to be put in ‘wow, I didn’t realize a story like this could adult situations and learn how to deal with actually be political or have these mesreal world adult problems in the relative sages,’” she said. “They weren’t expecting to safety of theater,” he said. “I think that’s get that much out of it.” where they’ll grow the most.” Sarah Vernovsky, North senior and Knoedler added that the recent member of Theatre Ink, agreed that serious pattern of putting on dark musicals is not messages can emerge from lighthearted intentional, but rather, reflective of the shows. feelings of many members of the South “I don’t think something has to be community. super dark and serious to make an imporFor Lawrence, the fact that “Cabaret” tant point,” she said. “I think with ‘Cinder- is considered a relevant show to recent ella,’ the delivery is a lot more lighthearted times is unnerving. and zany and fairy tale-like, but it still does “That’s dark in and of itself,” he said. carry the message that anything is pos“It’s about a thing that actually happened.” sible.” According to Lawrence, the dark Ranalli said that she and other curthemes added to the educational value of rent Theatre Ink members have discussed the production and contribute to his love the discrepancy between the themes of the of theater overall. musicals put on at North and South. “[From] watching ‘Cabaret’ [to] “Everyone in [Theatre Ink] recogbeing in ‘Cabaret,’ you can get more out nizes [that South Stage does] much more of that than a history class,” he said. “It’s provocative, modern stuff when it comes to a form of teaching you how to be a good big musicals, and I think there has always person.” been some frustration that we talk about,” she said. Additional reporting by Carrie Ryter

page 16|april 30, 2018

features|THELIONsROAR.com|THE LION’S ROAR

Saluting Senior Senators

Class of 2018 senators reflect on their service, sharing advice and aspirations By Sophie Lewis and Iris Yang

photo by Netta Dror

Senior senators left to right: Brooke Hackel, Daniel Abdulah, Michael Ryter, Hannah Phan, Rebecca Levy, Benjamin Anderson-Krim Michael Ryter, President Despite losing a senate bid his freshman year, Michael Ryter persisted in his efforts to join Senate and has now been a class senator for three years. “I was still interested in getting more involved in leadership and helping the community,” he said. Ryter said he takes the role of Senate presidency seriously. “I think that Senate only functions as well as its leader does in terms of keeping it on task,” he said. “I’m honored to carry on the tradition.” As a president, Ryter said that his most important responsibility goes beyond succeeding personally. “My role as Senate president [is] to make sure that Senators can take their goals and achieve what they want,” he said. Ryter said he urges prospective senators to run, despite tough elections. “[Senate] can be really rewarding and it can really help you grow,” he said. “You can also make a real difference in your community.”

Benjamin Anderson-Krim, Chair Benjamin Anderson-Krim has spent his time on Senate primarily working to implement real world education and financial literacy into school curriculum. “We try and get students to a point where ... they’ll be literate in their finances [and can] be good citizens of their community,” he said. He added that his greatest accomplishment was establishing the position of Treasurer in Senate’s constitution. “South Senate [needs] some degree of financial independence [to] make sure that whatever we want to do in the future will have the funding,” he said. Anderson-Krim said students’ voices are essential for a school to function. “When students are treated as citizens of their school ... they [learn] how they can act in order to promote change within our democratic system,” he said. A takeaway from his time on Senate, he said, is the importance of self-advocacy. “There’s no better person to solve one’s issues than oneself,” he said.

Brooke Hackel, Chair Brooke Hackel said she felt qualified to represent her class when she initially ran for Senate her freshman year. “I knew that, because I am able to express myself, … I would do a good job at expressing the views of the rest of the students,” she said. Despite her successes so far, namely establishing homework-free vacations, Hackel said she will continue to push for change for the remainder of this year. She said she hopes Senate will pass a bill that would decrease the weight of final exams schoolwide for students who have succeeded in a given class. “I feel like for someone who has proven themself all year long, it’s kind of wrong that a test can completely change your grade,” she said. She said that when it comes time to vote for reforms like this one, senators’ votes will reflect their larger, shared goals. “We each have our own vote ... but [our votes are] ultimately to help the school,” she said.

Daniel Abdulah, Senator Daniel Abdulah said he ran for Senate freshman year in hopes of enacting change at South. “I had some ideas and had enough connections with different people,” he said. “I figured it would be a good way to put those ideas to use.” “The first resolution that I wrote myself was an alternative to detention,” he said. “That’s when I started writing more.” According to Abdulah, senators sometimes struggle to connect to the whole student body. “[Senate] tends to have a bit of a selection bias towards academically focused students and certain activities,” he said. “It can be hard to maintain those connections to other people outside of Senate.” Abdulah said, nonetheless, that he is satisfied with his accomplishments and looks forward to future years of Senate. “I’d like to also lay groundwork … [to] ensure that Senate can keep functioning as effectively as possible.”

Rebecca Levy, Senator Rebecca Levy said she had a clear goal in mind when she campaigned to be a senator her junior year. “I wanted to participate in making the school better and organizing South in a way that would be helpful to students,” she said. She said that the enthusiasm of her fellow senators has been an additional motivating factor. “Everybody who’s here wants to be here because they all had to run in a public election,” she said. Looking forward, Levy said she hopes senators try to take on more controversial issues. “We do a lot of things that … would be [agreed on] around the school, and I hope that in the future, senators will take on harder obstacles.” Levy said that her experience on Senate has inspired her to be part of student government in college next year. “I just want to be involved,” she said.

Hannah Phan, Senator While on Senate, Hannah Phan has been working to reduce student stress, even though she said that some of her work has not been visible to students. “I think the tangible stuff would probably be my greatest accomplishment because [it’s what] the student body sees,” she said. Despite her accomplishments, Phan said she felt frustrated that Senate was not able to have the legislative power she said it deserved. “Once [a bill] passed, it was definitely ... just a recommendation to [Principal] Stembridge and it became his choice whether he wanted to enforce it,” she said. “Our hands were tied in that sense.” Phan said that Senate maintains power despite these drawbacks. “We shouldn’t be hindered by this preconceived notion about how bureaucracy... holds people back,” she said. “If you actually want to change the school, you definitely can.”

April 30, 2018|page 17

THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM|Features

and

recyclin’ restylin’ South students turn to thrift shopping to help the environment and express themselves.

or as long as she can remember, sophomore Skye Tausig has been filling her wardrobe almost entirely with thrifted, hand-me-down or repurposed clothing. “I started wanting to buy clothes more [because they were] something that I wanted to look good and feel good in,” she said. “Now that I had an interest in that, I wanted to make sure that I was making sustainable choices and eco- and culturally-friendly choices.” A growing number of students have made the same decision to recycle clothing through thrifting, trading or upcycling to save money, uniquely express themselves and minimize the environmental impact of the fashion industry, Tausig said. “I’ve always thrifted as an environmental choice and as a moral choice, whereas now we’re trending towards a culture of people doing it for fun, which is still … achieving the same results,” Tausig said. Sophomore Jessica Wu said that once she began thrifting, she saw the potential to make her shopping habits more environmentally friendly. “Going thrift shopping is an adventure. [You can] find cute clothes for a lot cheaper, and they’re all really unique pieces that you wouldn’t find at the mall,” Wu said. “[It’s] a way to just save your energy and minimize your environmental footprint.”

By Dina Zeldin For senior Lizy Szanton, shopping at thrift-stores has turned a previously stressful activity into an outlet for selfexpression, she said. “It’s more of a treasure hunt. You really have to search for [items] in your size that you like,” she said. “It become[s] rewarding [since] it’s much more of a wild card.” Freshman Matan Kruskal attributed the growing popularity of thrift stores to teens’ developing interest in nineties fashion. “We’re definitely going in the direction of more thrift-shopping and less mass produced clothing … especially as all of these styles and trends are coming back, and vintage clothing is becoming more of a hip thing [that] regular clothing stores just don’t carry,” he said. Clothing plays an important role in helping students develop themselves and their style, South Stage costumer senior Rebecca Shepherd added. “It’s a very big part of expressing who you are. When I see someone wearing a shirt that is more daring, it says something about their personality, and when I see bright colors, that person seems fun,” she said. “Especially in a time in high school when everyone is figuring out identity and stuff, I think that clothing plays a big part.” Senior Sheetal Krovi said that thrift-shopping has allowed students not only to diversify their style, but to be more creative and hands-on. “I know everyone wants to stay trendy but what people are valuing more now is when people have their own spin on trends,” she said. “‘I made that myself ’ — I think that’s a trend that’s going to move forward in the coming years.” According to senior Leen Salloum,

this process of upcycling — sewing, painting, embroidering and otherwise revising clothing — has become more financially available in recent years due to a rise in inexpensive clothing in thrift-stores. “If you remake your clothes or if you reuse something that you’re going to throw away, you [can] make it however you want it to be,” Salloum said. “That’s smart to do [because it] saves you money and it saves the environment.” Szanton also noted that students who thrift should give back to thrift-stores to replenish the resources they use. “So many things are disposed of even though they can be used again, so I think something that’s super cool about second-hand stores [is that] it can be an in-and-out exchange. They accept donations but also they repurpose those clothes,” she said. Krovi agreed that shoppers must give back to thrift stores. “You can buy things as long as you’re giving back,” she said. “People have a tendency to hold on to things they don’t really need ... and I’m being a hypocrite because I am a shopaholic.” According to a study by Ernst and Young, Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2003, has $44 billion dollars worth of global spending power, giving it much potential to shape the fashion industry. The fashion industry is currently heading towards an increase in cheap, readily available and poorly made clothing known as “fastfashion,” according to family and consumer sciences teacher Lisa Petrizzi. Sophomore Coco Lheritier, however, said that she is hopeful her generation can reduce the enviromental footprint that fast-fashion creates,

and said she tried to raise awareness for the issue in her sophomore speech. “Throwing clothes away constantly … and supporting these big companies is bad for the environment because of the way they produce their clothing,” Lheretier said. “Just be more conscious and aware. … Even though you got that shirt for $5, if you’re only going to wear it once, it’s not worth it.” Ernst and Young further finds that Generation Z teens are more independent from big companies, valuing individuality and freedom over customer-rewards programs that their Millennial counterparts seem to love. “Thrifting is really good in the sense that you’re giving your clothes a second chance before they hit the landfill, and you’re not directly supporting these companies,” Lheritier said. “With many aspects of our societies, we are very much being divided up into big groups, and I think embracing these small [stores] is a really great way to celebrate uniqueness and diversity,” Tausig agreed. “There is still an aspect of that trend-following mindset, but people want to put their own spin on it … I would just encourage everyone to get out and learn about the clothing industry, and do their part to make a change.”

27,000 liters of water are used to produce one cotton t-shirt.

11% of the world’s children endure child labor in the production of fast fashion.

Second

The world’s largest polluter is the fashion industry

1.5 trillion pounds of

greenhouse gases are emitted through polyester production annually Sources: New York Times, The Guardian, Ernst and Young and The World Resources Institute

Senior Alisa Rabin (right) and sophomore Skye Tausig (left) in thrifted clothing. photos by Netta Dror

page 18|april 30, 2018

Features|THELIONsROAR.com|THE LION’S ROAR

Beyond the Focus

THE

APPLICATION

SARAH KIM

features contributor

The Roar follows three remaining seniors with different interests as they navigate the college application process and will reveal their identities and college plans. By Dina Zeldin

Artist Spotlight

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every issue, The Roar publishes a different artist’s perspective of their work. Contact srstaff@thelionsroar.com if you are interested in writing this column. Before high school, I didn’t have a digital camera or know how to use film. I was, nevertheless, interested in photography and signed up for a film photo class at South. I had no idea what to expect, but ever since my first class, I have learned so much. Photography is now a large part of how I express myself. At the time, I didn’t have a film camera either, so I asked my family for one — it turned out that my dad had two cameras and lenses he had received from his parents. I had no idea that my family was interested in photography.It was fitting that my dad was the one who taught me how to use the camera, just as his father had done for him. It means a lot to me that my family and I can connect over photography, especially through the use of film, which is currently becoming less and less common. My favorite project at South was taking portraits, which was something I had never done before. The project guidelines were pretty open-ended, but our teacher wanted us to be a little uncomfortable and try taking portraits of people beyond just our closest friends. Initially, I was expecting this project to be stressful, but found that I really loved it. Having people in my pictures made them seem like they were alive and active, as opposed to the passive, staged pictures of objects, like the pictures we had done in the past. Those portraits of people represent the first time that I was proud of my art because I felt like it really helped display the way I perceive the world. About a year later, I had the opportunity to enter a contest at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. High schoolers from around the country submitted photos that captured America. I wanted to submit something original for this contest, something that one might not automatically think of as American. While visiting some friends in western Massachusetts with my family, we went to a small town for ice cream. As we sat on a bench outside the store, the way my mom’s friend was peacefully admiring the people around her inspired me. I felt that the photo I took, unbeknownst to her, had really captured the theme of America. As I was looking through all my film photographs to find a piece to submit to the contest, that one stood out to me. To me, that photo represented the small bubbles where a person can escape the chaos and the conflicting times that America is currently going through. It was really special to find out that I had been chosen to be part of the exhibit because this was one of the more personal things I’ve done. Sharing a such a personal photo represented my life and my point of view, and it was an amazingly unique experience that I’m not sure I’ll ever have again.

COMMON

uliet Cable, previously known as Caroline, committed to Berklee College of Music as a vocal major. “I’m excited to be in Boston and to be around people who are super dedicated and focused and passionate,” she said. “It will be such an inspiring, engaging place to live and to work and to learn.” Although she said Berklee was not her favorite school at the beginning of the application process, she is happy with how everything unfolded. Now, she said, she is walking the line between high school and college. “Part of me feels like I’m not embracing it enough and I’m not living my high school days to their fullest,” she said. “Most of me is just ready to move on to bigger and brighter futures.”

photos by Netta Dror

idan Fitzmaurice, previously known as Charlie, committed to Boston College. “With BC, I definitely like the fact that it has a really nice campus and it’s also very close to the city, and the students just seemed like very motivated people,” he said. He added that meeting current and accepted students helped him finalize his decision. “Everyone I talked to, they seemed like people I’d get along with,” he said. His high school career is drawing to an unexpectedly sentimental close, he said. “We have maybe 30 days left, and it’s starting to get a little nostalgic, a little bittersweet. It’s all happening way quicker than I expected.”

graphics by Celine Yung

nabel* received a conditional admission to the science and engineering schools of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario and is excited to be welcomed to its small community. Her admission rests on her completion of an online chemistry course, but she said she’s having trouble staying motivated. “By the time these grades go to the colleges, you’ve already picked which [school] you’re going to,” she said. “But senior year is fun ... Right now it’s college talk, but then in a week it’s going to be prom.” She added that she hopes to pursue a career where she can work with others. “I cannot sit behind a desk,” she said. “That will drive me crazy.” *Names changed to protect students’ identities

March Madness shows inequality Sophie Lewis, Carrie Ryter

Sr. Features Editors

or senior basketball captain Robbie Hodin, March Madness, an annual college basketball tournament, is the best time of year, he said. “I’ll just come home and watch March Madness for like eight straight hours, which is kind of embarrassing, but it’s what I like doing,” he said. Although Hodin’s passion for basketball extends beyond the month of March, sophomore Adam Bernhardt said that his engagement with March Madness did not correlate with his interest in basketball. “Even people who don’t know basketball … can make brackets and sometimes they do well [which] makes it more interesting,” Bernhardt said. Hodin added that a community has formed around brackets at South and attributed this community building to the tournament’s element of surprise. “Anything can happen. People like the idea of these small Division I schools going up against the schools with all the recruits [because] it’s a chance to shock everyone,” he said. “The energy and the environment is [something] to be a part of,” senior basketball captain Paige Olivierre said. Sophomore Chris Menz agreed that creating brackets and using them in a friendly competition is a great way to foster community. “It’s really ... hard to actually do well with your bracket because there are ...

many different factors [that] can come into play that you can’t predict,” he said. Senior Lucas Nathanson said he appreciates the tournament because it brings people together to watch the games. “Even graphic by Alice Zilberberg people who are less knowledge-

able with [basketball are] still are able to watch these games and have something to root for,” Nathanson said. “Anything that supports basketball, I’m in support of.” According to senior basketball captain Shannon Laughlin, not all players are equally supported by the hype around the tournament. Laughlin said she was not sure if women’s brackets existed, a disparity which she said reflects a larger divide between men’s and women’s sports. “I think there’s a culture ... that focuses on … male sports,” Laughlin said. “People tend to get more excited [about]

that more than women’s sports.” Laughlin said that this culture is something she witnesses when spectators prioritize going to the boys basketball games despite the girls team’s superior record this season. “It’s a little bit frustrating … when you want people to come out and support you, but they’re mainly focused on the boys games,” she said. Bernhardt said the discrepancy in interest between men’s and women’s basketball is largely due to the games that the media chooses to highlight. “The men’s tournament normally gets a lot more time on TV,” he said. A study conducted by Women’s Sports Foundation in 2009 reveals that men’s NCAA basketball gets 86 times more ESPN SportsCenter coverage than the women’s does during March Madness. According to Kate Hamilton, who founded Girl Fit Physical Therapy in Nonantum to provide support for female athletes, this issue does not have one simple solution, but rather is part of a larger cycle. “There’s not a lot of coverage, thus people don’t get exposed to [women’s games] and aren’t becoming as big of fans,” Hamilton said. “TV stations don’t want to cover [them] if people aren’t watching, [so] there are a lot of different pieces to this puzzle.” Hamilton added that she had trouble even finding the women’s March Madness results to fill out a women’s bracket. According to Olivierre, however, the sports discrepancy has a simple solution. “If more people watched [women’s games], then they would see that it’s not that much different, besides just genders.”

April 30, 2018|page 19

THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM|fun page

Overheard at SOUTH Yes, we heard you say that.

Embarrassing Roar Staff Photo Gallery of the Month:

Future economist: “Why can’t the government just print more money?” Inspirational history teacher: “You all are cheese graters on my soul.” Concerned citizen: “You have mono? The kissing disease?” Hopeless romantic: “Gee, I wish.” Frugal freshman: “Don’t waste money at the aquarium. Go to Crystal Lake and bring some goggles.” Starving sophomore: “My yogurt is only 4 months expired.” Glass-half-full junior: “If I die during APs, turn my bones into confetti for the funeral.” Punny senior: “What happened to the junior frog when he parked in the senior lot? He got TOAD away.” Future humanities major: “Listen, this is my hypotenuse...” Future STEM major: “Don’t you mean hypothesis?” Cuul friend: “You don’t even know what a juul is.” Scholarly friend: “Yes I do, it’s a unit of heat energy.”

Guermazi dreams of a day with full attendance at paste up.

Lazar pays respect to Harambe, a dead meme, halfway across the country.

NEWTON PIZZA HOUSE WWW.STONELOVEN.COM

(617) 916-1796 | 1649 BEACON ST., WABAN SQUARE

57 Lincoln Street Newton Highlands 617 332 5056

SPORTS ready, Spike, page 20|April 30, 2018|THE LION’S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM

Sports@thelionsroar.com|VOLUME 34, ISSUE 7

ollowing a state title in 2015 and an 18-4 record last year, the boys volleyball team is looking for another successful season with a new head coach. Former head coach Todd Elwell left at the conclusion of last year’s season to become the MIT mens’ volleyball head coach. South then hired Lucas Coffeen, a 15-year veteran volleyball coach. “I’m lucky to be part of this program now,” Coffeen said. “It’s a great fit coming here. It’s great to walk into a situation where you’ve got three strong teams for boys volleyball — a varsity, a JV and a freshman team — and excitement about the program.” Coffeen added that with only three seniors on the varsity team, he understands that the lack of experience on the team could present difficulties. “I think the biggest challenge is getting the court time and getting the reps on the court together, so that we become a team that plays [with] experience,” he said. “We’re inexperienced, [but] we can overcome that challenge during the season by having really excellent practices.” Junior Alon Stein, who is playing his first full season on varsity this year, agreed that the lack of experience is the team’s main weakness. Senior captain David Patkin, who is on his third season as a varsity player, said he feels excited about the younger players’ potential this year. “There’s a huge group of sophomores and juniors who didn’t play varsity before,” he said. “They’re all going to have to step up, and ... they’re definitely capable of it.” “I think all of them will make a big difference. We’re a pretty deep team this year. Everyone who’s on the team is very good,” Stein added. Senior Josh Kos added that Coffeen has brought a different perspective to the team. “He’s a great guy, first off, and he definitely knows a lot about volleyball,” he said. “He brings a lot of elements to practice that I’ve never seen a coach do before.” Patkin agreed that Coffeen incorporates a new set of ideas for practices. “He brings a new technique, a new style,” he said. “He’s able to bring in new drills that we haven’t done before, and new sets for volleyball while also not taking away what we had before.”

Boys volleyball optimistic for new season and new coach By Austin Chen and Jackson Slater

Because the team has historically ranked high in the DCL, Patkin said the players feel immense pressure to continue their reign. Coffeen said, however, that he felt a slightly different pressure as a coach. “I feel high expectations for building a team that works hard, that is motivated, that does the right things and that enjoys the game,” he said. “I don’t really measure my success by record. I really measure my success by [asking], ‘have [we] been able to play quality volleyball at a high level?’” Nonetheless, Stein said the team hopes to reach competitive success too. “I’d want to see us go to at least the semifinals,” he said. “That’s what I expect. I think we’re a good enough team to get there” “I definitely think that we are one of the top seeds for the state championship,” junior Mark Khrapko said. “Looking at the way the team is already going in its earliest stage, we definitely have a high chance of winning the state championship this year.” “We have a lot of potential on this team,” Coffeen added. “We have many, many athletic people on this team, and that means that our ceiling is very high.” Patkin said that even early in the season, Coffeen worked to build the team’s drive and resilience. “We’ve already done a couple of drills that have really tested our ability, ... to not get stressed when things don’t work our way,” he said. Stein added he has great confidence in the newer players’ ability to learn and develop. Coffeen said he believes the team needs to build camaraderie in order to achieve their playoff run. “I think the biggest thing that we would have to focus on ... is really becoming a very cohesive team,” he said. “To actually have success in [this] sport, and to do well, you have to lose some of that sense of self, and not worry so much about how you’re doing, but truly play as a member of the team,” Kos said that, fortunately, the team has already built this chemistry. “We really have a lot of different individuals with a lot of different skill sets” Kos said. “Bringing everyone together [is] going to make the team so successful.”

Sophomore Tyler Russell takes flight during an April 11 match against Boston Latin. Photo by Netta Dror

page 22|April 30, 2018

A Sport Like No Other

WILL LAVEY Floating Column

Sports Contributer

Sports|THELIONsROAR.com|THE LION’S ROAR

Trusting the Process South athletes find college recruitment process stressful, yet rewarding

By Miya Johnson and Halley Wilson-Thayer

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every issue, The Roar publishes a different athlete’s perspective from his or her position on a sports team. Contact srstaff@thelionsroar.com if you are interested in writing this column.

Especially for freshmen, competing on a sports team at South can be a great experience. I joined cross country as a freshman intending to both compete and make new friends. What I didn’t expect, however, was that I would be one of the varsity runners. Joining a team, no matter the level, is something that I really recommend. Athletes spend so much time training, fighting through adversity, facing losses and celebrating victories with their teammates, that the connections between them become very strong. On a varsity team, the friendships that blossom are even stronger because you and your teammates struggle together day in and day out and constantly work toward a common goal. My teammates are not all from the same grade, making my varsity experience even more special. When you hear “varsity” you mostly think about elite upperclassmen, but this definition did not apply to me, as I ran alongside two other freshman. Even so, I met and connected with kids from all four grades, whom I never would have known had I not done cross country. This connection seeped into my school days because it was common to bump into one of my teammates. Additionally, because I competed on a varsity team I noticed my time management skills improve. I had to balance practicing and competing for 15 to 20 hours per week, with all of my homework. Through this struggle, I learned to be efficient in getting my homework done. On any team, you learn a lot. You experience the highs of winning, and the lows of defeat. You learn how to win as a team, and how to lose and how to bounce back. Many people think of cross country as an individual sport because you aren’t passing a ball around or playing on a field together. These assumptions are false. Runners on a cross country team contribute to a score together. If an individual on your team finishes last, you get more points, which in the end is bad. You work as one whole, just like any team sport. This creates a cohesive team dynamic because everyone wants everybody to run their best race. However, we all understand the reality that everybody has bad races and everybody messes up. Whether it be a cramp or a slip that brings someone down, it happens to even the best. Thus nobody takes the blame, and the team continues to compete as one. Especially in cross country, you win as a team and you fall as a team.

Photo Courtesy of Chloe Frantzis

In the fall of 2017, varsity girls soccer wide forward junior Audrey Lavey, announced her commitment to Wesleyan University. At a school seemingly obsessed with academics, some students strive to stand out in athletics and work hard to claim a spot on a collegiate team. This fall, junior girls soccer team wide forward Audrey Lavey committed to Wesleyan University, one year before most high school students start applying to college. “I was really excited and it was kind of a shock [to be recruited]. It’s weird to think about it because you spend so much time working up to it, and it’s stressful. It was really relieving that I had an option [to play in college],” Lavey said. Lavey has played soccer since kindergarten. Just three years after she started, she joined Global Premier Soccer, a club team. According to Lavey, coaches play a critical role in the recruiting process. “The coaches are a huge part of the process because they talk and give all of the college coaches all of the information they need to know about you, and they have connections to get them to come to games,” Lavey said. Girls basketball point guard Veronica Burton committed to Northwestern’s girls basketball team during her junior year. Burton agreed the coach played a critical role. “I knew the [South varsity] coach [Joe Rodgers] for a really long time, so he basically trained me since I was really little, and then from there kind of exposed me to all the college coaches that I ever really met and was able to play in front of,” Burton said. Maria Ollivierre, a sophomore basketball player in the midst of the recruiting process said she believes her coach is an important part of the process. “My coaches are a great help in the college recruitment process. My coaches

talk to college coaches all the time about me, almost ‘selling’ me to them. [They] also invite [recruiters] to games and practices. They have definitely made an effort to put me on the radar of college coaches,” Ollivierre said. Although coaches play a major role in recruiting, students themselves also have to take initiative in contacting desired universities, Lavey said. “There are showcases and tournaments where you invite coaches to watch you play so I had to email a lot of coaches,” Lavey said. “You go to clinics and talk to them there, then you just narrow it down and try to gain their interest in you.” While Lavey said it was intimidating to speak with college coaches as a freshman or sophomore, she added that the process taught her new skills. “It’s definitely improved [my] communication skills because you have to call coaches, ... email them and ... sound like you’re ready,” she said. “You’re a sophomore and you have to sound like your ready to go to college; you have to be more mature.” While communication was sometimes difficult, Lavey said the most challenging part was maintaining a calm mentality. “Mentally, it’s really hard because you go to showcases, and there are so many people who play soccer, and they’re judging you,” she said. “You mess up one thing and you think that you can’t go there anymore, and there are definitely games where I’m playing terribly and I can’t do anything about it.” Junior varsity basketball player Laurissa Foley said that the recruiting process also presents timing challenges. “The biggest obstacle in the recruiting process is finding time to attend all the camps and time to visit the schools. Dur-

ing AAU and club season the travelling is very intense, and finding time to squeeze a college basketball camp or college visit can be challenging,” she said. Burton said that finally getting accepted to the school of your dreams is the best feeling. “When I first received the offer from [Northwestern], I was ecstatic, and was really excited and just proud of all the hard work that I put into it,” Burton said. “Once I made the decision to finally go there, it was just one of the best days ever.” Lavey said the recruiting process helped her become a stronger individual all around. “I think that overall it’s helped me become a lot better person and student because I want to be able to have the grades and impress, and definitely improve my soccer skills,” she said. Foley added that the recruiting process is easier for students who start the process early. “You should definitely get involved with the recruiting process as soon as possible if you [plan] on playing sports in college,” she said. “The earlier you get involved and put yourself out there, the more experienced you will be with the recruiting process as a whole.” Lavey said she advises students either going into, or already in the midst of the recruiting process to keep a positive mindset through the stress because the process could lead to the opportunity of a lifetime. “There are definitely points where you feel like it’s not going to go well or it’s not gonna go your way,” Lavey said. “If you persist and keep working through it, you will end up where you should be.” “Maybe you won’t play,” she added. “But maybe you’ll find that perfect school for you, so just stick with it”

April 30, 2018|page 23

THE LION'S ROAR|THELIONSROAR.COM|SPorts

Coaches at South speak to their two-part jobs Shaw Miller Sports Reporter

When math teacher Hayley Teich was first hired at South, she said she did not expect to end up coaching volleyball as well. “I figured if I did anything, I would work with the musicals or something like that, but now, [coaching volleyball] is a huge part of my life,” Teich said. Teich has been coaching volleyball for 11 years and added that she now spends a considerable amount of time playing volleyball as well. “I’m in multiple [volleyball] leagues myself,” she said. “I never really knew how big the volleyball community was until I got into it here.” While coaches said they strive for a successful athletic program, they respect athletes’ academic priorities. Teich said she does her best to help players balance volleyball with schoolwork. “[Players] are student-athletes, student coming first,” she said. “We do recognize that they have schoolwork to do and studying to do, and so practices are only two hours long.” Guidance counselor and girls basketball coach Amani Allen said he also encourages players to prioritize schoolwork over athletics. “I let them know from day one that it’s student-athlete, not athlete-student … academics take priority over practices,” he said. “If they have something coming up, like a test, I would excuse them from staying for the complete practice so they can study.” English teacher and swim and dive coach Michael Kennedy coached diving teams at Harvard University, MIT, Tufts University and Simmons College before

being hired as an English teacher at South. Kennedy said he considered himself retired from coaching; however, in 2013, the parents of a South student asked him if he would consider returning as a diving coach

“I go to clinics to learn about different techniques for coaching, different drills, different ways to manage certain situations, to speak with other coaches, to plan practices,” she said.

graphic by Alice Zilberberg

to coach their daughter. Kennedy said he agreed, and has coached the diving team since 2013. “I was raised under the expectation by my parents that if you have a talent you are meant to give it back. Diving coaches are few and far between,” he said. According to Teich, who said she attends outside classes to help improve her coaching skills, coaches at South put in countless hours of work behind the scenes to ensure that their teams are the best they can possibly be.

Kennedy agreed that coaches must put in extra work to help and support their team. “I like [to] swim and dive [myself] when I can because it’s important for the coach to be in touch with the diver’s experience,” he added. Assistant wrestling coach and wellness teacher Bill Fagen said that coaches must be actively involved in their sport. “You have coaches with whistles who walk around and tell other people what to do, and you have coaches who are

involved, and I think being involved helps a lot,” he said. “If I demonstrate something and the kids can see that I can do it... there’s a much better connection.” According to Fagen, wrestling provides additional challenges to coaches especially because wrestlers have no way to practice on their own so developing player connections becomes more important. “In wrestling, if you want to go out and practice and there’s not anyone around, you’re pretty stuck,” he said. “[Wrestling] becomes more interpersonal and part of my job is making sure that we have relationships and we have respect.” Volleyball coach Lucas Coffeen agreed that a sense of community is vital to a team’s success. “All of the offensive systems and defensive systems are really a product of a number of people being on the same page and doing the right thing at the same time to work well,” he said. “[When] you have one person not doing their role, everything falls apart.” Teich said she takes her own approach to building community, and agreed that community is important in volleyball. “The girls have [a] psych buddy system to get them excited,” she said. She added that she also strengthens team spirit through pep-talks. “I’m going to give them feedback, [and a] game plan, … but then I also like to tell a little funny story or bring some lighthearted thing in so it’s not always so serious,” she said. Teich said that coaching is much more than just improving athlete’s connections and athletic ability. “There are so many things that you want to do,” she said. “You want to make them better volleyball players, better teammates [and] better people.”

Fencing gains popularity outside of South sports Ethan Kopf Sports Reporter

Of the 23 sports that South offers, fencing is not one of them. According to senior Deika Albert, the lack of knowledge and awareness surrounding fencing among the public may account for why South doesn’t offer it. Albert, who has been fencing for seven years at the Boston Fencing Club, said she was introduced to fencing at her summer camp. “I remember I was late to sign up for [camp] electives, and they said, ‘the only one we have is fencing,’” she said. “I ended up really liking it, and I wanted a sport to try anyways, so my mom signed me up for fencing.” Freshman Hagen Zhang became interested in fencing after watching the event in the 2008 Beijing Olympics with his father, who convinced Zhang to take up the sport. Zhang said he and and his father have fenced for nine years and have now begun training at the Olympian Fencing Center. Senior Andrew Weinfeld started

fencing because of a cousin who fenced at college. “When I was in fifth grade, my parents showed me some videos of her, and I decided to try fencing again. I have been fencing since then,” he said. Fencing’s use of weapons makes the sport unique. Freshman Anat Katz said that although weapon-related activities are stereotypically for boys, she believes that fencing is not a male-dominated sport. “It’s pretty equal,” she said. “Last Monday, I came to practice and there were no boys there. It was all girls.” Zhang added that one of his favorite parts of fencing is that anyone can participate. “It doesn’t matter how old you are. It’s very accommodating,” he said. “Size doesn’t matter, and neither does speed and athleticism.” Katz said, however, that the weapons used in fencing make some people hesitant to join. “I think people are also kind of afraid [of fencing]. It looks kind of scary because you’re physically hitting someone, but I actually think it’s one of the safer sports, because you have so much protection,” she

said. “You’re not tackled like in football.” Fencers use three types of swords: the épée, foil, and sabre. Different blades change the user’s rules, altering whether the wielder can strike with the point or the side of the blade and the places on their opponent’s body that count as a legal touch. Albert said she believes the meager pay that even the world’s best fencers recieve links to the sport’s unpopularity. “There’s not a lot of money in the sport, so it doesn’t have a lot of visibility like you see even in college basketball, with March Madness getting so much attention,” she said. Another contributor to the sport’s lack of popularity, Albert said, is the high cost of equipment, space and training. “In general there might be a privilege aspect of it,” Albert said. “It takes a lot of resources to compete. ... You need money to start.” In addition to resources, fencing can be a time consuming sport, according to Katz. Katz, a two-time fencing nationalist, said she often misses school in order to attend fencing competitions. “I’m never here on Friday [because]

all the national competitions are on a Friday,” Katz said. Despite the commitment that fencing requires, Zhang said he would support a fencing team at South, and said that the team could spread awareness of the sport. Katz, however, said that a South fencing team would not compete at a high level. “I think [South] should have a fencing team, but high school fencing is a lot different than the fencing I do,” she said. Albert agreed, adding that to form a fencing team, South would need to allocate lots of resources to the team. “I would encourage people, if they have the time, to go to a private club for fencing because that’s where it’s most competitive, whereas high school fencing realistically is a whole different sport in terms of how competitive it is,” Albert said. “But I think if South has the resources, that would be a really good thing because fencing is really a great sport. It’s just really unique and strategy oriented.” She also said that even non fencers can enjoy watching the sport. “I’m biased, of course, to say that people should watch it more,” she says. “But they should.”