We need to stop taking our privilege for granted

STORY

Char

When "Après Ski" was announced as a spirit day, I was confused.

I've never gone skiing.

And after I googled "Après Ski" to find out what it meant—the time spent drinking with friends after a ski run—I still had no idea how I could participate in that spirit day.

In the end, I didn't participate; I felt alienated by the privileged culture that the day's name referenced.

This isn't the first time my socio-economic background has made me feel like an outsider at Nueva. In middle school, a classmate made insensitive comments about families like mine who rent our homes. Even now, I'm nervous to have my classmates over in case they judge me for where I live; my house is half the size of most of theirs and nowhere near as nice. I hate it when my peers and sometimes even teachers refer to February break as "Ski Week"—I spend most school breaks at home— and when my classmates share stories of their vacations, it’s rare that I can join in. While very little of this is intentionally classist, it still makes me feel like I don't belong.

Classism doesn't just manifest in interpersonal interactions. Our school lunch is miles above what I'd get if I packed my own food. It's organic and locally sourced, and there are salad and sandwich options. Yet complaints about it are common and plates are frequently left all over the school, which is unfair to the people who work hard to provide us with food and the people who have to deal with our messes. While we cover classism and wealth disparities in English, history, and SOM, we rarely discuss how it applies to our lives here in the Bay Area. According to an article by the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco households in the 95th percentile make $574,000 a year, ten times as much as households in the 20th percentile. The cost of tuition at this school is incredibly high; even though Nueva has a need-blind admissions process, our campus (like many private schools) is still a very affluent place.

We need to learn how to not take our privilege for granted—instead of assuming that everyone has the same opportunities as you, be mindful of how wealth impacts your worldview. Educate yourself on classism. Choose spirit days that everyone can participate in. Clear your friends' plates when they forget, and thank Dilmer, Jose Luis, and Miguel (our Operations team) when you see them around campus. Consider volunteering with a nonprofit organization to give back; if you're looking for ideas, we were introduced to so many amazing places on CSL day.

Guest writer Milo K. ’24 believes we need to reassess how English electives are designed.

Editorial

This article covers student-led responses to sexist microaggressions within our community. We knew this would not be an easy topic to cover. As we researched this story and interviewed community members, we uncovered our own biases and blindspots.

In the course of our reporting, we were encouraged and inspired by the influx of student-led anti-sexism initiatives. Our angle shifted to highlight the positive change and progress that is being shaped by students and faculty.

Some view sexism to be an exhausting problem, considering it too ingrained within our society for a solution to exist anywhere. Others view it as non-existent, not realizing that it permeates in many ways and in all areas of academia. We hope to dispel both narratives in this feature. We believe that our community has the means, emotional maturity, and heart to stand up to and correct even the smallest acts of gendered condescension in the classroom.

Moreover, we hope that by reading about the perspectives of students who have experienced microaggressions, readers will gain fluency with the language of prejudice and recognize how their actions, while largely unintentional, may be affecting others.

We implore all students to deeply consider the intent behind their actions. Sexism is not just offhand remarks and overt prejudice against different genders. Rather, it can be felt through subtle eye rolls, the second guessing of answers, talking over others, and more. By opening your eyes and ears to all facets of this conversation, our community can continue to make strides in a positive direction.

STORY The Nueva Current Staff

Everyone keeps telling me I have to find something I love and excel at for college applications, but I'm just a freshman. I see my friends doing these niche things and I'm not. They're all going to summer programs or doing internships, but I'm spending the summer at home. What should I do? — Freaking out Freshman

Comparisons with what other people are doing are pretty inevitable. As much as Nueva has tried to create a community where we don’t have rankings and we don’t prioritize winning awards and such, we can’t help but see what our friends and peers are doing, and wonder if we’re falling behind or drifting off track.

Here’s what we suggest: First, it is 100% OK if you’re in a different place taking a different path from the people around you. Second, immerse yourself in the possibilities that are open to you. Make the most of the resources offered to all students, like the many, many clubs at Nueva—you could find something you want to get into, or maybe something you see or experience will inspire you to start your own thing. Consider what sports you might want to join next year.

It's essential to recognize that not everyone identifies their niche or passion during high school, and that is completely acceptable. Numerous individuals find their interests and aptitudes later in life, or even after college.

Call for submissions. Your voice matters. Write for The

To better represent the community, The Nueva Current is seeking letters to the editors and guest opinion essays from all readers. Letters to the editors are for readers who would like to respond to a recently published editorial or Op-Ed. Please keep them between 150–175 words in length. Guest opinion pieces, or guest Op-Eds, are newsworthy or timely opinions in response to or provide commentary on current community or worldwide events.

Regarding summer plans, there are numerous ways to create a valuable and constructive experience without participating in a formal program or internship. You could immerse yourself in your local community by volunteering at an organization, secure a part-time job, or dedicate time to a personal project or hobby that intrigues you. Maybe something will even materialize into the Quest project you end up doing.

Overall, you have nothing to worry about. There’s a reason Nueva doesn’t give grades to freshmen: it’s a time for growth, not attempting to average a certain GPA or race to college applications.

Picking up on a groupmate’s slack...

Two students’ opinions on whether or not group work is conducive to Nueva's educational environment

Completing group projects alone

How poor implementation of collaborative work can promote a toxic school culture

STORY Aaron H.

We’ve all been there, enduring bad group members who leave only read receipts on text and idle cursors in the shared Google Doc. And we’ve also all been told the same thing, whether it be by a parent or peer or even the teacher themself: “you’re going to run into these people in the real world, so it’s good you’re dealing with it now.”

And while these parents, peers, and teachers aren’t wrong about encountering unhelpful coworkers in the future, the response has perpetuated a toxic ideal that, no matter what, students need to pick up the slack of others. Rather than addressing the real issue, student motivation, and then attempting to solve the problem by rethinking

Playing the long game

teammate might not be fully present.

In ninth grade, I suffered from severe depression, withdrawing from all things school which included my group projects. As time went on and my group mates got increasingly frustrated with me, my social guilt just kept building up. And even when I barely touched the documents, the projects were submitted and good rubrics were given.

It was a situation that no one grew from. As a struggling student, it allowed me to hide. For my partners, it only gave them an unfair amount of work and stress. So no, “dealing with it now” in preparation for “the real world” is not a good response from anyone.

Consider this question: what life skills are you learning by picking up on others’ work? I equate it to telling someone to “grow a thicker skin” or to “rise to the challenge.” By highlighting it as a solution students are given little to no help, neither concrete feedback nor emotional support. For group projects to be sustainable and teach students how to collaborate, changes must be made.

The tragedy of unbalanced group work is a tale as old as time. It’s nothing less than a fact that students—at Nueva and elsewhere— often find themselves cleaning up after their group members, or unwillingly taking over group work completely. In my four years at Nueva, like many of my peers, I've found myself in these less-thandesirable situations time and time again. Friday nights have taken on two possible meanings: time to be out with friends, or time to find myself filling in slides of a presentation or sections of a paper labeled by a name that isn’t my own.

between each of these steps. As an institution that champions fostering social and emotional acuity, we should approach an undesirable situation as an opportunity to practice social emotional means of conflict resolution rather than a problem to eliminate. As a school, we can teach students how to manage difficult peers on their own. Not only can we teach how to reach out to teachers when needed—a form of self advocacy that Nueva already encourages in its students— but also how to understand when they’re overexerting themselves, to respect their own (limits), and how to (productively confront) peers.

how group projects are assessed and organized, we are simply told to “suck it up” in the most professional way possible.

As a student who used to be the bad group member and relied solely on the scholarly commitment of my groupmates to pull me through, I understand the complex amalgamation of reasons a

But before that, it would be remiss of me to not highlight teachers or classes that have begun to solve this problem. In my Intro to Physics class this semester, I was lucky enough to work alongside a great lab partner. And although we submitted our first lab report as a group, we will be assessed individually on our understanding of the physics through a subsequent individual assignment. I’d be more than happy to be graded on our communal work—I then wouldn’t have to do the individual assignment—doing one extra assignment to allow students who faced issues out of their control the opportunity to be properly graded is fine by me.

The class’s solution isn’t perfect, the student would still have to do a lab report by themself if their partner didn’t do their share, but it is a step in the right direction.

And yet, no matter how much unfair group work can frustrate us, anger is wasted when directed at the system of group assignments itself. The issue isn’t how we assign group work. It isn’t that teachers might not have the most equitable way to organize teams or divide work or assess final products; life offers few such accommodations. If we change any of these steps to avert difficult situations, we manufacture an artificial environment in which students cannot develop the social abilities to guide us through conflict that—though we might hate to admit it—looms right on the horizon.

The real issue with unbalanced group work lies in the way we deal with the challenges that fall in

Nueva’s hands-off approach to group projects allows students to not only understand academic pursuits, but also the dynamics of group work. We learn how to navigate academic and social challenges as a unit—how and when to step up and step back, how to teach and how to collaborate. This is the beauty of our current model of group work— it allows students to learn from each other's strengths and develop their weaknesses. Reimagining group work at Nueva in any way to add unnecessary structure would discourage this student initiative. Nueva’s approach to group work isn’t perfect, but it is realistic— and in a world that isn’t nearly as supportive as environments like our school make it out to be, realistic is what we need.

CORRECTIONS: The Nueva Current welcomes comments and suggestions. We seek to publish corrections and clarifications in the subsequent issue. Please email any corrections to thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org.

Corrections: Issue 4, published Feb. 16, 2023: On page 2, the “Photo of the issue” was taken by Isabella X. ’24, not LiAnn Yim. On the same page, in “Upper school celebrates Lunar New Year and Lantern Festival,” the lunchtime Lunar New Year celebration was organized by the upper school Chinese teachers, not the East Asian affinity group. In the same article, Wyatt T. ’25 did not manage the Vietnamese Stand; Grace C. ’25 and Grace's mother did. On Page 3, in “How reliable is memory?” the accompanying photo was taken by Rachel Freeman not NeuroPsych Club. On pages 12 and 13 in the article “In dialogue with AI,” the phrasing of the lead was misleading. Amber Carpenter does not teach English 11 and when she fed ChatGPT an essay prompt, she was with the English department and not alone. On page 23 in the article “Meet Brett McCabe,” the accompanying photo