The Nueva Current | December 2018

ANSWER FOR ALZHEIMER’S

2018 IN MUSIC

NUEVA COFFEEHOUSE

FIGHT HATE

Freshman Jack A. continues his quest to end Alzheimer’s through a win of $20,000 from the Broadcam MASTERS Competition. p. 3

Filled with catchy tunes from Ariana Grande to Childish Gambino, each month of 2018 can be represented in a song.

Swirling hot chocolate, glimmering fairy lights, and acoustic guitars filled the WRC during the first-ever coffeehouse event. Learn what went into the tasteful evening. p. 6

Check out this article and find out how you can make the coming year more meaningful by focusing on supporting the victims of hate crimes. p. 8

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The Nueva Current DECEMBER 14, 2018

During a science unit examining the human eye, lower school students learn how to use microscopes to examine slides. (Photo by John Meyer)

131 E. 28th Ave. San Mateo, CA 94403 @thenuevacurrent www.thenuevacurrent.com The Official Student Newspaper of The Nueva School

Antonetta T. & Amanda W.

FEATURES

It starts here

How our teachers are supporting femaleidentifying students in STEM classrooms

CULTURE

Fumbling with family and forgiveness

The Resting Place tackles difficult questions, lacks finesse Grace H. When the lights go down for the first time at the Magic Theatre’s production of Ashlin Halfnight’s The Resting Place, nobody is sure whether they ought to clap. The characters seem to deflate as they begin the slow process of removing the current set, a sparse arrangement of furniture and personal effects meant to evoke the Wilbur family’s living room; silence reigns as the carpet is rolled up from the floor and borne, casket-like, out of the room, which remains quiet even as the back wall is lifted to reveal the expanse of darkness beyond. It is a stark contrast to the yellow-orange light and intense, palpable emotions that had characterized the play until

Volume 2, Issue 3

that point; the aggressive, motivating grief and gnawing guilt felt by the characters has given way as easily as the seemingly-fixed backdrop to the set, leaving the stage—and the philosophical purpose for which the show had seemed to be searching—empty and dissatisfying.

The show revolves around a white, middle-class family and their struggle to determine where and if they ought to bury Travis, the recently deceased eldest child of the family, with respect to the recent discovery of the horrific acts of sexual assault against minors that he committed during his lifetime.

The family members—Annie (Martha Brigham), the older sister and a hotheaded and idealistic environmental

activist desperate to ensure that her brother is buried; Macy (Emily Radosevich), the younger sister looking to avoid conflict and hold the family together without ruining her political career; Mitch (James Carpenter), the guilt-ridden, overly aggressive father who believes the family’s best option is to cremate Travis and keep a low profile; and Angela (Emilie Talbot), the drunken mother who at times seems to be the most reasonable member of the family—are forced to confront their own actions and avoidance of the truth as they attempt to reconcile their perceptions of Travis with what has come to light about his life.

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When upper school associate biology and Interdisciplinary Studies of Science (ISoS) teacher Jehnna Ronan was a junior at Harvard University, she took an upper level science course taught by a male professor who often gave the impression that he favored male-identifying students in the classroom.

“It was a feeling of who the professor would turn to first to answer a question or who they would ask advice of in front of the room,” Ronan recalled.

Small acts of inequity often go unnoticed, but it is these unintentional microaggressions that have an outsized impact on female students interested in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) and allow for sexism to persist in the workplace when women ultimately go on to pursue careers in those fields. According to data from Code.org, there was an increase in the number of females who took the AP Computer Science Exam from 2,600 in 2007 to 29,000 in 2017; however, the 29,000 females only accounted for 27 percent of all students who took the test. Academic classrooms, which are often the first settings in which students might be introduced to STEM subjects, can do much to support women in today’s society.

Jeremy Jacquot, who teaches chemistry in the Upper School, says that one of his goals as a STEM teacher is to become aware of those unintended, subconscious biases and to act as a “cheerleader” for all of his students, giving both male- and female-identifying students the same opportunities to succeed. He says that making girls feel like they have a place in science classes would help them gain the confidence to pursue more advanced STEM courses.

“Having now been an educator for several years, I have had the opportunity to learn a lot more about the stark gaps in gender across STEM fields and about how female-identifying students can be steered away from these fields—both explicitly and implicitly—at a young age,” Jacquot said. “As a result, despite being equally—and sometimes more—capable as their male-identifying peers, [some] do not develop the confidence to pursue their studies in these fields.”

When schools fail to counter sexism in STEM classrooms, the consequences carry over into post-education professional environments. On Nov. 1, more than 20,000 Google employees from around the globe joined together in a walkout to protest the leadership’s handling of sexual harassment within the company.

Their demonstration, an indicator that female-identifying employees didn’t feel valued in the workplace, was just one of many walkouts, protests, and marches that have occurred in recent years, signalling a need for action, which can start before women reach the workplace.

Dan Cristiani, the academic dean for grades 5-12, describes the problem as an “equity issue.”

“In the Silicon Valley, [we’re seeing] companies that are dominated by males and male culture sort of turn[ing] away females directly or implicitly,” Cristiani said.

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2 / NEWS

Briefing Willow C. Y. & Elizabeth B. P.

Renowned steel drummer Robert Greenridge and Santana’s singer Tony Lindsay perform with lower school steel drums band. (Photo by Mitzi Mock)

Renowned steel drummer and singer play with Nueva steel drum bands Nueva’s middle school and upper school steel drums bands, headed by Jim Munzenrider, played with Robert Greenidge, a renowned steel drummer currently of the Coral Reefer Band, and Tony Lindsay, the world-famous singer of the band Santana, The latter has a grand total of 11 Grammys. This was their second time playing with Nueva, the last time being six years ago.

The two genuinely enjoy playing with the students. “It’s time to play with steel drums—because I never get to play with them normally,” Lindsay said, “[but it’s also time for] seeing the little kids and working with them. They’re just phenomenal.”

The two also commented on the differences between this band and that of the last time they played with Nueva.

“They’re moving so fast, and learning so fast,” said Greenidge. “It seems like they got better [from last time].” Lindsay agreed, saying that program seemed to have grown in numbers as well.

The bands performed, among other songs, Greenidge’s original “From the Heart” and Santana’s “Smooth.”

Brother duo wins chess championship Over the weekend, Dec 8 through 9, brother duo Steven (9) and Daniel H. (10) represented Nueva at and won the statewide chess tournament 2018 California State Grade Level Scholastic Chess Championship in Pleasanton, CA, for their respective grades. The two both left undefeated, winning six out of six rounds. It was the third time in a row Daniel H. had claimed the title of champion, and Stephen H.’s second.

“I'm hoping that we can both win again next year,” he said, “but I'm even more hopeful that more Nueva kids will come to the tournament so we can win a team trophy for the school.”

STUCO UPDATES All-School: Co-leads Gitika P. and Arun J. have been working on many initiatives, one of which is an improved teacher feedback survey system—they collaborated with the administration to have the survey results sent to the administration to better support teachers in improvement as well as students in voicing any concerns. They have also created an official Student Council Constitution, where all the rights and responsibilities of each position as well as the greater body are laid out in detail. Currently, they’re working on laying the groundwork for a meeting with student councils from other schools.

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upper school students absent on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving; four students departed early.

Seniors showcase summer internships Wednesday, Nov. 14, saw the third annual Internship Showcase at the upper school campus. Thirty-five students presented their internship experiences: what they did and learned.

The current seniors were matched with Bay Area organizations in diverse fields, including technology, research, politics, medicine, publishing, fine arts, and more.

Maddie C. (12), who interned at the UCSF Parnassus Campus for ophthalmology, said, “Working in a real lab is very different from working in a school lab. You get to see all of the cogs in the machine. While in a school lab, the instructors' goal is to teach you; in a working lab, the goal is to complete the experiment. I had to learn to ask questions and not just expect the explanation. I think this helped prepare me for life outside of school. I really enjoyed it overall!”

Sarah Ordodi and Helen Na were the co-chairs of this year's Book Fair. (Photo by Willow C. Y.)

Annual Book Fair enlivens Upper School The annual Book Fair took place Dec. 3-7.

This year, it occupied the first floor hallway by the fireplace, with glossy books propped up and organized by genre. A vast range of topics were represented at the event: there were history biographies like Hamilton,

by Ron Chernow next to feminist novels

by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, including her renowned Americanah; the superherobased books like Vicious by V. E. Schwab took their place next to the the fictional romantic-tragedies of John Green as well as Michelle Obama's Becoming, which flew off the shelves.

This year, students and faculty could recommend books by putting stickers on note cards next to the book of their choice; custom stickers were printed out for each faculty member and club, and students used generic blue dots. Additionally, students could get their books gift-wrapped in colorful maps of varying antiquity.

The co-chairs of the event, Helen Na and Sarah Ordodi, spent incredible time and effort in organizing the event, and care deeply for the books. Na said, “These books are kind of like lost puppies; I’m trying to give them all a home!”

Athletics: Sports representative Jeremy D. is working on getting a boys’ volleyball team. He’s also working to expand the options for the P.E. program as well as creating cross-divisional relationships by bringing middle school students to the upper school games.

Clubs: Clubs representative Ethan K. is working on securing funds for all the clubs that have requested a budget.

Equity and Inclusion: Equity and inclusion representative Quincy A. is currently organizing, among other things, the African American History Month events.

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

Sophomore’s app wins 2018 Congressional App Challenge

BEYOND NUEVA

Lauren W. (10), who has been coding since third grade, recently won the 2018 Congressional App Challenge in the 14th District for her app DoNation.

The app won for its impact on the wildfire-combating efforts. Lauren created it in response to the 2017 Wine Country fires that devastated Northern California. “I saw different shelters needed different items, and people who wanted to help didn't always know which items to collect or where they can bring those donations,” said Lauren. “So I thought an app that connects charities and donors would be useful.”

DoNation aids charities that want to attract volunteers digitally, as well as those who want to donate or volunteer for causes. The charities are able to put up posts asking for specific needs or volunteers, and users can browse and find a cause to contribute to. Currently, at least four local charities actively use it and it is nearing 200 separate downloads. The app is available for free in the Apple App Store. No sign-up is needed for those who only wish to donate.

Lauren used her Quest as an opportunity to develop the app, but worked long past the 40-hour threshold that was required. She said that she worked “too many hours” on this app.

Lauren elaborated, “actually, over 100 hours.”

The app was chosen by Congresswoman Jackie Speier, the Congresswoman for the 14th congressional district of California.

“I’m hoping the opportunity the Congressional App Challenge has given me will help DoNation reach more users,” says Lauren. “So far, DoNation has gotten several requests and some charities have received donations by users of the app, although in the future I hope more people will learn about it.”

On Oct. 27, at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers killed 11 people and injured seven with an AR-15 that had been purchased legally.

Bowers was considered a white supremacist, which had escalated from conservatism into a neoNazi agenda. President Trump responded by suggesting an armed guard be stationed inside synagogues.

On Nov. 7, in Thousand Oaks, a gunman entered the Borderline Bar and Grill and killed 13 people, including himself and a police officer present at the scene. At least 10 other people were injured, but not killed. The gunman was Ian David Long, 28, who was a veteran of the Marine Corps. Among the dead was a 27-year-old veteran who had been present at the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.

Debate team succeeds at National Tournament On Nov. 10-11, the parliamentary debate team competed in the National Parliamentary Debate Invitational, a “highly competitive, possibly the most competitive tournament of the whole year,” according to debate coach Sam Timinsky.

At the tournament, Nueva’s varsity debaters had one team in the finals and one team in quarterfinalss, out of the four that advanced to the elimination rounds, more than any other school.

The JV team saw one team make it to quarterfinals. The varsity team that won what was essentially second place—Ben S. (12) and Eugenia X. (10)—qualified for the Parliamentary Debate Tournament of Champions.

Timinsky said at this tournament, “the threshold for winning is higher.

The only rival is the Tournament of Champions, which is basically nationals.”

He also said that, in addition to Nueva’s stellar performance, the tournament itself was a breakthrough in terms of diversity; even though debate is a typically male-dominated activity, three out of the four debaters in varsity finals were women.

Spirit and Social: Spirit and Social representative Audrey C. and the Spirit and Social club are working on the Winter Formal and Prom; the former will be on Jan. 25, and the theme will be Old Hollywood. The date for Prom has been set for May 18, and this year’s venue will be the Menlo Country Club in Woodside.

Grade 9: Ninth-grade representative Andrew C. is trying to get once-a-month, open-campus privileges for freshmen, and is organizing a grade-wide event.

Shootings shake country

IN MEMORIAM

Former president Bush passes George H. W. Bush, 41st president, died from parkinsonism (a disease similar to Parkinson's Disease) on Nov. 30 in Houston, TX. He was 94 years old.

His presidency, preceded by Ronald Reagan, is mainly known for its foreign policy; specifically, the vicotry over Iraq after the invasion on Kuwait, the unification of East and West Germany, and the signing of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA). However, it’s also characterized by a rather confusing track record—although a Republican whose presidential platform was based on fiscally Republican policies like his ever-famous no-new-taxes promise (which he later broke in the face of huge deficit) and a deeply conservative voting record, he also often signed and supported socially liberal policies such as the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the Clean Air Act. Additionally, Bush was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President Barack Obama.

However, he was also deeply criticized for his handling of the AIDS epidemic. Under his presidency, more 70,000 people died from HIV, and he is commonly viewed to have erased much of the suffering and devastation that the LGBTQ+ community faced through his, some say, intentional denial of the AIDS epidemic.

Since 2012 Bush has used a wheelchair. However, he was still active in the political scene, often criticizing current president Donald Trump, and coming together with other former presidents to help victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in 2017.

He was accused in 2017 of sexual harassment by several women.

Grade 10: Tenth-grade representative Willow C. Y. is currently looking to organize another a grade event in the spring. She is also working with the eleventh-grade representative on future cross-grade advisories.

Grade 11: Eleventh-grade representative Aleeha B. is planning an end-of-year brunch buffet for the 11th grade, as well as working on cross-grade advisory schedules with the tenthgrade representative.

Grade 12: Twelfth-grade representative Beatrice S. is currently working on fundraising for her grade’s class gift, getting transparent grading, planning events for intergrade relationships, and coordinating faculty appreciation week.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

NEWS / 3

Hell in Paradise Fires ravage California, resulting in school cancellation and communityservice fundraising Zulie M.

Rain poured down over the Bay Area the week of Nov. 26, quenching the dry landscape and clearing the air of the thick haze caused by the recent Camp Fire, now known to be the deadliest fire in state history.

On Nov. 8, it tore through the town of Paradise in Butte County (a three-tofour-hour drive from San Mateo) at the alarming speed of nearly a football field every second. Thousands of homes were destroyed. According to the California Department of Forestry & Fire Protection, its path of destruction covered over 150,000 acres.

Many in the Bay Area—190 miles south of the Camp Fire— felt the effects of the fires. As seen in satellite images, smoke made its way the way up and down the coast, even reaching across the country as far as Michigan and Detroit.

Nueva had an all-school closure on Friday, Nov. 16—a week after the fire started—due to the poor air quality.

“When the air quality index approached 200, which is categorized as unhealthy, we started having serious

conversations about closing the school,” Upper School Division Head Stephen Dunn said.

Sophomores Lucy B. and Maya C. were at the Hillsborough campus the day after the Camp Fire first broke out.

They arrived early in the afternoon and spent the next few hours inside the Mansion interviewing lower school students for the yearbook. When they finally set foot outside, the smoke in the air was shockingly thick.

“We didn’t know what was happening,” Maya said. “Everyone had their sleeves over their noses, teachers were trying to keep them inside.”

The air quality was so bad that “the sky was glazing over,” said Lucy, who recalled seeing ash falling from the sky.

For the next week, Nueva followed the “Shelter in Place” protocol, which called for students and faculty to remain indoors as much as possible. The air quality continued to worsen, reaching a peak of over 200 on the air quality index, compared to a healthy level of anything from zero to 50, leading to Friday’s cancellation of classes.

SMOG CITY In November, airline passengers flying over Butte County could see the thick plumes of smoke completely covering the landscape and turning the sky hazy. (Photo by Zulie M.)

The charred landscape and multitudes of displaced citizens left behind are currently in need of relief and support. The Community Service Learning Club at the Upper school stepped up to this challenge, raising a total of over $1,500 across two bake sales. All proceeds went to the California Fire Foundation, one of the largest fire relief nonprofits in California.

The club had originally planned to donate to an international organization.

As they followed news of the wildfire,

club leader Stephanie S. (10) says that the club members “realized that the local wildfires were actually having a much bigger impact on our lives and our community” and that this was a more “prevalent, immediate cause” they could contribute to.

The Camp Fire was finally at 100% containment on Thanksgiving Day— rains flushed the smoke and pollutants from the air and aided firefighters in stamping out the remaining flames.

Recital project shows promise in health field Freshman wins $20,000 for his project to predict Alzheimer’s disease Joshua Y. A year ago, freshman Jack A.’s grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

He described her battle with the chronic neurodegenerative disease as “terrifying.”

“She’s a fighter, and all of us who love her are proud of everything she is doing,” Jack says.

“She’s my hero.”

He wanted to do what he could to help his grandmother and Alzheimer’s patients like her. So he did: Using past and present clinical data, Jack developed a machine learning program that predicts the progression of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease patients before they become symptomatic. His work, which originated from his eighth-grade Recital project, was named winner of the 2018 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Award for Health Advancement, which recognizes the student whose work and performance shows the most promise in health-related fields.

Corrections Corrections for Volume 2, Issue 2, published Oct. 26, 2018:

Each year in the United States, there are three million new cases of Alzheimer’s disease. A progressive neurodegenerative disease, Alzheimer’s can result in memory loss, disorientation, problems with language and speaking, and a gradual loss of bodily functions.

Currently, no cure or treatment

ACCOLADES Jack A. received the second biggest prize in the Broadcom MASTERS competition.

(Photo courtesy of Jack A.)

HIGH STAKES At the Broadcom MASTERS finals, Jack A. demonstrates ingenuity in determining the density of a popcorn kernel as judges looked on and took notes on his performance. (Photo courtesy of Jack A.)

exists to reverse the onset of the disease—the only treatments available are aimed at reducing the symptoms of memory loss.

Along with 80,000 other students, Jack participated in regional and state science fairs throughout the country. The top 10 percent of those projects were nominated for the Broadcom Masters Final, held in Washington, D.C. The Broadcom MASTERS competition is a prestigious Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) competition open to students all around the United States.

Albright was one of only 30 middle school students named as finalists to the competition.

“As for the other finalists at

Broadcom Masters, it was truly inspiring to see people from all around the country who are leveraging science and technology to tackle the world’s biggest challenges,” Jack said.

At the tournament, the finalists were judged on projects that they presented at their state or regional science fair; their knowledge of STEM subjects and their demonstration of 21st Century skills were tested in a series of hands-on team challenges like building a shark tagging device and successfully stopping a zombie epidemic.

In addition to receiving $20,000 for winning the Robert Wood Johnson Award at the competition, Jack received the

On page 1, the graphic of a roll of voting stickers next to the “Nuevans should vote” blurb was missing a photo credit; the graphic was courtesy of LabelValue.com.

The photo next to “Building a library” should’ve been credited to the African Library Project. In the news brief, a photo of students in pajamas was uncredited; it was taken by Willow C. Y. On page three, the briefs “US community comes together to create cranes,” “Decked out in Nueva blue, Mavericks turn up the spirit,” and “Tenth-grade bonfire at Ocean Beach” were written by Jordan M. The second photo for “Decked out in Nueva blue, Mavericks turn up the spirit” was taken

by Willow C. Y. “Tenth-grade bonfire at Ocean Beach” incorrectly cited the date of the bonfire as Oct. 15 rather than the correct date of Oct. 12. On page seven, the photo credit for the photo of Merix G. was Jordan M., and the credit for the photo of Merix’s Korean braised chicken goes to Merix himself. In the article “Debate or Model United Nations,” the photos of the debater and MUN representative should’ve been credited to Willow C. Y. The article “There is a gap between grades” was written by “Steven H.,” not “Stephen H..” The article “‘My goal is to be your last coach’” incorrectly cited that Coach Robert Lopez ran a 4:05 mile, when in reality he ran a 4:05 1500 meter. Illustrations on page 20 next to the “Last-minute DIY costumes” should’ve been credited to Joshua Y. In the Ken-Ken on the same page, a line was missing in the 5+ operation box.

distinct honor of having a minor planet named after him: Minor Planet (34328) Jackalbright.

The Nueva School will also receive $1000 for STEM activities.

Jack also visited the opportunity to visit the White House and gave a high-five to Ivanka Trump.

“The way science and math is taught at Nueva helped me tremendously throughout the competition,” Jack said. “Collaboration and innovation were emphasized in all of the team challenges, and prior knowledge wasn’t as important as being able to brainstorm solutions and effectively implement them.”

Caught an error? Please email any corrections or clarifications to thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org.

Corrections will be published in the following issue.

4 / CULTURE

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

Music of 2018: Nueva Edition

Some of the biggest tracks this year provide the soundtrack to a Nueva student’s life

Nikhil T.

The music from this year has been truly unique, with releases from superstar artists who had a relatively quiet 2017, including Travis Scott, Ariana Grande, and Lil Wayne. As we approach 2019, here is a list of songs from this year that describes each month of this year. Check us out on Instagram @thenuevacurrent for musical talent and performances around campus.

January: “thank u, next” by Ariana Grande Background: Ariana Grande says goodbye to past loves.

Reason: We had a super “successful” 2018, and now onto the next one, 2019 (and a new Ariana Grande album).

February: “CLOSE (feat. Travis Scott)” by Rae Sremmurd Background: From Sremmurd’s third album, SR3MM. The hiphop duo’s album has three parts.

Reason: The essays and projects are too “C-L-O-S-E to me.”

March: “Can’t Be Broken” by Lil Wayne Background: From Lil Wayne’s heavily anticipated album, Tha Carter V. Reason: After no days off in March (oh no!), look forward to spring break in April.

April: “Mo Bamba” by Sheck Wes Background: The single that propelled Sheck Wes onto the hiphop scene.

Reason: It’s trips season! It’s also your last chance to see the Magic rookie in action because Orlando most definitely won’t make the NBA playoffs.

May: “Pray For Me” by The Weeknd and Kendrick Lamar Background: The lead single off the “Black Panther” movie soundtrack—which is one of the best movie OSTs of all time.

Reason: You’re going to need all the prayers to finish your Quest on time.

June: “the light is coming (feat.

Nicki Minaj)” by Ariana Grande Background: One of only three songs on Ariana Grande’s Sweetener—by far her best album—with a featured artist.

Reason: The light (of summer) is coming. Hang in there, Mavericks.

July: “Feels Like Summer” by Childish Gambino Background: Off the Summer Pack EP released by Childish Gambino last July, this EP is a short (it only has two tracks on it) but is a fun listen.

Reason: It should feel like summer.

August: “WAKE UP (feat. The Weeknd)” by Travis Scott Background: From Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD, his first release since the 2016 Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight. Named after a theme park in Scott’s hometown, Houston, that was shut down when Scott was a teen, the album takes listeners on one wild ride.

Reason: “I don’t wanna wake up” and go back to school.

September: “Be Careful” by Cardi B Background: The fourth song off Cardi B’s debut Invasion of Privacy. The “Bodak Yellow” singer has had an astronomical rise to fame, and on this album, she proves that she has things to say and is here to stay.

Reason: Be careful of how you behave in front of your teachers during the first month of school— the first impression can be a lasting one.

October: “Business Is Business”

by Lil Baby & Gunna Background: This song hails from the artists' Drip Harder mixtape. The two Georgia rappers have been collaborating since 2017. “Business Is Business” is just one example of the pair's immense talent.

Reason: School is school.

November: “Yikes” by Kanye West Background: “ye” is Kanye West’s first album since The Life of Pablo. The 24-minute album is undoubtedly one of Kanye’s worst albums. However, it is remarkable that he was able to craft an album around his experience in Wyoming.

Reason: Midterms back and big projects piling up. Yikes.

December: “Overdue (feat.

Travis Scott)” by Metro Boomin Background: Metro Boomin has been the consistent record producer in an extremely volatile industry. NOT ALL HEROES WEAR CAPES is appropriately titled and musically rich, with features from 21 Savage and Travis Scott.

Reason: Scramble to submit your “overtime and overdue” assignments before the semester ends.

A tribute to Stan Lee

The creator of many of Marvel's most popular comics was a well-revered icon Gabi B.

CAMEOS Stan Lee has appeared in 57 MCU cameos across live-action and animated movies, and TV shows.

(Photos courtesy of Youtube and Marvel)

Many people would recognize Stan Lee. You’re sitting down, relaxing, watching one of the many films based on Marvel Comic Book properties, when the immersion of the moment breaks slightly for an odd moment with an older gentleman.

He may react to the extraordinary events taking place around him, or he may be too wrapped up in experiencing small moments in his everyday life to notice a thing. Once you notice him in one movie, you may realize that he is in every Marvel film you watch. This man was Stan Lee. Stanley Martin Lieber was born in 1922, and from an early age, Lee worked on comics, contributing to and even creating many of the most recognizable and well-known Marvel comic characters and worlds today: Captain America, Spiderman, Iron Man, and the Hulk. He rose from within the company to become Marvel Comics' primary creative leader, helping transform the company into a

major multimedia corporation.

Some of his first cameo appearances were made in comic books. Because of this tradition of cameos, when Marvel comic properties began film adaptations, it was decided to pay tribute to Lee and his work via small, typically humorous cameos.

He's shared a shot of Asgardian liquor with Thor; called Steve Rogers a “moron” and told him to ask a waitress for her number; delivered a package as a FedEx postman to “Tony Stank,” and more.

On Nov. 12, 2018, Stan Lee passed away from heart failure. He was 95. One of his lasting legacies, aside from memorable characters, is surely how he used comic books to provide social commentary about the real world, like dealing with racism and bigotry.

Fans will continue to glimpse him in cameos from upcoming movies slated to be released in 2019.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

CULTURE / 5

A cry for justice in The Hate U Give

The Black Lives Matter-inspired story is one that needed to be told Alyssa H.

The cover for the racial-justice-oriented novel was inspired by a piece of protest art by artist Debra Cartwright.

In the past year The Hate U Give has become a must-read novel. Yet, the book’s outstanding reputation has also brought a certain amount of criticism and scrutiny. Though it may have its faults, I still feel that the positives outweigh the negatives in both the book and the movie.

The Hate U Give, the debut novel

by Angie Thomas, was met with immediate success upon its release in February 2017. The story follows Starr Carter, a black teenage girl who witnesses her childhood friend Khalil’s death at the hands of a white police officer. The book joined national conversations about race that were already ongoing after the fatal police shootings of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and Michael Brown. (The novel was inspired by the shooting of 2009 Oscar Grant.) Starr straddles two worlds: she lives in a mostly poor black neighborhood and attends an affluent, predominantly white private school.

After the incident, she must decide if she wants to speak up for her friend— possibly at the cost of her own safety.

Within a year, the book was adapted into a movie, directed by George Tillman Jr., which was released this October. Both have received critical and public acclaim. The book is a 2017 National Book Award winner and a #1 New York Times bestseller, and the film has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Despite the general approval directed towards both the book and the movie, there has also been critical remarks on the story’s message. The story was too focused on crime among the black community, which distracted from central plot of the shooting and only played into existing stereotypes.

Starr’s family was relatively privileged, allowing her to attend a predominantly white private school; this created a barrier of privilege from the rest of the black community. However, I think

the praise the book is receiving is well founded.

The book’s relevance and complex characters are its strengths. Its primary conflict is one that is still playing out in the media: racial discord, widespread protests, police brutality.

Starr has to confront questions like what happens when a law enforcer breaks the law and whose job it is to hold them accountable. In The Hate U Give, Thomas writes that it is the people’s job—it is Starr’s job.

Though it is important to look at the book with a critical eye, one that might criticize having Starr attend a white private school, the way this part of Starr’s identity brings out her concerns about school and fitting in is Thomas’ way to connect her targeted readers to her character. Thomas didn’t need to write this story to be read by the black community—many of them are acquainted with versions of this story. What Thomas needed to do was write their story for everyone else.

She needed to somehow make Starr relatable with something familiar before anyone would ever read about Starr’s foreign problems: problems like the one demonstrated in the powerful opening scene of the movie, where Starr’s father is telling a young Starr and her brothers how to act around a police officer. It’s easy to justify or detach yourself from someone else’s problems unless you somehow see yourself in them. Starr’s struggle to fit between two worlds, her coming-of-age story, her grappling with family and friends, is certainly something many of us can relate to.

The Hate U Give is a story that needed to be told and seen. The narrative isn’t perfect, and I’m not discouraging anyone from looking at it with a critical eye, but in the end, the story’s message was one we can’t ignore. The Hate U Give does its job of getting its cry for justice out there.

Twenty-year-old Amandla Stenberg portrays Starr in the film adaptation. Stenberg rose to fame for playing Rue in The Hunger Games, another book-tomovie adaptation.

Pop diva turns mental health advocate

Ariana Grande has used her platform to talk about mental health issues Nikhil T. & Anam T. Ariana Grande is the queen of pop just a year after the 2017 Manchester bombing at her concert and two years after the release of her previous album, Dangerous Woman, her only album to not debut at the #1 spot on the Billboard 200.

Grande has struggled with mental health since the bombing because despite the tragedy, it seems that Ariana Grande has found her true voice. Grande said Sweetener, her 2018 release, is “about bringing light to a situation or someone’s life, somebody else who brings light to your life, or sweetening the situation.”

Sweetener stands out from her previous work because it combines both her superior singing talent with meaningful lyrics, something that she had failed to do early in her career with Yours Truly, My Everything, and Dangerous Woman.

The 15 tracks on Sweetener follow her journey through relationships, her battles with anxiety, and experience with panic attacks.

A recurring theme of the tracks on Sweetener are centered around her mental health struggles, including “no tears left to cry” and “breathin,” two of

the most popular songs on the album, based on plays on Spotify. “breathin” showcases the stunning range of Grande’s vocals. In the song, she traces her battle with anxiety and panic attacks, singing “feel my blood runnin’, swear the sky’s fallin’/I know that all this s**t’s fabricated/Time goes by and I can’t control my mind.”

While the song was released in August, the song has maintained its relevancy to Grande’s life as her relationship with mental health has come up again recently with the overdose and death of her long-time ex-boyfriend Mac Miller in September.

The raw emotion and lyrical truth landed “breathin” the #22 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.

The next track on the album, “no tears left to cry,” was released as a single four months before Sweetener came out, and serves primarily as a self-lifting anthem as well as a life reflection following Grande’s recent hardships. “Ain’t got no tears in my body,/I ran out, but boy, I like it, I like it, I like it/Don’t matter how, what, where, who tries it/we out here vibin’, we vibin’, we vibin.’” The catchy beat shapes this song into the ultimate

comeback track.

The last song of the album, “get well soon,” serves as reminder of the bombing at her concert. While the song lasts four minutes and 38 seconds, it ends with silence, so that the length of the track is exactly five minutes and 22 seconds, the date of the bombing.

Grande said in a tweet that the song

Sweetener, the fourth studio album from Ariana Grande, is a follow-up to her 2016 album, Dangerous Woman. It was Grande's third number-one album on the US Billboard chart. This album is more diverse in terms of music genres and is lyrically more mature than her past work.

was about her anxiety and that she hoped that people with anxiety who listened to the song would be comforted by it.

After the release of Sweetener, Grande went through a tough couple of months, including the death of Mac Miller and the engagement with Pete Davidson that ended very much in the public eye.

However, Grande responded graciously with her first chart-topping single, “thank u, next.” The song is further proof that Ariana Grande is waving goodbye to the cliche pop singer girl she once was, and wholeheartedly embracing the new identity of a woman who can thoughtfully reflect on her own traumatic experiences and view them in a positive light. She sings “her name is Ari and I’m so good with that.”

This year, Ariana Grande has done much more than put together catchy songs— she has become an open and honest celebrity who uses her large platform to help as many people as possible. And with yet another album, which is set to drop at the beginning of next year, it would be no surprise if Ariana Grande remains on the pop throne for the foreseeable future.

6 / CULTURE

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

Coffeehouse celebrates arts and music Student-led event is a huge success with Nueva's artistic community

WHERE THE SKY IS DARK Arielle C. (9) performs an original song titled “Where the Sky is Dark” onstage. Several audience members requested for her to publish the song on music-streaming platforms. (Photo by Jordan M.)

Elizabeth B. P. & Jordan M. The warm glow from garlands of glass globe lights and the scent of hot chocolate welcomed attendees to the first-ever Nueva Coffeehouse in the WRC on Friday, Nov. 30. An intimate audience of 30–40 students and faculty members settled into couches and armchairs to watch creative performances from members of the upper school community.

Sophomores Jordan M. and Willow C. Y., both editors on The Nueva Current staff, worked hard to organize the event for about a month.

“We saw a similar event at another high school, and it looked like a lot of fun,” Jordan said. “We wanted to make space for people to share their creative talents with the community, especially in music and the arts.”

They began planning the event in October. While Willow tackled budgets and logistics for the coffeehouse, Jordan handled marketing: designing posters and making personalized invitations to students and faculty.

They also met with Bonnie Fought, an alumni parent and co-chair of the Nueva Arts Task Force, during the initial brainstorming stage, to discuss how they could successfully showcase the arts.

“We had a lot of really great ideas, so the process was really based on what we could feasibly accomplish in a short time frame,” Willow explained.

“Fought was really wonderful in telling us about her past experiences, and giving us advice on how to move forward.”

“It felt so good— everyone was here.

Mood was really cool.

People showed up because they wanted to and were focused on all the performances. We weren’t a nuisance, not something they were forced to come to.”

JASON H. (11)

From the start, Jordan and Willow envisioned creating a cozy, warm space for performers and the audience. The day before the event, they walked through the WRC with Facilities & Operations Manager Drew Kellner, who convinced them that the open space in front of the two-story windows was ideal.

Kellner and the facilities team installed a stage platform in front of the windows. Lights were strung between two speakers and around the base of the stage, while groupings of couches, armchairs, and coffee tables were arranged in the space.

Unfortunately, there were last-minute mishaps. An hour before the first performer was to take the stage, a fuse blew in a strand of fairy lights. Jordan ran around campus, checking with the I-Lab to see if they had replacement fuses—they didn’t.

“I really didn’t want to give up,” Jordan admitted. “The lights just really helped set the ambience we wanted to achieve for the coffeehouse.”

Sophomore Anam T. emceed the event and introduced the line-up of performers. There was a range of performances: sophomore Matthew S. opened the coffeehouse with a violin performance of Niccolò Paganini's “Caprice for Solo Violin, Op. 1 No. 13,” while freshmen Arielle C. and Eli S. performed original songs they had composed. History teacher Sushu Xia talked about her art and the process of drawing comics, sharing that she had even created a comic drawing club that has published multiple color-filled anthologies. Senior Cameron C. read a short story he wrote, which was inspired by “El abrazo de la serpiente (Embrace of the Serpent),” a movie he watched in his Spanish film and culture class with Anthony Perry last year. Jamie Biondi, an English teacher and the director of the fall production, staged a dramatic performance of a short play by Samuel Beckett, “Come and Go,” with seniors Louis B. and Nico P. “I wanted to perform in a way that honored the students that I usually get to work with as their teacher,” Biondi said. “It was fun to be a collaborator for the time we were on stage!”

Jason H. (11), a guitarist in Groove Workshop and organizer for the Arts Culmination, signed up for the event

DYNAMIC DUO Sebastian O. (10) and Jason H. (11) perform Pink Floyd's “Wish You Were Here” on guitars. It was Sebastian's first time performing guitar in front of an audience, and Jason's second performance of the night.

(Photo by Jordan M.)

“Being able to perform a song I’ve worked so hard on…in front of a supportive audience was an amazing experience.”

ARIELLE C. (9)

ORIGINAL & CREATIVE “I’m so close to you now, I’m so close to figuring this out,” sang Eli S. (9), as he warmed up for his performance of an original song following Matthew S. (10) and his violin performance. (Photo by Willow C. Y.)

as a performer and to support the other artists and musicians.

“I’ve wanted to see improved performance spaces at Nueva for a while, and this was a perfect example of that,” Jason said. He shared that his favorite part was how the event struck a balance between feeling like a special performance and an open space for anyone to share what they wanted to.

“The supportiveness of the community and people who attended was really inspiring. Also, it was really inspiring to see people put themselves out there and give really amazing performances, especially those that I hadn’t seen or known about before.”

Jason complimented the organizers for creating this space and expressed interest in possibly modeling the upcoming musical performances during the Arts Culmination in this style, borrowing from the setup of the venue.

“It’s a lovely—dare I say community-building—experience to share in and be witness to something creative together,” said Rachel Dragos, a faculty member who read a poem she wrote called “The Department Store Badger,” which was published in the Bellevue Literary Review. “There’s nothing better than having the encouragement and support of others!”

For some students, this stage was the first they had performed upon; Arielle had taught herself how to create a composition using chords just recently.

“Music has always been something I’ve enjoyed,” Arielle said. “Being able to perform a song I’ve worked so hard on…in front of a supportive audience was an amazing experience.”

“I was looking forward to the event since they first announced it a month ago,” said senior Nehmat V. “It was so fun!”

Even as the coffeehouse was unfolding, people were asking, “Will there be another coffeehouse?”

“Yes! We’re definitely hoping so.

Right now, we’re thinking one at the end of the second semester,” Willow said. “I think that an event like this is great in that it allows for the varied creative freedom from all sorts of people at Nueva to be expressed in an environment that’s supportive and cozy and exciting.”

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

CULTURE / 7

REVIEW

Fumbling with family and forgiveness

The Resting Place tackles difficult questions, lacks finesse Grace H. CONT. FROM PAGE 1

As the play unfolds, this information is revealed to the audience, slowly at first in the form of scattered references to protests, police involvement, and the fact that the family’s church will not accept Travis’ body; it is not until the scene in which Mitch, fed up with Annie’s refusal to compromise and her inability to believe that the Travis she knew would ever do such awful things, invites Charles (Andrew Lebuhn), a teenager and one of Travis’ victims, to the house that the audience learns what exactly Travis did. Over the course of what is inarguably the most emotionally harrowing and viscerally discomforting scene of the show, Charles recalls his experience of being repeatedly raped

by Travis, who was a counselor at his summer camp. It was this scene that truly marked the play’s transition from the realm of an exploration of challenging material to something purely revolting and painfully difficult to bear witness to; Mitch’s insistence that Charles describe his abuse in detail and his willingness to exploit Charles’ trauma in order to prove a point, coupled with Annie’s refusal to denounce Travis even after being confronted by Charles’ story, showed a distinct lack of the delicacy and respect imperative to the depiction of such taboo issues.

In a show that centers around themes of reconciliation—between family members, between communities, and between idealized perceptions and

reality—and collateral damage, this choice of subject matter seems at once limiting and intuitive: limiting, in that the audience cannot see Travis as a figure for sympathy, despite the attempts to paint him as human and kind and (at one point, mentioned in far too glancing an interjection to make much impact) possibly an abuse survivor himself, and intuitive, in that there are few acts with as much long-lasting collateral damage as the ones Travis committed. From the first scene, there are near-constant references to the protestors and reporters on the family’s front lawn; Macy, who is in the middle of a political campaign, spends much of her time attempting to prevent the event from destroying her career; and, in one of their many arguments, Mitch notes that unlike Annie, who will leave the events behind when she returns to San Francisco, both he and her mother will remain, living in town with the consequences. In a later scene, Angela and Travis’ ex-boyfriend, Liam (Wiley Manam Strasser), speak of their concern that Travis’ actions will be taken by the townspeople to be evidence of the evils of homosexuality.

Although it can be heavy-handed and full of tell-not-show with the core ideas seeming at times lost within the combination of abject disgust and vague confusion the show evokes in the audience, the play itself remains relevant and the questions it asks are crucial, if disguised by the bewildering humanity of the characters it portrays.

The Resting Place is, in many ways,

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS? In the midst of one of their many arguments, Mitch brandishes the police report from Travis’ suicide and the subsequent search of his apartment at Annie, daring her to read it and face the reality of her brother’s actions and sudden death. (Photo by @magictheatresf on Instagram)

betrayed by its own duality—it is at once a play about broad concepts and ideas with characters prone to sweepingly philosophical (if cliché and often out-ofplace) statements and an uncomfortably intimate dissection of remarkably human characters as they struggle to come to terms with a horrific event, a combination that would be functional were it not for the breadth of experiences the show attempts to confront. As it is, the play feels purposeless and scattered, attempting to function on two levels and succeeding on neither; each time it seems to be getting close to a revelation in one realm, the focus switches and the audience finds itself back in the dark.

The play’s core purpose is to shed light upon this idea of collateral damage, and on how there is no forgiveness to be found after denial disappears. The show is in many ways a timely response to the #MeToo movement and the concept of call-out culture; it calls attention to the struggle of the families of those who commit heinous acts whilst also recognizing that, at times, forgiveness is—and must be—out of reach.

After the lights go down and the stage is cleared, after the wall is opened,

the characters again return, and this time, there is no yelling or angry pacing around the living room couch. Instead, a podium is brought to the center of the dark, featureless stage, and Annie—the fiercest proponent of Travis’ humanity and right to forgiveness—stands at the center, delivering a eulogy for Travis to the audience, her family, Charles, and Travis’ ex-boyfriend Liam. Partway through her speech, Annie simply stops speaking. She has fought for that podium—for the right to remember Travis, to preserve his “soul,” and to bury him where she believes he wanted to be buried—for the entire play, and in this final scene, with the stage empty and the lights dimmed, she stands before it as she realizes she cannot forgive Travis, despite how she remembers him. She looks lost for a moment, then begins sobbing; she walks away from the podium and off stage, followed by the rest of the characters, but the lights stay up, leaving a silence that would be suffocating were it not for the podium, which remains in the center, seemingly to ask the audience: What now? Is there anything left to say? In situations like these, is there ever?

Newly released Bedroom EP receives spectacular reviews Eugenia X. Our bedrooms reflect the most intimate parts of our lives; the random objects strewn around the floor, the wall decorations from fairy lights to posters, and the books all give away valuable information about the room’s inhabitant. They change and grow up with us as we take down posters of bands we no longer listen to and photos of people who no longer play a key role in our lives to replace them with new ones. Nineteenyear-old English singer-songwriter Liv Dawson’s new EP, Bedroom, released on Nov. 16, 2018, is like a peek into her bedroom; she successfully shows us her most intimate emotions and her journey throughout young adulthood while keeping it a casual but unique experience.

Dawson dipped her toes into the world of music in May 2016 by releasing her first single, “Tapestry.”

Since then, she has released a number of singles including “Painkiller” and “Hush” in 2017 and “Talk” in the summer of 2018, a few one-time collaborations with other artists like “Sleep” in which she performed with Conducta and Courage, and two EPs including Bedroom, the first of which being Open Your Eyes, released in 2016.

Dawson’s music “interlaces girl-next-door confessionals with vivid snapshots of young adulthood,” as she describes on her Spotify bio.

Bedroom is another chapter that lightheartedly describes her awkwardness around love but details heavier experiences with anxiety. The four songs in Bedroom, “I Like You,” “Bedroom,” “Good Intentions” (which served as the teaser to the EP), and “Nobody but You,” are a series of Polaroid pictures of Dawson’s experiences towards the end of 2018 shaken into color out of musical experimentation; a little trendy, a little

whimsical, and a lot of fun.

The EP follows Dawson’s romantic ventures starting from “I Like You” which follows her experience confessing her feelings to a romantic interest at a party. Dawson slyly hides another important message in the first verse: Spilled another drink/All over my brand new dress/People think I’m off my head/But I’m drinking diet coke. Dawson said that these lyrics were her way of telling the teenagers and young adults (who are her main audience) that you don’t need to drink to have a good time, a soda of your choice works as well.

“I Like You” is most comparable to to the last track, “Nobody but You,” which follows a similar storyline.

However, unlike “I Like You,” which has a jumpy electronic beat that reflects awkwardness, “Nobody but You” is full of scales, giving the impression of a wellrehearsed confession or even a love poem.

“Nobody but You” also played a large role in the marketing of the album; Dawson included a clip of her recording “Nobody but You” at the beginning of Bedroom’s teaser video. This snippet of her vocals remained in my head weeks before the EP was released.

The second track, “Bedroom,” which the EP was named after, unfortunately was a bit underwhelming.

Out of the four songs, it seemed the most “mainstream pop” and lacked the personal touch the rest of Dawson’s music has. The song describes how safe Dawson feels with her significant other but begins to seem unrealistic: “All the little worries inside my head fall away somehow/And we’ve got a lifetime of problems/But I don’t really care if we solve ’em/’Cause when it’s only us in your bedroom nothing can hold us down.” The chorus gives the impression that romantic

love can make every problem go away, which is an expectation that partners cannot and should not feel the pressure to fulfill.

The song released to tease the EP, “Good Intentions,” makes up for where “Bedroom” fell short.

“Good Intentions” is a song about anxiety and the way Dawson experiences it. She opens up about how it feels to be anxious: like she always makes things worse and needs to make up for it. It’s important for singersongwriters to represent very real experiences of mental illness within an industry that loves hyperbole and I applaud Dawson for being vulnerable with her audience.

Dawson, a fairly new singer to the industry, was able to create a smooth and nuanced EP that keeps it real with the young adults and teenagers that make up her audience as she documents her experiences growing up. Her songs are especially relevant as we begin to approach the new year where we will inevitably encounter situations we have never dealt with before.

8 / FEATURES

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

Making our New Year’s resolutions Willow T. Step one: disbelief and shock. Step two: gather and give thoughts and prayers. Offer love and support. Step three: When the news stops covering the event, continue with everyday life.

Repeat for every hate crime.

Hate crimes, defined by the FBI as a criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity, have been on the rise. A recent FBI study called Hate Crime Statistics, 2017, shows an increasing trend in hate crimes. The number of hate crime incidences has been on the rise each year from 2015.

With our constant access to the newest information and news, it is easy to lose count of how often violent hate crimes are committed. Unless we are personally affected, the pictures easily start to blend together and we forget about it when the media stops covering it and starts focusing on the next thing.

Our community has made an effort to meet, discuss these events, and support those affected. One example being the community building meeting that was lead by Alegria Barclay, PreK-12 Director of Social Justice and Equity.

While this helps and offers needed

support in the immediate aftermath, it’s not quite a long-term solution.

Instead of or in addition to more traditional resolutions like “I will study harder on my least favorite subject” or “I’ll try not to get irritated when one of my family members asks me to explain technology again,” I invite you to make your New Year’s resolution to stop hate. Here are two things you can do to improve the current situation and try to break the cycle.

The first is to try to be aware and empathetic. It is easy to remove ourselves from the constant flow of pictures, and instead only skim the headlines so as to avoid the torrent of emotion that is sure to overwhelm us if we keep track of every report of hate crime. It is so easy to be numb.

Instead of distancing yourself from these displays of hate, take the time out of your day to process any hate crime that has happened.

I know that sometimes we don’t have the capacity for this. It is important to respect your own capacity to absorb and engage with painful news and to not overstep your own boundaries.

If we consciously make the effort to process the hate crimes and feel things about them then we are going in the right direction. This step of processing and feeling is crucial in preventing hate crimes because it sensitizes us and thus

Art by Anisha K.

Resolve to do what we can to stop the spread of hate

7,175

hate incidents reported in California in 2017

17%

of hate incident offenders in 2017 were 17 or younger

FBI’s 2017 Hate Crime Report

allows us to live and help others in a more impactful manner.

It is hard to help those affected if you desensitize yourself rather than processing the event. Supporting your community and caring for those who are personally affected is only possible if you empathize with them.

The second step is to call out bias when you see it. When you hear a concerning or problematic comment or joke, tell the person that their actions are unacceptable. If you witness people whose actions appear to be motivated by hate or prejudice, speak up.

Start small. It is unreasonable to expect these steps prevent the next hate crime, but you can help reduce hate and bias within your community and work towards preventing it from spreading.

Artificial intelligence to 20th-century European poetry

Independent study program extends of Nueva’s pedagogy Elizabeth B. P. In the Upper School, the Independent Study program provides a different opportunity for students to pursue their academic interests. Any student can propose an independent study course for themselves—be it web design, 20th-century European poetry, or allergy and asthma research—as long as it meets the rigor of a normal course. This semester, there are eight students taking an independent study course.

The independent study program is intended to be an extension of Nueva’s pedagogy, providing student choice and as much depth as students want, and encouraging autodidacticism and student-led projects.

This is something Ethan K. (12) has found to be true. He is currently researching neutral networks—a computing system that mimics the way networks inside human and other living brains.

“Independent study gives you a lot of freedom to dive deep into a particular subject area of interest,” Ethan says.

His independent study allows for the continuation of his work from his summer internship at OpenAI. Ethan was first introduced to the company in his Intro to Machine Learning class, when teacher Jen Selby took the everyone to visit the non-profit artificial intelligence research lab based in San Francisco.

This semester, he commutes by Caltrain to the city. Like other Silicon Valley companies, OpenAI serves dinner at the office, and he uses that time to “talk to colleagues that [he] enjoyed spending time with during the summer.”

Pros and Cons of an Independent Study

Photo by John Meyer

For students who may consider conducting an Independent Study in the future, he advised, “Know your research field, and don’t work in a vacuum. Be ready to pivot at a moment’s notice. Try not to get discouraged. Find a mentor who is willing to spend time and offer guidance. Be flexible.”

Lee Holtzman, who also teaches Interdisciplinary Studies of Science in the Upper School, is the Independent Study coordinator. Though she has previously worked with students as their independent study teacher, this is her first year in this role, which was only recently created.

“My job is not to be a teacher but a sort of educational consultant, a resource, not a leader,” Holtzman says.

Celia M. (12) is researching uranium mining on tribal lands. She started by raising money for an animal shelter that serves the entire Navajo nation, then dove deeply into environmentalism.

“One of my favorite parts about Nueva is that it encourages students to pursue projects and topics that they’re interested in,” Celia said. “When I entered in

Pro: You're free to choose. You can study your interests, as long as you can find someone to mentor you and can obtain approval from the administration in time. If what you want to study can be taken as a class from a Nueva teacher, that's fine—outside teachers are okay too!

freshman year, I realized that I had a lot of personal and individual opportunities to discover and dive into things that I was interested in. Starting with utilizing Quest, I dove deep into a social justice project that I had wanted to do for a long time but never had the opportunity or structure to do. Over my years at Nueva, this Quest project developed into a passion for making change and helping others, which is something I now consider to be my purpose in life. In the end of my junior year, I took this passion and started a new project regarding environmentalism surrounding once again, the Navajo Nation and the areas surrounding it, where my cousins live and my dad grew up.”

Though Celia felt happy with the work she completed last year, she saw an opportunity to further explore that project with structure and support from her teachers and mentors through an independent study.

This semester, she has discovered the scientific side of what’s happening with the land itself as a result of decades of mining, and she is also planning on

Con: It's solitary. It's difficult to find support among your peers since no one else is doing the exact same project as you. It's self-guided, with the help of a mentor, so you have creative freedom—but you don't have an academic support system of peers either.

conducting her own tests on soil collected from the mines.

“This wouldn’t have been possible without my independent study and the support of my mentor, Jeremy Jacquot,” Celia says. “Because of the support of the program and time designated to work on my project, I have been able to develop my knowledge and understanding of Navajo culture, land, and the deeply rooted history of environmental racism in the United States.”

Celia credits her independent study with further developing her passion for social justice, a more intense connection to the Navajo nation, and a deeper curiosity about their history. The project even inspired her to begin learning the Navajo language; she currently takes Navajo lessons at Stanford, and her independent study has become a project she plans to continue after graduation. “It has unlocked so many doors for my own future and interests,” Celia said.

As for students who may consider independent studies in the future?

“I would absolutely recommend an independent study,” Celia says. She describes it as a “fantastic” way to pursue subjects that students are interested in, while receiving support from teachers who are also interested and can help them develop their understanding of their topics.

“Finding your passions is so important as it helps you learn who you are as a person and grow into the person you want to be!” Celia said. “Having the space to do that through this project has been really special.”

Pro: You learn something different and new. Independent studies give you the chance to learn something that you won't be taught in any of your usual classes. You can take a course you would have no chance to take otherwise, and learn something Nueva doesn't offer, like French or novel-writing.

Con: Scheduling is hard to coordinate. Since the course is on your own terms, you have to make sure you're responsible for yourself and that you you stay on top of your scheduling so you don't fall behind.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

FEATURES / 9

Finding purpose in life Anne Colby is a Consulting Professor at Stanford University. Prior to that, she was director of the Henry Murray Research Center at Harvard University and then Senior Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She has written many books about moral development, life purpose, and civic engagement. A life-span developmental psychologist, Colby holds a B.A. from McGill University and a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University.

Anna K. What initially attracted you to work in the field of moral psychology and moral development?

I was a graduate student during the Vietnam War. A lot of us were very opposed to the war. The United States was attacking and devastating the country because Vietnam was turning communist, and the feeling was that we couldn’t afford another country in the world to become communist. And so the war was to try to prevent that, but it wasn’t effective; it wasn’t doing any good.

I got involved in trying to stop the war, and I got really interested in how people could see this war as a good thing. How they could ignore the devastation on both sides that it was bringing, and how I might someday be able to help people think more clearly about issues like that and have more concern for the impact that they have in the world.

You conducted a research study in collaboration with Dr. William Damon where you interviewed various moral leaders or exemplars (defined as people who live in challenging times but chose to lead a noble life).

Could you please briefly describe this research study and its most important highlights?

I think [this] was the first study that thought about moral psychology in terms of the whole person. So we had a small sample, only 23 people, but we did intensive case studies on the lives of every one of those 23 people. Before that, they had looked at just one or two dimensions of morality across larger samples, but didn’t really put it together in terms of trying to understand the whole person and the place of morality in their lives.

That was a study that turned out to be really influential, and there’s a number of big programs still going on to look at what we called at that time “moral exemplars,” people who are exceptional on morality. That was the other thing about that study: we were saying you could study ordinary people’s morality and that’s valuable and important to do, but you can’t get a good sense of what people are really capable of and what that looks like unless you study people who are morally extraordinary.

What we found was that for these individuals who were highly morally committed, their moral principles, their moral ideals, and what they believed in, what they were committed to was central to who they were as persons. It became part of their identity, and when they thought about doing things that were actually quite risky and costly for them in many cases, they didn’t really weigh the consequences. They didn’t say, “Oh, I should really do this, but it’s going to risk my family’s well-being or I could end up killed or in jail.” They just said, “This is something that I really have to do. It’s central to who I am and if I didn’t do it I could never live with myself.”

We asked them about moral dilemmas they had faced. Most of the time they said, “We felt quite certain, and we were just committed to getting it done.” We talked about their certainty and their relationship of morality to their sense of self. But at the same time that they were

Book List Anne Colby has written and contributed to several books about moral psychology. Here are two to check out if you’re interested in learning more.

certain, they were also open-minded and listened to other people and took other people’s points of view into account.

We also found that almost all of them had something that we call positivity.

They were very happy, satisfied, positive, and grateful for the opportunities that they’d had to help people. Even though the work that they were doing was often challenging, they were hopeful, optimistic in a realistic kind of way, and very fulfilled.

So why can some people sustain moral commitment in the face of pressure while others fail?

I think it has to do with what commitment really means. If you’re fully committed to something it becomes more important to you than your self-interest.

You don’t feel you have a choice in a way.

For other people, the depth of their commitment is not there...they haven’t committed to it in a way that it’s become really central to who they are. People differ from each other in a lot of different ways with regard to morality. How they think about it. How they think about what’s right. Their emotional reactions to it. Its place in their own sense of self.

The moral habits that they’ve built over time.

The Power of Ideals examines the lives and work of six 20th-century moral leaders who pursued moral causes ranging from world peace to social justice and human rights. These six cases show that all of us can exercise control over important life decisions and pursue ideals that we believe in.

Drawing on in-depth interviews, Some Do Care offers a revealing look into the lives of 23 Americans who have provided exemplary moral leadership in communities across the United States.

You also conducted a study of older Americans in collaboration with Encore.org. What were the main findings of the study?

This was a national study of what we call purpose in life and purpose being a commitment, an ongoing lived commitment, active commitment towards contributing something to the world beyond the self. So it could be contributing to other people, contributing to a field like the arts or science or something.

We wanted to know what percentage of ordinary people who reflect the population of the US over 50, and then we were especially interested in the people over 60 and over 70.

We had a very high bar for what counted as “purpose.” They had to have a major ongoing active commitment to something beyond the self.We were a little bit surprised it was that high— 31%—and it did not decrease with age. It wasn’t associated with their self-reported health; you didn’t need to be healthy in later life in order to be purposeful.

People who were purposeful and encountering health challenges just worked around those challenges and remained engaged in their purposeful pursuits.

That helped their sense of well-being so that they were able to continue and they had fulfilling lives despite health issues.

We also found that it was not associated with wealth. The poorest, most low-income people in the sample were just as likely to be purposeful as more wealthy people. It didn’t matter your educational background. It mattered only a little bit your gender. It was something that was accessible to everybody.

We did interviews with a subsample of more than 100 of the people, and we found that the people who were purposeful had a higher sense of well-being and were higher on lots of other positive qualities like feeling gratitude in their

Photo courtesy of Anne Colby

Moral psychologist Anne Colby talks about her research and moral commitment

lives, having strong empathy, having a sense of generativity, which is a psychological concept that has to do with contributing to the next generation. It was something that was accessible to people from all backgrounds and that didn’t diminish with age and/or ill health. And that’s a very a very positive message.

What do you think is the most exciting emerging research in the field of moral psychology?

One of the things that’s come up in the last several years is a lot of people are focusing on virtues and it’s almost like an intersection between the field of philosophy and the field of psychology. They’re looking at the development of virtues like gratitude, humility, open-mindedness, all kind of things like that, which didn’t used to be as central to the field of psychology.

In education, for example, there’s a bunch of people studying what they call the intellectual virtues: intellectual humility, curiosity, engagement with the truth and respect for the truth, open-mindedness to other people’s points of view. You can see that if you built these sorts of virtues into the educational experience, both in K-12 and in higher education, it could really benefit people and also society if more people acted like that. Particularly in a time where we’re so divided on so many issues, it would be beneficial if more people were really committed to open-mindedness and communication and intellectual humility themselves and seeking out the truth wherever it lies.

I’ve really enjoyed seeing this intersection of philosophy and psychology around the issue of virtues, and which virtues are important in psychological functioning, and how we can foster those virtues. There’s a lot of different stuff going on, but I would put compassion high on my list.

Do you have advice for teenagers about how to lead their lives?

Think really hard about and try out lots of different things for what might be satisfying to you as a way to make your own contribution to the world.

It’s not a good idea to sit and try to think that through and make up your mind about it without engaging with things, because you can’t really answer that question in the abstract. Really engage with people and think about them from the point of view of both what you enjoy, what you’re good at, and what you or could become good at it even if you’re not good at it, and what you feel like you could contribute.

I think it’s really nice that the way to be most happy yourself and the way to make a difference about things in the world that need doing all comes together in this one idea of leading a purposeful life—that’s good for the individual and it’s good for the world. Constantly ask yourself: “Does this seem like the right place for me? Let me try it out.” If not, think about why not, then keep trying something a little bit different.

10 / FEATURES

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

THE NUEVA CU

It starts here HOW OUR TEACHERS ARE SUPPORTING FEMALEIDENTIFYING STUDENTS IN STEM CLASSROOMS Antonetta T. & Amanda W.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

And it’s not just in tech. Thirty years ago, when science teacher Francine Farouz received her chemical engineering degree in France, only 10 percent of her peers in chemical engineering were women. It was even less when she received her Ph.D. in organic chemistry in the United States (and interestingly, the few women who graduated at the time were not American).

“The pharmaceutical industry reflects those numbers, with very few women in leadership roles,” Farouz said.

“Having more women in the workplace would foster a culture of support, putting an end to the fear for women to speak up,” said Valerie B., a sophomore currently taking Biological and Cognitive Psychology.

“Diverse perspectives and opinions are needed in a workplace. This has to start at school.”

When men outnumber women in STEM workplaces, it can lead to a culture characterized by “the dangerous normalization of sexual objectification, harassment, assault and homophobia,” as a 2017 New York Times article “How to Help Kids Disrupt ‘Bro Culture’” describes. But to even get women to the workplace, classes have to pave the way. Gender parity in STEM classes is the first step to changing the culture. At Nueva, while the core STEM classes are balanced, the higher-level classes are more skewed. In the Drug Design class, for instance, there is a 4:11 ratio of female to male students. Cristiani said the advanced math and computer science courses are “overwhelmingly male-dominated”; advanced math classes have a 5:12 ratio of females to males, and advanced computer science classes have an average of one female for every three males in each class.

Jenna L. (12), leader of the research-based Journal Club at Nueva that explores scientific topics that affect our community, also believes in having multiple outlooks. “Being able to communicate well and…be inclusive of different perspectives and different kinds of thinking allows us to better solve problems,” Jenna said. “I very strongly believe that we need people of different backgrounds in any kind of academic or problem-solving environment in order to be able to achieve the goals of that [community].”

Benjamin C.(12), who is deeply involved in biology research and works with the experimental research (XRT) team, takes Drug Design and Applied Molecular Biology. Both are research classes he describes as open-ended and student-driven. He believes there is a perception that in order to suceed in these types of higher-level science classes, “you have to be very loud and assertive.”

“In my opinion, this generally appeals to more masculine stereotypes, and as a result, may deter female students who might not want to have to conform to this perceived culture or interact with those who do,” Benjamin said.

“I’ve definitely had the experience of being told to chill when I asked politely if I could finish my sentence…which implied that me asking to finish my sentence was asking too much,” Jenna said.

Common denominators like speaking loudly or interrupting, or a certain way of working in groups, can sometimes be offputting to girls. This carries into the I-Lab, though females are much more well-represented in here than in other classes.

“The I-Lab is a really, really cool space, but is also quite intimidating, to both boys and girls. However, maybe girls more,” said Kayla W. (12), leader of the Feminism Club. “There is lots of advanced machinery and often a resident group of students, mostly boys, in my experience, that are proficient in using these

“Having more women in the workplace would foster a culture of support, putting an end to the fear for women to speak up. Diverse perspectives and opinions are needed in a workplace. This has to start at school.”

VALERIE B. (10)

5:12

average female to male ratio in advanced math classes.

Female to male ratio of faculty in math is 1:1.

4:12

average female to male ratio in advanced computer science classes. Female to male ratio of faculty in computer science is 1:1.

6:10

average female to male ratio in I-Lab design classes.

Female to male ratio of faculty/shop managers in the I-Lab is 3:5.

6:9

average female to male ratio in advanced science classes.

Female to male ratio of teachers of science is 2:3.

Data from the 2018 fall class roster

machines and often aren’t afraid to show it.”

The faculty and school leaders are conscious of the gender imbalance, and they’re trying to address it and support the female-identifying students. Cristiani expressed that the school’s administration is doing their best to establish an inclusive culture, like bringing in more female instructors. Across all STEM subjects, there is a 1:1 female to male ratio of the faculty who work with US students, and there’s close gender parity within disciplines.

Why are female-identifying students are still underrepresented in a lot of STEM classes? Jen Selby, who teaches computer science, said that “the ‘why’ is a long answer,” while Farouz stated that “the reasons behind these lower numbers are numerous.” (Farouz also acknowledged that not all STEM fields are equal: For example, women represent half of the Bachelor of Science graduates in health sciences, biology included.)

But the faculty are consciously trying to address the underrepresentation.

"I talk individually to students, especially girls, who I think might underestimate their abilities and not sign up for a class or event because of that," Selby said.

"I talk individually to students about their experiences in my classes and computer science classes in general; I talk to them about why they did or did not choose to take a CS class, and work with some of them to make the class descriptions more clear and inviting."

Like many other Nueva teachers, Selby discusses class norms with her students to create a comfortable environment for participation. She also makes it a point to call out behaviors that she thinks would discourage other people—especially girls—from participating.

“I meet with other Nueva teachers to discuss our experiences and what strategies we have found helpful,” she said, adding that she also reads research and attends training sessions relevant to these issues.

Farouz also emphasizes the importance of role models and mentorship: “All students need mentors.

I was very lucky to encounter with my Ph.D. advisor, my post-doctoral advisor, my first boss, people who believed in the research I was doing and gave me free rein to take it in the direction I wanted.”

“They also spoke to me as a member of the team who had something to contribute,” Farouz said. “Thus I was not as intimidated to speak up in front of my male colleagues even if the situation often was intimidating in the early days.”

One of the most important steps that both male students and teachers can take to be supportive is to simply recognize that females’ perspectives and opinions are just as important as theirs, not just because they provide a different outlook through the lens of gender, but also because they have the right to feel comfortable and safe while expressing themselves without feeling fear, regret, or other guilt- and shame-imposing emotions. A quick awareness check or encouragement to share in discussions or put themselves out could be very helpful to many female students in creating a safe space to develop their skills and passion, or soliciting input in different ways.

Grant Audet, who teaches math, said that faculty are trying to create those spaces for everyone to have a voice.

“In classes, we try to push back on male students taking too much of a role in discussions,” Audet said.

“We highlight whenever we can student work from females that’s really strong, so that people aren’t getting the perception that since males are just speaking up more that their work is better or that their abilities are better. I think male students need to make that space just to realize the strength of their female peers.”

UEVA CURRENT

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018

FEATURES / 11

Women are less likely to enter and more likely to leave STEM careers.

Women who start out in business roles in tech-intensive industries leave for other industries at high rates—53% of women, compared to 31% of men.

(Data from Catalyst.org 2014-2017)

According to Code.org, in 2007,

2,600

female students took the AP Computer Science Exam.

In 2017, over

29,000 female students took the AP Computer Science Exam.

While their numbers are increasing, that's only

27%

of all students taking the exam. (In 2007, females made up under 20% of all CS test takers.)

Work experiences impact women’s decisions to leave STEM jobs.

Isolation, hostile maledominated work environments, ineffective executive feedback, and a lack of effective sponsors are factors pushing women to leave science, engineering, tech jobs.

(Data from Catalyst.org 2014-2017) Illustration by Michelle W.

Photo by John Meyer

How do you think Nueva prepares and supports female students in STEM fields?

In what ways can people support female students in STEM classes?

HANNA Z. (11): ”I felt that my teachers were the most proactive and made sure I felt like I had a voice and an important role within the group. Over time, I was able to develop the confidence to take on a more influential role as a leader within my project, and I grew to trust my capabilities more.

I also feel that Nueva students are all super supportive and make each STEM class feel less daunting and like a safe environment to make mistakes.“

BENJAMIN C. (12): ”I am always trying to be more conscious of my actions and whether they may be harmful to others. I am never intentionally trying to be sexist, and I know that my friends feel the same, so in the future, if anyone feels uncomfortable as a result of my actions, please talk to me and call me out so that I can try to correct myself.”

Photo by John Meyer

12 / FEATURES

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

Not all those who wander are lost One alum’s “impactful, incredible” gap year experience Aliya G.

After attending Nueva for 14 years, Kathryn Swint, a member of the founding high school class of 2017, knew she wanted to take a step back from her academic career.

As many of her peers looked forward to starting their first semester of college, she felt unmotivated and uninterested in rushing into a part of her life that she didn’t feel excited about.

“I had always understood myself primarily in the context of [the Nueva] community. I knew that I wanted to take a break…so I could figure out who I am, how I like to function, and what I like to do when I’m not at school,” Swint said. “It was important to me to be able to thoughtfully transition out of a space I’d occupied for so long.”

So she embarked on a year of exploration—of the world, of personal projects she was interested in, and of herself. She wanted to discover how she would spend her time without anything she had to do. What she did and learned over her gap year added immense value to her life, and enabled her to start at Wellesley College this fall on a high note.

She started her gap year by road-tripping through Europe.

She traveled through Spain, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Morocco, Hungary, Czech Republic, and the Netherlands.

“Traveling alone was a little intimidating when I left at first, but I felt it was an experience I really needed to have,” Swint said. “I wanted to get comfortable being alone and spending time with myself. It was the most impactful experience of my gap year.”

Back home, she explored what she liked doing in “the real world, as opposed to a classroom,” with the goal of narrowing down the things she might want to study in college. Since she was interested in neuroscience, she spent several months interning at the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research at Stanford. She researched Klinefelter and Turner syndromes, chromosomal disorders that affect the development of boys and girls, respectively.

“I decided I really don’t like research,” Swint admitted.

“It’s too slow for me and that

was a really valuable thing to learn before I spent four years studying something that I didn’t want to pursue directly when I graduated.”

She also worked on various personal projects during the second part of her gap year.

This included Project Save the Blue, a nonprofit founded in 2015 by fellow Nueva alums Audrey Wong ’17 and Jenna Li ’17. Passionate about marine life, Swint worked mainly on fundraising for whale shark and manta ray conservation in Indonesia and the Maldives, and learned a lot from getting to work on the nonprofit side of marine life conservation.

Some of her other personal projects included reading a book a week, and taking online courses in cognitive science and website building.

The latter led her to what she considers one of her biggest accomplishments to date: launching WndrWmn, a project she put hundreds of hours

FOUNDING CLASS ALUM Kat Swint, Class of 2017 (Photo courtesy of Kat Swint)

pouring of positive feedback from girls and women all over the world that the site has provided just what she had hoped it would. One of the girls she babysat told her that she never knew “women that looked like [her] could do so many cool things.”

Between the various projects, Swint spent time “relishing the opportunities [she] had to be bored.” This included driving up and down Highway 1 to explore the California coast, watching all of Mad Men on Netflix, practicing her waffle-making skills, and

WONDER WOMEN Kat Swint created and continues to curate WndrWmn, a digital collection of over 200 real-life women who “have laid the groundwork in the 21st century that makes it possible for the rest of us to follow them.” The website also shares other resources—websites, social media accounts, books, and more—focused on female empowerment.

into and continues to work on every day. The website and related Instagram account is a collection and celebration of real-life women leading and succeeding in their fields, which range from politics to professional sports, writers and other art creators.

“I wanted to create a space in which women and girls could go to find women occupying the spaces they hope to enter, and to help connect women and girls with role models they may not have encountered otherwise,” Swint explained.

She has received an out-

getting to know her mom and dad “better as people instead of just [her] parents.” She was also able to strengthen her sibling relationships in ways that weren’t possible before with hours of nightly homework.

“The things that don’t go on my resumé are the most valued parts of my gap year,” Swint says.

During her gap year, Swint has learned a lot about herself. Taking a break from school allowed her to take take a step back and discover her own interests, strengths, and weaknesses. She identified that college was the best

“The things that don’t go on my resumé are the most valued parts of my gap year.” path for her, confirming that she loves being in a classroom and learning. She discovered she was good at a lot of things that surprised her, and she was able to work on the areas she felt she needed to grow in.

“It was really nice being able to look back at all the new kinds of challenges I encountered and how I’d problem solved, and that’s left me with a great deal of both pride and confidence,” Swint said.

It was with confidence that she joined Wellesley this fall.

Transitioning into her first year of college, Swint did not find it difficult to get back into the rhythm of school.

Wellesley created a “first year mentor group” with students who had taken a gap year, and it was from here that Swint made most of her closest friends, finding that she really gets along with most students who have had the experience of a gap year. She also found that continuing habits and skills she worked on during the gap year has been helpful in the transition.

Now that she is at Wellesley, Swint is enthusiastic about her college experience.

“The students are all engaged, interesting, and curious. The professors really seem to care about each and every student

on campus,” she said. “Everyone has something different that they’re passionate about, and you’re able to approach any student or professor on campus and talk to them about that passion for hours.

People seem to be really action-driven, and love taking their ideas out of the classroom.” She considers Wellesley an extension of many aspects of what she loved at Nueva.

Swint is also thoroughly enjoying attending a historically women’s college, describing being in a women-centered space as “life-altering.”

“I strongly believe every woman and girl should have the privilege to experience it,” she says. “Women are prioritized in nearly every way on campus. I’ve gained a great deal of confidence since feeling like the gender-aspect of my identity is no longer the main factor in the majority of interactions in my life.”

Referring to her gap year as, “the best decision [she has] ever made,” Swint doesn’t hesitate to recommend it as an option for seniors.

“I’ve learned that there is no one way to go about it,” Swint said. “The best way to spend your gap year is doing what you are interested in doing,” Swint said. “If financial barriers exist, there are a lot of ways to spend your year off while earning money, and they’re worth looking into.”

Ultimately, Swint finds no downside to taking a gap year.

The most common excuse she hears from people is that they would never go back to school afterwards. Her response to this is “if you take a year off and realize that going to school makes you absolutely miserable, it’s probably better to know that now than after you’ve paid tuition for four (or more) years at college.”

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

OPINION / 13

Who is Post Malone?

Ebony, ivory, and the white face in a sea of black Written by Quincy A. Edited by Camille G. & Leo I. M.

Photo courtesy of CLTure

Since its inception in the late 70s, hip-hop has been a popular way to spread a message and stand up to an oppressive power. It was popular because listeners could relate to songs’ messages, messages that they couldn’t say. That was then. Today, with its mass appeal to white audiences, it has moved further from its social justice roots. White artists have become successful in a black art form, resulting in the whitewashing of the industry and fan base. White rappers have pushed black artists out of their own art form, and young white people have supported them in doing this.

In sophomore year, I attended a Lil Yachty concert with a friend. At the venue, I found myself the sole black face in an overwhelmingly white audience. I am not sure what I should have expected in the Bay Area, where black communities are now far and few between, but I found it frustrating how there were so few black people attending an exhibition of black art. Days after the concert, I contemplated the concert audience and concluded that Lil Yachty’s music is a surface-level minstrelsy that reduces the cultural significance as well as artistic aspect of hip-hop to a “negro” stereotype, hence its appeal to a white audience. This made a lot of sense to me at the time, considering Lil Yachty’s constant materialism and stereotypical performance that seemed to appease white people.

The same is true for countless other black artists. White audiences marvel at the mere mention of Kanye and show up in droves to trap concerts. It perplexes me why white audiences are so fascinated by musty, Xanax-addicted mumble rappers with face tattoos or a narcissistic black guy with a Messiah complex and provocative tweets. It saddens me how white audiences are in a perpetual state of obliviousness to how black narratives of gun violence, drug dealing, and poverty are created, let alone the history of hip-hop and why black people chose hip-hop to express their pain. As a country with a history of silencing the voices of black people, we as a society need to be careful about how people participate in traditionally black art which is too often the only way black people can express themselves.

Whatever the reason white audiences came to appreciate artists like Lil Yachty, the question of why white men

Masthead

have been so successful in the industry remains. This is described perfectly in the case of Post Malone.

Post Malone is a white man from suburban Dallas who pursued a country music career before hip-hop.

He rarely rhymes or uses any lyrics that demonstrate brain activity in his music.

His songs are generic and written by ghostwriters. For a style of music that places so much weight on being genuine, it seems like Post Malone should fail in hip-hop—but that is not the case.

Scrolling through Instagram in the days after any Post Malone concert, I’m flooded with posts about the concert and swaths of wealthy white kids who seldom know the history and meaning behind the art of rap.

I thought to myself: Maybe the reason Post Malone is so popular amongst white kids is because they can relate to him. How different is Post Malone from the people who idolize him? How can I expect white kids to relate to the struggles that many black artists describe in their music? Is rap even about relating to the struggle anymore?

Post Malone is not afraid to sport grills, cornrows, a “blaccent,” and appropriate traditionally black hip-hop culture— something that many white kids would be afraid of being called out to do. Post Malone is blatantly materialistic in a way unbecoming of his upbringing and still celebrated and profitable.

Post Malone is not the only white male to have succeeded in the rap industry. Rappers like G-Eazy, Eminem, and Macklemore have excelled in hip-hop. Not all of them have an upper- or middle-class upbringing, but the important thing is that they are relatable to a white audience. G-Eazy grew up in our very own Bay Area and has procured a following for his semivulnerable yet fake “ghetto” personality, something I imagine would be appealing and relatable for the wealthy white Bay Area population. G-Eazy is often given a pass because he grew up relatively poor with a single mother. Eminem is loved by white and black audiences alike and is given a similar pass for his humble Detroit roots. While Eminem’s early struggles with poverty are valid and worth discussing, classism isn’t the same as institutionalized racism.

Meanwhile, Macklemore is a special case. He seldom uses AAVE (AfricanAmerican Vernacular English) or

Questions, comments, or submissions?

We welcome your voices. We accept photographs, articles, illustrations, and other pieces of work. Please email us at thenuevacurrent@nuevaschool.org.

The opinions expressed in The Nueva Current belong solely to the writer and are not a reflection or representation of the opinions of the school or its administrators.

channels blatantly gangster wannabe lyrics, though he is guilty of materialism.

Macklemore’s “Thrift Shop” took hip-hop fans by storm, earning him multiple Grammys and gaining him recognition in white pop audiences. Macklemore appropriates hip-hop to sell his often materialistic, surface-level ditties of black mimicry to white audiences.

His countless songs about his “first pair of kicks” and thrift shopping create a mismatched narrative with his songs about carefree club partying and something about being glorious.

Macklemore emulates the same issues and interests that white audiences experience through his music. While these white rappers are probably ignorant—a problem in and of itself—to the effects of what they are doing on the black community, it is important to think about these issues in a country where race is still why some people lose their lives, and where race politics lead

Post Malone is designed to be a caricature of black people as a whole, the same way that Blackface is, where one doesn’t have to act intelligent or moral or even human if they are playing “black.” to great social divide.

As successful white male rappers are dominating the hip-hop industry, white male success is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. White men control the hip-hop industry at all levels. From the very beginning of hip-hop they have been profiteering from the toxic stereotyping of black men and women. They own the production, they own the distribution, Editor-in-Chief Willow C.Y. Design Editor Jordan M. Copy Editor Isabel C. Web Editor Elizabeth B. P. Sports Editor Anam T. Culture Editor Aliya G. Faculty Advisor LiAnn Yim

and they own the dissemination of not just black hip-hop but black music in general. However empowering rap music may be to the black community, it’s all subject to the agendas of powerful white men. In many cases black artists must fight in court for the control and rights to their own music, a phenomenon eloquently described in Kendrick Lamar’s album To Pimp a Butterfly. (Its title is a metaphor where black people are the butterflies and they are being pimped by the music industry.) In the album, Lamar describes his own experience being fresh to the music industry, oblivious to the dangers of fame, and how he is handled by his managers and label owners and later thrown away. The same thing happened to Prince, who had to sue Warner Bros for the right to release music when he wanted to and ended up having to change his name for trademark reasons. Then there’s Ice Cube from N.W.A., who left the group after his manager withheld thousands from him by tricking him into outrageous contracts as a young and vulnerable artist. These are just a few examples, indicative of a larger problem in the music industry. Rap is corrupt, and no matter who the artist is, the industry is set up to profit white men first.

At face value, the white rapper is a single white face in a sea of black; when you really think about it, the problem is black faces in seas of white—white success in the hip-hop industry seems to be a new phenomena, but when you examine the issue, you see that white men have been succeeding by exploiting black artists while pushing them out of the industry and replacing them with white ones. My intent in writing this article is not to make you feel guilty the next time you hear “Rockstar” or to make you feel self-conscious at your next Migos concert; my intent is to make you think about why you like these artists so much. Of course, you could just like the music, but even then, it is valuable to think about the effect that this music has on the larger world. Who is Post Malone? Post Malone is every white man who gets handed to him something that a black man has to fight for every inch of. Post Malone is an example of someone who can adopt a black narrative without having to actually experience the realities of living a black narrative.

This is music for white people, by white people, at the detriment of black artists.

Staff Nivi G., Grace H., Alyssa H., Callisto L., Zulie M., Luke M., Willow T., Nikhil T., Antonetta T., Amanda W., Mirielle W., Eugenia X., Joshua Y.

The Nueva Current is published six times a school year. 700 print copies are distributed for free to 382 high school students and 95 PreK-12 faculty members.

The Nueva Current is a member of the CSPA and NSPA.

14 / OPINION

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

PERSONAL COLUMN

Mind the steps

Competition in school In a six-year-old high school, students grapple with a non-competitive culture that has possibly negative implications

Best wishes from someone who cares Elizabeth B. P.

Designed by Freepik

Paige M. From the brightly-lit fishbowl classrooms to the fluorescent, high-ceilinged gym, here at Nueva, we like to be cooperative and noncompetitive, attempting to stray away from anything that makes us seem aggressive. We don’t like to compare grades or compete with each other academically or socially; and yet, we tell ourselves that our various programs are competitive.

Wanting to be collaborative correlates to a lack of competitive nature in our athletics program, but with academics, our nature makes us backstage competitors, as we feel the need to succeed individually in our environment.

Though I am not condemning our cooperation-based values, I do think that our interpretation of them can weaken several aspects of our school.

Sports are a place where we should be competitive, and we are—kind of. In reality, we aren’t as filled with competitive spirit as other athletics programs, and aren’t as competitive as we could be. Having a noncompetitive culture means that as we try to keep this sense of rigid cooperativeness in our classrooms, we sacrifice fierceness in athletics and games. It often seems that people don’t care about our athletics teams unless they do well (cross country and volleyball) or if the games are accessible and turned into social events (basketball and volleyball). School spirit doesn’t seem to matter.

There are plenty of people who express their wishes that our community was more spirited and supported our games more, while some try their best to improve this aspect of our school through acts of support and public endorsement of our athletic teams. People don’t come here for athletics, so it’s hard

Grace H. to reach them. To be clear, I am not saying that everyone should be involved in athletics or be invested in them; other interests and activities are great. As we promote cooperation, it suppresses our competitive spirit and prevents our athletics program from pushing to its full potential.

This issue is not just confined to athletics; it’s also pervasive in our academic day as well. This culture that Nueva fosters is driven by our cooperative and collaborative values, but it produces the opposite in academics. Though well-intentioned, it creates an undercurrent where students, instead of being transparent about their academic ambitions, are either driven to be competitive with each other through passive-aggressive means, or to be stressed out by the underlying omnipresence of competition. Since Nueva is an environment where many students excel and thrive, the demand to perform well grows. Our culture, which stresses the idea of not comparing ourselves to each other academically (we don’t share or celebrate National Merit Scholarship finalists, though the list is already public), in fact pushes us to compete with each other in an arguably even more unhealthy fashion: occasionally trying to undermine or downplay each other’s successes, while feeling as if we are not doing enough.

We should acknowledge that competition is not necessarily bad or damaging to a community, and we should strike a better balance between being cooperative and being competitive. There is a happy medium that Nueva can strive to achieve, one where students are able to express their competition in a healthy and positive way.

Nueva’s attitude toward school-created competition— one of careful avoidance and a distinct lack of interest—is something it seems ever more interested in displaying and cultivating as it continues to adapt to the constraints of being a high school. After all, one must only worry about not being a “what did you get culture” when there is some sort of administration or school-based reward to obtain, be it grades (which do exist) or spots on the dean’s list (which do not exist).

In many ways, as cliché as the idea of “Nueva culture” may seem, it is the lack of administration-sponsored competition that makes Nueva what it is. It creates opportunities for exploring subject areas in which one may not excel without penalty; it allows mistakes to be momentary and fixable rather than threatening to one’s standing in a schoolwide competition; and it helps to reduce student stress levels, which could do with a sizeable reduction.

While competition can be motivating—and sometimes we are in dire need of motivation—it can also be stifling and harmful, funneling people into desperate attempts to match up to whichever standard of excellence the competitions are based upon, regardless of their personal interests and strengths. In the case of generalized competitions, such as grade-based honors, there is pressure to take only classes that are in one’s area of expertise rather than taking the intellectual risks Nueva works to encourage. In more specific, subject-based competitions, there is pressure to enter (and succeed) if you are perceived as being good at the particular subject, and there is debate over which subjects merit

school-wide competitions and which ought not be included.

It is important to note, of course, that competition itself, and even the acknowledgement and celebration thereof, still exists. It just doesn’t exist in a manner that highlights the fact that for every person who ends up in the kudos section of Nueva notes or holds a student body leadership position there are people who did not. There is no published list of “the people who tried (and failed)”; there are no schoolwide, cross disciplinary competitions for which that list consists of everyone except the few who happen to “win.”

Although the fact that the school itself does not create competitions can be frustrating, the administrator attitude towards competition at Nueva are overall beneficial to the students. Perhaps they aren’t successful in preventing a “what did you get culture,” but they are able to prevent a formalized one; perhaps they cannot avoid grades being a part of the end goal for many students, but they do stop them from being the focus of the administration and teachers; and perhaps they mean that students are given fewer opportunities to gain awards for academic successes, but the policies do avoid forcing them to conform to a narrow definition of said academic success.

In the end, the success of any action is determined by the efficiency, importance, and efficacy of the compro mises and trade-offs that must be made in order to enact it; in this case, the benefits of Nueva’s unique culture more than make up for the sacrifices that must be made to maintain it.

With finals season coming on, it’s no wonder most of us are getting a little grouchy, and we’re not exactly helping each other have an easier time getting through it—sometimes literally. The problem of people standing in the middle of the stairways continues, but the reactions grow stronger; instead of dodging out of the way and complaining to friends later when a freshman spent almost a minute spinning down the staircase, bonking into everyone and obstructing lines of movement (why?), one junior narrated that she had just shouted, “Move!” When another student elbowed me in the face this morning (I get it; I’m shorter than most of my friends and seemingly all of the underclassmen), I even spent some caffeine-addled energy on a glare.

Overhearing a student reply with “it’s going” in response to “how’s it going?”—as many know—means they’re really going through it. Some more sleep-deprivation stories submitted by the Nueva community: waking up on three separate occasions at two in the morning while assuming it’s 6:30 a.m., getting

I hope that the line for toast is short, you get the nice, easyto-fold chairs at All Hands meetings, no late-night “Assignment Created” notifications...”

Photo by Naila W.

ready for school, and only then realizing it’s not time to leave; and another student running on barely a handful of hours of sleep in the past week mistook her contact lenses for her toothpaste and the other way around.

So as the holiday season washes over us at the same time as PSAT scores come out and Canvas notifications light up your phone screen, I hope that in the next week or so, the line for toast is short, you get the nice, easy-to-fold chairs at All Hands meetings, no latenight “Assignment Created” notifications interrupt your internet-browsing, and that reassessment in that class you’re a little bit worried about goes smoothly.

Oh, and that people stop having long conversations on the stairs in the middle of passing period, or move out of the way of people trying to actually get somewhere. That too.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

OPINION / 15

Christmas capitalism makes a mess Illustration by Amalia K.

The holiday destruction of the environment (and your living room) Isabel C. I love Christmas. Family comes together, everyone eats just a few too many sugar cookies and drinks too much eggnog, and gifts are exchanged with fervor.

Yet at the end of the day, there looms a big pile of wrapping paper, printed-on reindeer and snowflakes littering the floor. Most people toss it in the bin with the other discarded packaging such as plastic and cardboard.

Instead, I toss the pile in the recycling bin, as it’s as most people think: paper. But in reality, this paper wasn’t cut out for the recycling bin, causing a larger environmental problem than people may think.

While the problem of where wrapping paper ends up after Christmas might not seem like a non issue, it’s actually contributing to a bigger conundrum: worldwide waste. Most wrapping material can’t actually be recycled due to weaker paper fibers, glossy laminations, and often additives such as velvet or metallic foils, meaning their eternal resting place is at the landfill instead. Additionally, many papers come with the remains of Scotch tape or ribbons attached, which many recycling plants can’t handle.

Instead of being recycled into a new product, these papers are being burned

or left in landfills, contributing to the trash problem.

This isn’t the only way that gift wrap damages the environment. According to US News & World Report, Americans spend approximately $3.2 billion dollars each year on wrapping paper alone, and The Telegraph states that Britain tosses away 226,800 miles of wrapping paper every year, enough to wrap around the world nine times. With this much gift material (excluding tape, ribbons and other accessories such as bows) being thrown away, both the amount of garbage and trees cut down for the sake of Christmas wrapping is contributing to other problems such as deforestation.

For Christmas, being one of the biggest consumerist holidays ever, this can lead to even bigger problems.

I myself am guilty of buying into the whole Christmas gift-wrapping business.

Almost every year my family buys at least three full rolls of wrapping paper, most of which ends up unusable within a few days of Christmas. Despite this, I still love the feeling of someone opening something I picked specifically for them and ripping off the wrapping paper in anticipation, paper shreds flying. And, as an artistic person, I love the process

Americans throw away

25%

more trash during the Thanksgiving to New Year’s holiday period than any other time of year.

The extra waste amounts to

25

million tons of garbage.

Data from the Use Less Stuff report

of wrapping the gift as well.

Over the past few years I have become more aware of our impact on the environment and the world around us and my footprint on this earth. Before wrapping a gift to a friend across the country last year, I opted for a paper bag, which I then decorated with colorful, painted-on patterns and designs. It wasn’t as pretty as the shiny and festive wrapping paper stored in my closet, but it was more durable for shipping, it allowed for more artistic freedom, it was cheaper, and it was more likely to be able to be recycled.

In other words, it was an overall better material for the environment, without sacrificing much of the appearance of wrapping paper.

It takes time to make a change, but for this Christmas, I aim to reduce the amount of trash I gift to loved ones, both wrapping paper and present-wise. So reuse wrapping paper as much as you can.

Wrap gifts in durable paper bags and decorate to your heart’s content. Wrap the gift in a gift. By wrapping a gift in a sweater or scarf, you know the person will use both items. Find easier-to-recycle items to wrap with. Be creative. Anything to reduce unnecessary waste helps.

Parlez-vous…?

Why can’t I learn French at Nueva?

Callisto L. In chemistry class with Veronique Mossuz, I no longer find the molar mass of copper on the periodic table: instead, I check le tableau périodique pour la masse molaire atomique du cuivre. It’s been a regular occurrence since the last week of October, where our latest assignment was handed to us alongside a model of the periodic table written entirely in French: it’s got l’or instead of gold, l’étain instead of tin, and le plomb instead of lead. Nowadays, we barely blink at the handouts: it’s an accepted way to learn our word of the day, an oft-requested feature since one particularly memorable class midway through the semester where we first requested the word for chemistry: chimie.

If my chemistry class is any indication for sample size, we’ve got a large group of students that are brand new to the language and a few who even have some level of French experience. And every single one of us is ready and eager to learn—in fact, we’ve been keen enough on learning that Mossuz has been forced to placate us with the French periodic table.

So it’s somewhat baffling that,

despite enthusiasm from students and faculty who speak the language, Nueva has never offered a French program. We have a handful of fluent teachers, and the student body includes not only students who have studied the language before in middle school, but also those who have a vested interest in learning something new from scratch.

The lack of a French class in a school that offers, for example, a rich and deep-rooted Japanese program, is perplexing in and of itself. And since the appeal of the Japanese courses at Nueva are rooted in a structure focused on a wealth of cultural immersion and exploration, the number of French-speaking members of the community means that the same approach could be replicated. Nor should French’s practical side be ignored: French is the second-most widely spoken language in Europe; is an official language of not only Canada, but 26 African nations; and is the fourth most widely-spoken language in the United States, after English, Spanish, and Mandarin.

Not to mention that French culture has plenty of interesting facets, and also boasts the advantage of being

spoken widely enough that various different cultures can be explored (Creole French in Louisiana, anyone?).

Nueva’s lack of a French class is symbolic of its growing pains as it becomes a “proper” high school, just as it also has to contend with sports teams jostling for space in the gym and lunch lines elongating.

A French class is, after all, something that many high schools offer (along with enough office space for the entirety of the faculty and actual sports facilities): It’s the second most widely taught language in the U.S., and a course offered at many Bay Area high schools— Crystal Springs, Lick-Wilmerding, Urban, Menlo, and more—that Nueva competes with when it comes to attracting students. And though we’re working on the former and are making do without the latter, I believe that the lack of these typically “core” classes and programs are what will ultimately hold Nueva back as it expands.

So talk to your friends. Mention it to your teachers. Email Dan. We all just really, really want to be able to speak the language where you call lead le plomb.

Illustration by Emily L.

16 / SPORTS

THE NUEVA CURRENT

A new season for girls’ soccer Zulie M. Players who have loved soccer their whole lives, who have been competing for only a few years, or who are looking to try something new, have all come together on the upper school girls soccer team. With 29 players, this is the first year that the team is participating in the offi cial PSAL league, and the first year they have enough girls to field both a developmental and varsity team.

Though they fielded the first girls’ soccer team last winter, it is an official sport this year: the team is scheduled to compete against local schools, with the scores available for rankings and championships. They have gained about 10 new players, and they have 10 more scheduled games than they did previously, making it a full season.

Sanam Y. (12), a captain, said she feels they “are all really excited to be a part

Sophia Y. (12), one of the team captains, has been playing soccer since she was four.

Prior to the girls’ team being formed, she played on the boys’ team as a freshman and sophomore. She was one of the first people to join the team when it was founded.

The team expects this season to be strong, and many of the players have similar goals for improvement. Many of them talked about building on the foundation established last year, and develop as individual players while getting better at playing as a team.

They have had a somewhat uneven start to the season: over a week of practices was cancelled due to the air quality from the Northern California wildfires. After a disappointing 4-1 loss to Castilleja in the first game of the season, they recovered to soundly defeat Downtown College Prep 10-0 in their second game.

Coach Daniel Zerabruk also

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

Photo by Jordan M.

SPORTS BRIEFING | Scores as of Dec. 13, 2018

JV Boys’ Basketball Crystal Springs Uplands The Bay School Woodside Priory

(L) 38-33 (W) 33-22 (W) #-#

Varsity Boys’ Basketball Eastside College Prep Crystal Springs Uplands Palma School Pacific Grove Oakwood School Woodside Priory

Varsity Girls’ Basketball (L) 59-25 (W) 62-49 (L) 47-28 (W) 42-41 (W) 45-38 (W) 48-36

Varsity Boys’ Soccer Woodside Priory Oceana High School DCP Alum Rock Latino College Prep

Capuchino High School Oceana High School Crystal Springs Uplands Mercy Burlingame Oakwood School

(L) 105-6 (L) 62-13 (L) 36-26 (L) 53-11 (L) 29-28

Varsity Girls’ Soccer (W) 3-2 (W) 10-2 (W) 2-1 (W) 2-1

Castilleja (L) 4-1 Downtown College Prep (W) 9-0 (W) 3-2 Summit Prep KIPP San Jose Collegiate (W) 7-0

1,015

SENIOR ATHLETE “We’re pretty much twins,” said Kyle M. (12), who started on the varsity basketball team in freshman year; his brother Connor M. (9) followed in his footsteps to becoming a freshman on the varsity starting squad in the current winter sports season. (Photo

by Jordan M.)

points scored in his basketball career at Nueva

324

defensive rebounds in his basketball career at Nueva

Finishing the race strong Nikhil T. KICKIN’ IT Aleeha B. (11) was on the founding girls’ soccer team at Nueva last year; she currently is a co-captain of the team along with seniors Sanam Y. and Sophia Y. (Photo courtesy of Tidal)

of the league,” because of the “great first season.” One of her favorite memories is when the Mavericks won their first soccer game.

“We were all definitely nervous to see how it would go, and with the hard work, we got the result we wanted,” Sanam said. “Seeing everyone so excited about the win and how were playing made me incredibly happy to be a part of a Nueva sport.”

One of the founding members of the team, Stephanie S. (10), has played club soccer and Nueva soccer all throughout middle and elementary school, and knew that she wanted to continue playing in high school. Stephanie said that the athletic director at the time told her that “there wasn't enough interest and there weren't enough girls.”

Though she took the initiative to collect sign-ups from friends and classmates, the team didn’t reach the player limit by the deadline. Their season was a short one, in which they played in four non-league games.

“It was a really great experience, and we had a great time on the field,” Stephanie said.

worked with the team last year and has been coaching lower school soccer for three years.

“I want the team to be competitive throughout the season and my ultimate hope is for the student athletes to a have tremendous experience,” Zerabruk said. “With the US Girls I’ve had a more democratic coaching style since I have fantastic leaders and athletes in the team.”

Though the team has not had many chances to play yet, Zerabruk said that he is confident the team will get stronger as the season unfolds.

He also described the players as “committed, supportive, hardworking and competitive,” which he said were “all the ingredients for growth and positive experience.”

Having this team is crucial to girls being able to explore their passions and bond with classmates who have similar interests, and with the team finally participating in the local league, there is more incentive for girls to join and for the team to play well and strong.

“I think there is something special about playing for your school, so as much as we can make that happen, we should,” Sanam said.

TAKING A SHOT Trevor G. (10) takes a free throw at the varsity boys’ triple header basketball game against Crystal Springs Uplands School on Dec. 5. (Photo by Jordan M.)

FAST BREAK Tara S. (10), Anjali S. (12), and Emma M. (9) sprint towards their hoop at the varsity girls’ triple header basketball game against Crystal Springs Uplands School on Dec. 5. (Photo by Jordan M.)

Photo by Jordan M.

The cross-country season is now over after an impressive finish at the CIF State Championships down in Fresno, California.

The girls’ team logged another Top 10 finish and the boys’ team finished in the Top 20.

The week before, both the girls’ and boys’ teams placed in the Top 3 at the CCS Championships at Toro Park in Monterey.

Set for success next season Nikhil T.

“Last year we had players who had never played [soccer] before, and this year everyone has learned and improved so much.”

ALEEHA B. (11)

The varsity girls’ volleyball team made it to regional CCS finals after a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Mt. Madonna High School. The team wrapped up their season with a 13-1 record in league play, finishing as co-champions of the PSAL league with Summit Shasta. In addition, Paige M. (10), Willow C. Y. (10) and Cate L. (9) earned first-team honors, and Piper H. (11) was on the second team. This was the most successful season in the team’s history and with no graduating seniors on the roster, the same team is set to improve next season.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

SPORTS / 17

Finding Nueva’s sports identity

Six years in, has the Upper School forged a sports culture?

MAVERICKS FOR THE WIN! Students cheer on the varsity team at the girls’ homecoming volleyball game on Oct. 18. (Photo by Julia Barzizza)

Luke M. It’s well known that sports do not take much of the spotlight when talking about Nueva. People’s minds often go towards our great I-Lab and robotics programs, our competitive debate teams, our incredible campuses, and diverse and passionate teachers.

Those unfamiliar with Nueva don’t remember our sports programs. Even inside our school, Nueva sports are often joked about in a demeaning way even though many students participate in them. To some people, the absence of a large sports presence at Nueva may be a good thing because it cannot be a distraction.

While Nueva is far from a sports school, we still act as though our teams are non-competitive even when they are achieving success.

“Some people have told me that Nueva sports aren’t as competitive as other high schools,” Anna C. (10) says. “We have a smaller community so we have less students to choose from, [and] we can’t make the teams as competitive.”

Jonah R. (10) agrees, saying, “Kids said [Nueva’s sports program] was not as good.”

So why is Nueva Athletics a punching bag in our school? It mainly comes from the “stereotypes around smart people being less athletic,” Anna says.

Athletics representative Jeremy D. (11) says, “People assume that the teams are bad where in reality a lot of our teams are performing at a high level.”

A Growing Program

What does it mean to be a Maverick?

It’s an oppurtunity to get to know my fellow Nuevans no matter what grade they’re in. I get to meet them, I get to bond with them, I get to bond with Nueva teachers, and I get to meet other school’s students. Its just a great experience to not only learn about the sport and to stay in shape but to get to know my community.

—Ishir G. (10)

What does it mean to be a Maverick?

I spend all my time here playing with people I see during the day. It means something special because it’s playing for each other, playing for your friends, and playing for your school, so it’s more of an issue of pride and representing your school.

—Benjamin C. (12)

What does it mean to be a Maverick?

I wasn’t super involved in sports, but when I had the time, I found it interesting to watch Nueva sports…I wouldn’t say our school collectively has a lot of communal spirit but I think for the people who play, they care about it a lot and other people find it mildy interesting to watch games occasionally.

—Sophia M. (11)

What does it mean to be a Maverick?

I think most people [play Nueva sports] for fun…Some fans come to be supportive, and others just come for the food.

—Noah V. H. (10)

What does it mean to be a Maverick?

I think it means to be a leader in a group setting, to be able to forge forward during stressful, high-stakes times, and coming out on top, while still working with my teammates in order to succeed next time.

—Willow C. Y. (10) (Photos by Jordan M.)

3

MVPs from Fall Sports

20

Individual League Awards from Fall Sports

7

PSAL Championships since 2016 in cross country and volleyball

Even with the recent successes, sports here will most likely not gain any more praise because it will be overshadowed by other accomplishments around the school.

However that does not mean students aren’t noticing. After the girl’s volleyball team won a share of the PSAL championship, a congratulatory poster was put up on the second floor stairway to celebrate the achievement.

“I think it’s really impressive and it goes to show that Nueva is actually good at sports,” Anna says about the cross country and volleyball teams winning in their respective leagues. Additionally, at a recent all-hands meeting, three banners were unveiled in the gym celebrating the boys’ and girls’ cross country race at the Private School Athletic League (PSAL) Championships and the varsity girls’ volleyball success at the regional finals for the Central Coast Section (CCS) league.

Although success is a significant piece of a strong sports culture, it is not the only aspect. Attendance and spirit are also relevant and important when talking about the sports culture here.

All of the successes Nueva has had will not make a difference if people aren’t showing up to see students compete.

This is not to say that students don’t show support at all, but that there isn’t an overwhelmingly large number of supporters at games. Attendance is generally low, though there was strong turnout at the volleyball homecoming game this year.

“We could definitely get more people to the games,” Jonah says.

2

CCS Championships for girls’ cross country in 2016 and 2017

“Some games are harder to go to than others, and there’s not opportunities to go to them,” Anna concurs.

This is a common problem as only volleyball and basketball teams play games at the upper school campus and most students are unable to drive to games at other locations.

“I feel like our [sports] culture itself isn’t necessarily changing but I know our programs are growing,” Jeremy says. “We are getting more competitive.”

An important step in creating a community that values athletics is having high participation in sports.

If more people are involved in sports they are more likely to feel more connected to the athletics programs.

“I know a lot of students at the school typically may just ignore sports whatsoever, so I know getting students to attend every home game is pretty ambitious but it would be cool to see that in a few years,” Jeremy says.

Currently, there is a certain lack of talk and spirit around Nueva sports teams as one would hear in another school. The difference being that as mentioned in the beginning, Nueva has a variety of different opportunities, events, and general interests in the student population that may not be found at another school. Therefore other schools may take more pride in their sports because that is the primary way in which they are represented unlike our school.

While we can mostly agree that it’s good to have a diversity of interests at Nueva, the general consensus is that the sports reputation of Nueva can improve and is improving.

175

out of 379 upper school students signed up to participate in sports

18 / SPORTS

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3

THE PRESSBOX

NFL scouting is changing college football

Photos by AP, Tyler Tjomsland for The Spokesman-Review, Lori King for the Toledo Blade

Here’s how—and why college football transfer rates have skyrocketed

Transfer rates have been on the rise—many of them quarterbacks. Recent transfers include Wilton Speight, Shea Patterson, Gardner Minshew, and Kelly Bryant.

Mirielle W. The college football regular season is over. And because it is college football, like every season, there are seniors playing their last games of their college careers. The lucky ones will suit up for one last game, a postseason bowl game, this December, or perhaps on New Year’s Day. The less fortunate players have already played their last games—their teams are not bowl eligible. They’ve all had their Senior Day already, posed with their family and a framed jersey and their coach.

Every season, the seniors leaders on each football team reflect on the years they’ve spent pouring their souls into football. Four or five years is a long time in college football, and often these players have weathered coaching staff changes. Beyond football, players speak about the relationships they’ve forged and how it feels to transition from an 18-year-old freshman to a college graduate, about their dreams after college, both in the NFL and the real world. Their stories give us a glimpse of their lives off the football field.

However, the story is changing.

More than ever before, football players are transferring schools for their last year of college football, and some are transferring even earlier. This transfer culture is a result of the NFL’s trend towards raw potential over experience and the increased exposure of smaller colleges in the digital age.

The qualities NFL scouts are looking for in college players have changed. Especially with the rise of advanced statistics, teams are now looking to draft players that have the potential to become a star, and are less interested in players’ body of work over two or three years. Often, this entails looking at things like height, 40-yard-dash time, and other statistics measured at the annual NFL combine.

And since teams don’t have infinite time to scout players, this means that they have less time to spend looking at hours of tape.

These teams are probably doing something right, because the whole

Team front offices are shortening the length of the average NFL career.

They seem to undervalue experience, thinking it can be replaced with athleticism. league is moving toward this model and advanced analytics for this sort of thing improve each year. However, this addition to the scouting process is probably at least partially to blame for what fans see as a decrease in the level of play in the NFL over the past decade or so. The NFL is getting younger, because teams’ front offices are far more interested in drafting mid-round or late-round players who can play under an inexpensive rookie contract rather than negotiating with veterans, shortening the length of the average NFL career. They seem to undervalue experience, thinking it can be replaced with athleticism.

This paradigm shift is causing players to think more carefully about their best chances of getting to the NFL. National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) rules allow athletes to “redshirt” for one year if they play in less than four games during that season. A redshirt year does not count as a year of eligibility,

and so often athletes redshirt their freshman year and therefore can play for one more year as a graduate student (usually known as a fifth year). To discourage transfers, the NCAA requires any player who transfers to sit out a year before playing for their new school. The most prominent example of this rule is current Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield, who transferred from Texas Tech to Oklahoma after the 2013 season and therefore was ruled ineligible for the following season.

Fifth year (graduate) transfers are an exception and can play right away, and players transferring under special circumstances can attempt to appeal to the NFL for a waiver of this rule.

More and more football players going into their fifth year who believe they have the talent to go to the NFL are looking around the country to see where they would have the best chance to catch the eye of NFL scouts. From 2016 to 2017, the NCAA recorded that the number of football graduate transfers jumped from 117 to 211. The process is different for every player, of course, but there seems to be a general path of reasoning. The player usually believes that he has the athletic ability to make it in the NFL. The idea is that transferring allows players to go somewhere where they can have a few standout games, enough tape to show to the NFL. For some, this means transferring from a Power 5 school to a Group of 5 school, while for others, this just means transferring to a system that seems to fit their skillset better and allows them to showcase that athleticism and talent.

This seems perfectly logical. So why is it a new phenomenon? For one, the number of players needed in the NFL grew with its expansion in the late 1990s. The league now needs over 2,000 players each year in order to run, and as described previously, the average NFL career is getting shorter.

It now hovers around 3.3 years per the NFL Players’ Association, over two years shorter than in 2008, more because of the changing paradigm in

franchises’ front offices than injuries.

Although the fact that more football players now think that they can make it in the league is important, the coming of the digital age is also a huge factor. Before the 1990s, only the biggest college games were televised, and then only locally. It was difficult for players at small schools to garner national attention. Today, in the age where live streaming games are broadcast across the country and often around the world, there’s little concern

Although the fact that more football players now think that they can make it in the league is important, the coming of the digital age is also a huge factor. on that front.

College football, from fans to pundits to coaches, disagrees about the transfer culture developing today.

Some condemn players for their disloyalty, while others applaud them for doing what is best for their careers.

Even if the average player only lasts a few years, an NFL contract is a lot of money. Ordinary transfers might want to consider sticking around for a few more years to finish their degree, but graduate transfers, by definition, have already graduated, and so it makes sense for them to want to focus on the best fit for them footballwise. It’s undeniably frustrating for fanbases to watch good players transfer, but that frustration should be focused on the NFL. Until the NFL’s scouting paradigm changes or the demand for pro players changes, the transfer culture of college football will continue.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2018

THE NUEVA CURRENT

ENTERTAINMENT / 19

NOT CANDY After reports surfaced of young people eating Tide PODS, there was a proliferation of memes featuring the colorful laundry detergent pods. (Photo courtesy of Tide)

Meme culture in 2018

Why humor has stopped making sense Eugenia X. From eating Tide PODS to “Is this a pigeon?” to a blurry screenshot of Pikachu’s reaction face, to “they did surgery on a grape”, 2018 has plowed through meme after meme so quickly that it’s hard to believe Tide PODS only happened this year. While some directly criticize politics, others are making less and less sense. They leave us confused, wondering why we’re finding them so funny in the first place. I would argue that they are an eerily accurate representation of the world; things are so bad that nothing makes sense anymore, so we’ve decided to laugh at all of it.

2018 has been an unpredictable and tumultuous year for people spectating the events. Much of what has happened seems unreal—how did the water crisis in Cape Town, South Africa get so bad that there was a legitimate proposal to tow an iceberg from Antarctica there?

And don’t expect me to believe that Trump really cancelled a trip to the World War One cemetery because of the rain. Memes echo the nonsensical con-

fusion we live in the midst of. They are funny precisely because people are not supposed to find them funny—the world seems to have stopped making sense and we can’t do anything to change it, so at least let’s laugh at some Tide PODS; that seems to make more sense than everything happening around us. Our sense of humor is becoming increasingly strange, morbid, and unproductive, and the line between whether we’re supposed to laugh or be disconcerted about something is becoming less and less defined.

Despite the fact that the world seems to be on fire (much like the “this is fine” meme), I would argue that not everything is pointless. Individual actions can still make a difference; there’s just something we’re doing wrong right now that makes everything seem pointless.

The dumpster fire we are living in isn’t a reason to say “screw it.” It’s only a stronger reason why we need to think about how our actions impact the world, what is working and what isn’t, and how we can capitalize on effective strategies.

IS THIS FINE? This is a combination of the "this is fine" meme from the webcomic series Gunshow and the "is this a pigeon" meme from The Brave Fighter of Sun Fighbird. (Photo by The Daily Dot)

AGGRESSIVE CHOICES This meme was used to depict the extremes between two different choices.

(Photo by @alexmakesfunnystuff on Instagram)

DESPICABLE TRUMP Back in the day, searing political cartoons and caricatures critized political leaders.

These days, anyone can create memes about President Trump. Memes typically mash two different popular culture reference points. (Photo from Twitter)

When Disney Channel gets dark

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is a bland new show rooted in controversy Elizabeth B. P. Almost any teenager reading this has probably heard about Riverdale; a small but still substantial number have probably heard about the Archie Universe’s new spin-off series The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, more widely known as simply Sabrina. For those who don’t know the Archie Universe, it sprang from the original 1941 comic Archie.

Then came a company called Archie Comics, which published Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which was made into a hit TV show that aired from 1996-2003. Riverdale and Sabrina are remakes of these two comics.

Considering the controversies surrounding Riverdale and Sabrina, it’s high time for a review of two of the strangest—and in the case of Riverdale, perhaps worst—current shows angled toward teens.

While Riverdale has garnered more than a few criticisms due to its portrayal of people of color, women, gay people, and lower- and lowermiddle-class people, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, a horrordramedy show about a teenage witch, has incited apathy. Riverdale has had polarized opinions, from the “Oh my god, it’s Cole Sprouse without a bowl cut!” young girls to the upset and somewhat disturbed parents, while Sabrina’s reviews have been mixed but mild.

Sabrina is a scary, edgy, feminist show—yes—but there’s nothing new in its plot; by the time the first ten minutes have elapsed, you can pretty much guess where it’s going. Its roots would inspire hope for a fresh and funny remake; instead, it turns itself into a rarely-witty show with high production value that overdoes the jump-scares instead of any new ideas. Metacritic reviews vary.

“Decently acted, but very boring.

Not funny at all, the writing has so many holes it could as well be named The Chilling Swiss Cheese of How Not To Write Scripts,” said one review, while another said, “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina is...one of my

favorite shows…The writing and story are amazing.”

Still another said, “Two minutes into the show and you are bombarded with feminist liberal social justice warrior propaganda.”

Some have criticised the show for being too political, or for not having enough comedy, or for not having an interesting romance, or for not depicting the side characters as three-dimensional, or for— You get the point.

Ross Lynch’s portrayal of Harvey Kinkle, Sabrina’s high school love interest, should definitely be called out as weird and bland, but other than that, the show is not particularly good or bad. It does not live up to the reputation of the original. It may have been intended to be a fresh new take, and it’s certainly got good aesthetic qualities.

To be frank, it just isn’t anything new. (And Salem the cat doesn’t even talk, which is a major loss from the previously wisecracking feline.)

Despite this, it’s not as bad as it could be, considering its Riverdale roots.

Riverdale was introduced on Jan. 26, 2017, and is now partway into its third season, but, considering how bad it is, viewers should ask themselves why it has been kept around so long (cheerleaders breaking into jail to perform a dance for a fifteen-year-old framed for murder is a particularly low point).

For background: the show starts off following girl-next-door Betty Cooper, as she tries to tell her best friend, Archie, that she is in love with him.

Plot twist: Archie is in a relationship with his teacher, Ms. Grundy, and is interested in the rich new girl in town, Veronica. The fourth main character is aspiring writer, Jughead, who at one point actually says, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m weird. I’m a weirdo. I don’t fit in. And I don’t want to fit in.”

By the third season, the show has completely derailed; the characters have gone from melodramatic high

schoolers to actively destructive, insensitive, hardened—and yet, still somehow mundane—drug smugglers, murderers, and arsonists. All at age 15. And it’s excused because the characters are apparently “fighting for their friends,” when, in fact, the show follows a group of affluent, sheltered, privileged children acting out because they have no real understanding of the consequences of their actions and no desire to learn.

In addition to its clichéd storyline and dull characters who, while intended to be 15, are played by 20-to-30-something-year-olds, the show is also well-known for being problematic in its portrayals of minority groups; there has been widespread backlash against its “fake-woke” messages.

Representation of African-American characters, particularly Josie and Chuck, have been criticised for minimizing the characters to vehicles through which the show can say it has a diverse cast, while it persists in marginalization and one-sided portrayals of its African-American characters. In addition, there has been significant criticism of its marginalization of people of color as a whole; Riverdale, in comparison to many shows angled toward teens that are currently streaming on Netflix, does have a diverse cast, and yet it refuses to involve people of color in major plotlines, except for Veronica. Portrayal of LGBTQ+ characters has also been criticised for perpetuation of offensive stereotypes and biphobia. The show’s refusal to portray Jughead as asexual, as he was canonically in Archie, the comic the show was originally based off of, has come under fire as well.

Riverdale isn't worth your time, unless you’re into watching shows to deride them. Sabrina might be a good watch if you’ve run out of shows in your Netflix queue, but it’s not really a stand-out series.

And really, the worst part about it is that Salem doesn’t talk.

20 / ENTERTAINMENT

THE NUEVA CURRENT

VOLUME 2, ISSUE 3 ADVICE COLUMN

Eugenia X.

Dear Mav Answering the community’s questions and giving meaningful advice... Remember to submit questions by DM’ing our Instagram account, @thenuevacurrent.

How do I not procrastinate in work periods? —Someone Currently in a Work Period This is a problem that a lot of people, including myself, struggle with: the best way to approach it is to distill the reasons why productivity isn’t happening.

If you can’t concentrate because your class’s volume is several notches too high, maybe headphones or earbuds would work; going outside into the hallway or the WRC might help as well.

If talking with your friends is making your focus waver, try moving to the other side of the classroom— then you get to keep the accountability of staying inside the classroom and the peace of clear work. Or use this time to conference with your teacher.

And as for the internet, sometimes having your screen face the center of the classroom helps just to keep you working rather than using Buzzfeed or YouTube or any of the other entertaining, time-wasting sites.

Good luck—go forth and focus!

Ken-Ken

If you’re in a destructive loop, how do you get out of it? (Destructive loop: digging yourself deeper into a hole, be it no sleep, stress, or other things.) —Suffering Scholar Destructive loops are terrible, and a lot of us have been there. It’s not easy to break a pattern.

According to Elisha Goldstein, PhD., the author of Uncovering Happiness—a book on mindfulness, self-compassion, and how to get out of depressive patterns—the best way to escape is to look at everything as a whole, rather than pinpoint a singular issue.

Try to think about the “long game”—what’s next, after this? Try to contexualize the “stakes” and articulate the source of your stress.

Do something that “shocks” this pattern—something unexpected or new and hopefully fun. It could be as simple as going to a new open space preserve.

Talk to people: There are plenty of people at Nueva who understand and truly want to help you.

Willow C. Y.

INSTRUCTIONS: Your goal is to fill in the whole grid with numbers, making sure no number is repeated in any row or column.

The number and operation in the upper left corner indicates the sum/difference/product of the squares in that section. In this 5x5 puzzle, you can use the numbers 1-5 to fill in the squares.

Crossword Willow C. Y. ACROSS

DOWN

1. A prisoner’s price

1. What you sure hope works ahead

6. Metallic mineral

2. Abstract or realistic, maybe

7. The other bush

3. Second half of Scottish folklore’s serpentine monster

9. Indigenous Australians, abbr.

11. A municipality in Northern Italy 14. Not RGB 15. You may or may not have a sixth one of these 18. Sound-strengthener, abbr.

19. Doesn’t pertain

4. Blood of a citrus fruit, to some 5. Like “happy” 8. Jefferson's “I cannot live without _____.”

10. Conference at UCSD in Jan. 2019, focused around “comp-sci” theory and research 12. Oftentimes incorrectly used with “good” or “bad“ before it 13. Without science, abbr.

15. Country of Kashoggi’s alleged killers, abbr.

16. Reply to “sry,” maybe