Verde Volume 15 Issue 4

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VERDE MAGAZINE • VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 • APRIL 2014

INDEX SHORT STUFF The Launch News

8 12

COVER Paly Pilots

18

PROFILE Daiki Sin Teacher Profile Robert Minkoff High School Alternatives

18 20 23 24 26

CULTURE Sno-Zen Kids Who Work Boys’ & Girls’ Club The World of Psychic Reading Addictive App Games Paly’s Flea Market KZSU Club Alice’s Restaurant

28 29 30 31 36 38 40 42

FEATURES Urban Canopy 3-D Printing PAUSD’s Brawl Against Bullying The Value of a Prep Make X Downtown Streets Team Student Homelessness in PAUSD 20 Percent Projects Hospital School Freshman English Off the Rails

43 44 49 52 54 55 59 62 64 65

PERSPECTIVES Let’s Talk About Sex (Ed) This Lande(e) is Your Land(e)

69 70

Ana Sofia Amieva Wang Ana Sofía Amieva-Wang

STEP BY STEP Members of the Downtown Streets Team participate in weekly community clean ups. The organization empowers unhoused individuals to reach for permanent housing and employment. Read more on p. 55.

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EDITORIALS COMMENDING RECENT CHANGES TO THE SAT

T

he College Board announced fundamental changes to the SAT on March 5 that will go into effect in spring 2016.

The changes strive to create a test that will more directly assess a student’s college readiness through questions that are more relevant to real-world problems. Key changes include returning to the 1600-point scale, making the essay optional, eliminating penalties for wrong answers and testing more relevant vocabulary words and issues.

Verde commends the new, more egalitarian SAT that will accurately test college readiness and better accommodate the needs of students from more diverse socioeconomic contexts.

As it stands now, the SAT fails as a measure of success because it tests in a format that forces students to drill useless information into their heads rather than gain a deep understanding of material that will accurately measure their college-preparedness. SAT scores end up more accurately representing the time and money a student spent memorizing information than a student’s true aptitude.

With the allegedly more relevant and streamlined test, time spent preparing will be better spent on material with practical applications that could more likely be useful to a student’s future.

Since the current test calls for so much SAT-specific preparation,

THE COVER

THE STAFF Photography by Lucy Fox

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VERDE MAGAZINE • VOLUME 15, ISSUE 4 • APRIL 2014

student’s often throw money at expensive courses, tutors and materials that promise to increase scores by “teaching the test,” leaving students who cannot afford assisted studying behind.

According to the College Board’s 2009 SAT Report, children from families with annual incomes under $20,000 scored an average of 1,321 out of a total possible 2,400 points, while children from families with incomes above $200,000 scored 1,702 on average.

Students of low socioeconomic status already face many educational disadvantages, often living in circumstances that don’t promote core educational values and skills. The SAT should aim to balance out such defacto differences by serving as an unbiased measure of a student’s college readiness, a mechanism for leveling a chronically mountainous playing field. The 400-point gap between the highest and lowest income brackets defined by the College Board shows that this goal has not been accomplished in past years with the current SAT. Changes to the test will narrow the score gap between students whose parents can afford professional preparation and those whose parents cannot, in effect democratizing a college application process that is swayed far toward the privileged.

We all dreamed that we could fly. And as high school students start to leave the nest, some fulfill this childhood dream through sports or volunteer work. But three high school student-pilots not satisfied with metaphorical flight expand their horizons through literal aviation. Pictured on this issue’s cover, former Palo Alto High School student Cormac Siegfried prepares to take to the sky in his family’s BE-185 plane.

Volume 15 • Issue 4 • April 2014

Adviser Paul Kandell, Adviser Editors-in-chief Hollis Kool Noam Shemtov Managing Editor Jamie Allendorf Section Editors Samantha Dewees, Features & Profiles Will Queen, Perspectives Lande Watson, Culture News Editor Bryan Wong Business Manager Angela Xu Visual Content Editors Anthony Liu, Art Director Ana Sofia Amieva-Wang, Photo Director

Staff Writers Esme Ablaza Eliza Ackroyd Zofia Ahmad Jack Brook Miranda Cohn Katie Ebinger Lucy Fox Brigid Godfrey Alexandra Hsieh Michelle Li Anna Lu Zoe Lung Jasper McEvoy Joe Meyer Madison Mignola Brittany Nguyen Tira Oskoui Claire Priestley Kelly Shi Anand Srinivasan Siddharth Srinivasan Michelle Tang

VERDE MAGAZINE

@VERDEMAGAZINE Ana Sofía Amieva-Wang

HOMEWORK WIDENS ACHIEVEMENT GAP

W

ith the release of a Stanford study on homework and its pitfalls, Verde believes it is important to look at an aspect of homework that has long contributed to the achievement gap, the disparity between the academic performance of students with different socioeconomic statuses, levels of education and geographic location.

Because of the varying living situations and adult support available to different students, homework can create unfair advantages and obstacles.

This inequality begins before kindergarten, with some parents reading to their children every night and encouraging extracurricular learning, while others are unable to provide this support.

Homework is less enforced in elementary school, and once it becomes vital to educational success, there is already a growing achievement gap between those who do work outside of class.

Homework has the potential to foster an important sense of independent learning. However, a strong relationship must exist between the school, parents and student in order to ensure that this attempt at independence does not breed a feeling of helplessness among students who do not have as much support.

As “flipped classrooms,” where class is used for work time and the homework is to learn a new lesson become more popular along with other innovative approaches to education, it is important

to look at these possible solutions. Although it is too early to know how effective they will be, more drastic solutions might be effective and necessary as simply decreasing the amount of assigned homework has failed to fully address the homework dilemma in the past.

Verde commends Palo Alto High School’s math department for implementing after-school sessions where teachers are available to help students complete their homework regardless of the outside help or work environment they have at their disposal.

Similarly, Tutorial provides an opportunity for students to seek additional assistance with their classes. However, the same problems persist as do with homework, because often the students who have consistently been provided resources and taught to take advantage of extra opportunities still maintain an advantage over those who have not built up those skills previous to high school. Whether it’s increasing accountability by altering the check-in system or another alteration, steps should be taken to increase the efficacy and use of tutorial.

In the future, PAUSD will have opportunities to shape homework into something that assists all students and works to close, instead of widen, the achievement gap. We encourage all those involved in policy-making to look at solutions that work toward this goal.

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Publication Policy Verde, a feature magazine published by the students in Palo Alto High School’s Magazine Journalism class, is a designated open forum for student expression and the discussion of issues of concern to its readership.

Verde is distributed to its readers and the student body at no cost.

Letters to the Editors The staff welcomes letters to the editors but reserves the right to edit all submissions for length, grammar, potential libel, invasion of privacy and obscenity. Send all letters to verde-eics-13-14@googlegroups. com or to 50 Embarcadero Road Palo Alto, CA 94301. All Verde stories are posted online and available for commenting at http://verdemagazine. com Advertising The staff publishes advertisements with signed contracts providing they are not deemed by the staff inappropriate for the magazine’s audience.

For more information about advertising with Verde, please contact the Verde business manager Angela Xu at 650-796-2358 for more information.

Printing & Distribution Services Verde is printed five times a year in October, November, February, April and May, by Fricke-Parks Press in Fremont, Calif. The Paly PTSA mails Verde to every student’s home. All Verde work is available at http://verdemagazine.com

COMMENT ON STORIES AT verdemagazine.com • Let us know what you think of our magazine.

• Discuss topics with other readers.

• Critique our coverage of events and news.

• Help us serve the community with up-to-date facts and insights.

• Help support our program with your donation at the Palo Alto High School webstore.

EDITORS’ NOTE Those of us who live with our feet planted firmly on the ground harbor an awe with regard to flight that others might think excessive. If the automobile is to be considered the popular trope for social, political and economic autonomy, then the plane is that of an ideal freedom, the vehicle of impossible fantasies and vanities that come to dust the moment the plane’s wheels touch tarmac.

In this issue, Lucy Fox and Brigid Godfrey take to the air after student aviators in their story “Cleared for Takeoff ” (p. 15).

Back on the ground, staff writers Jack Brook and Jasper McEvoy take to the streets in their investigation of homelessness in Palo Alto and neighboring communities (p. 55). The lens is the Downtown Streets Team, an organization that aims to empower unhoused individuals through community service and cleanup projects. Staff writer Alexandra Hsieh’s “In Transition” (p. 59) looks at homelessness from the student view, documenting the story of one girl and her mother as they jump between motel rooms and the back of their van.

Writers Tira Oskoui and Anand Srinivasan turn their gaze back at the district in their exposition of its hotly debated bullying policy, “Confusions, Battles and Setbacks” (p. 49). In another discussion of unwieldy district policy, “Delaning Denied” (p. 65), Siddharth Srinivasan and Brittany Nguyen examine the failure to merge Palo Alto High School’s freshman English lanes earlier this year.

Sadly, this is our last issue as editors-in-chief. But as we prepare to don our own wings and leave the Verde nest, we have complete confidence that future staff members will continue to uphold the magazine’s tradition, and we wish them the best of luck in doing so. Have a good fourth quarter, Paly!

— Hollis & Noam

RUDE AWAKENING School board members meet with superintendent Kevin Skelly to dsicuss potential changes to the district’s bullying policy, the drafts of which have met harsh criticism for their ambiguous treatment of “protected class” students. Read further om (p. 49).

– 21 – Tira Oskoui

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LAUNCH TEACHER TWEETS

Verbatim what would you do during a zombie Apocalypse? interview and Photos by miranda cohn

compiled by tira oskoui

“

I would go home and get my dog and a car and drive into the wilderness.

— freshman Kieran Godfrey

H

compiled by jamie allendorf

new Club Check-in Healthy Living Club “Healthy Living Club is a club to help inform members about ways to stay healthy ... We’re focusing on things that will keep your body healthy, such as nutrition and exercise, but we’re also focusing on stuff that will make your mind happy, such as volunteer work and yoga.” ­— HLC Co-President Jacqueline Furrier interview and Photos by tira oskoui

“

I wouldn’t be worried because I don’t have brains.

— sophomore Jenny Xin

“ “ Do whatever Brad Pitt did.

— junior Grant Smith

I would show the zombies who the real flesh eaters are.

— senior Aaron Slipper

3 questions with

Robert RojaS

Meet RobertRojas, sophomore English teacher, Sports Literature guru, and a regular attendee of ComicCon. Here he shares his experiences reconciling literature and mass media.

Verde Magazine: How did you become interested in ComicCon? Robert Rojas: “It just seemed to me like the thing to do if you’re interested in pop culture. Also, Comic Con’s not just comics anymore. It’s like almost everything. Some people aren’t very happy with that, but I think it’s still pretty neat. “ VM: How do your interests in ComicCon and English relate?

RR: “I think comic book characters, heroes and villains are easy for students to relate to when it comes to talking about characters in books. ... it helps students relate to quick ideas.”

VM: How has mass media influenced literature?

RR: “I like to think that it’s the other way around. If you’re looking at classic literature, it influences the quality of what’s created out there. I mean, good stories produce good TV shows and movies. When you see mass media influence literature, I think that’s when you see some of the garbage that’s out there like Twilight.“ interview and Photos by alexandra hsieh

POst-it notes

what will you do for earth Day on April 22?

interview and Photos by anand Srinivasan

freshman Jason Leung

sophomore William Zhou

April 2014 ASB ANSWERS “We’re really hoping to make NIOS [Not In our Schools Week] a bigger thing on campus this year. … We’ve been working with club presidents to make sure that we have meaningful and engaging activities every day.” ­— senior class president Audrey Debruine interview and Photos by joe meyer Have a question for ASB? E-mail your question to verdelaunch@gmail.com and see if it gets picked to be in the next issue of Verde! Questions may be anonymous.

junior Johnny Lee

junior Alice Wang

senior Briana Billups

News

Smarter Balance field test launches for juniors

derstand the importance of teachers, have a range of life experiences, and be able to connected to the community.

She also emphasizes that the candidate should have experience with teenagers.

“An understanding of high school students is essential,” Townsend said. “Being a teenager in a high achieving district is difficult. A superintendent should understand the pressure. Overall, a well-rounded superintendent with a sense of humor.”

Kevin Skelly, the current superintendent, will resign at the end of the school year. According to Skelly, he informed the board about his decision in February to give the board sufficient time to choose his successor.

The all-digital Smarter and Balanced Field Test launches next week for Palo Alto High School juniors after being rescheduled from March 8 and March 9.

Despite the fact that the district shortened the testing duration from two days to one, Diana Wilmot, the district’s point person for the tests, says she feels confident that the assessment will gather enough data.

“If we can get all the juniors to come in for those two hours, then I think we will be able to properly test the infrastructure,” Wilmot said.

“We will get a good feel for ‘testing the test.’ We are going to do our best to give them [the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium] what we can, given that the window has changed.”

Due to the decision to move the window to next week, Paly was forced to postpone its plans to administer the test.

“The purpose of the Smarter Balanced Field Test is to assess the viability of our infrastructure to give online assessments to students,” Wilmot said. “[It gives] our teachers and educators a better sense of how the Common Core standards will be measured in the future. This is going to replace STAR [Test].”

“There’s two parts to it,” Wilmot said. “One part is the performance task. It’s akin to a part two of an AP exam where you have to show your work, show your thinking — it’s open ended. The other part is based on computer enhanced items.”

Text by Michelle Tang

Text by Anand Srinivasan

TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FUN Supt. Kevin Skelly has been regularly transferring marbles from one jar to another every Monday morning for nearly 10 years. Skelly started with 520 marbles in the larger jar, but only 10 remain today ­— the rest are in the small jar. “They [the marbles] are symbolic,” Skelly said. “[It] feels like a time to take off.” Photo by Michelle Tang

Search for replacement superintendent progresses The Board of Education is encouraging student participation in a superintendent search survey that closes 5 p.m.

Wednesday.

The survey, directed at the Palo Alto community, tests the community’s preference of certain listed attributes, and also includes a short question-and-answer section for comments.

The board met a group of consultants from Leadership Associates for the first time on March 19, and held open forums on March 25 and March 26 to gain community input on superintendent attributes.

The board members have characteristics that they are looking for in a superintendent.

According to board member Camille Townsend, a superintendent should un-

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School to prepare for WASC evaluations beginning in fall Palo Alto High School will be going through a series of evaluations by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges beginning fall this year.

Focus groups will be getting together to talk about Paly and their progression through the WASC process in April and May. “We’re working on specific tasks that are outlined to us by WASC,” head of Pa-

ly’s WASC committee Emily Garrison said.

“Right now we’re kind of getting a snapshot of what Paly looks like and then we’ll use that next fall in our action plan,” According to Garrison, WASC has issued a survey to students with questions pertaining to the safety, academic work, teachers, as well as the overall Paly community. This survey will help gather the qualitative and quantitative data needed to move

forward through the process.

Another criteria issued by WASC is the shadowing process. Paly teachers shadow students around campus to see what it’s like to be a student.

“It [the process] will give us some data on school climate from a student’s point of view,” economics teacher and school climate teacher on speacial assignment Eric Bloom said.

ENGAGING TEENS The ClickPA staff consists of local high school students works to create and update a running list of all events and activities available to teens in the Palo Alto area. From left: Lacee Korsten, Ally Gong, Fabian Garduño, Bethany Wong, Kevin Zittle, Charles Yu, Sharon Chen.

Teen-created website prepares for app competition The Palo Alto Apps Challenge announced ClickPA as a finalist on March 13.

The competition is for innovative apps that engage Palo Alto citizens with the city government.

The group aims to develop a prototype app in anticipation for the late-April deadline for the next step of the competition.

The staff hopes to create an app that will function as an extension of their website.

Founded in October 2012 by four Gunn and Palo Alto High School students, ClickPA is a student-run website dedicated to spreading awareness of local events and

activities among high school students.

The organization has grown a significant amount in recent months and is now supported by the City of Palo Alto through funding and technological assistance.

“We’re trying to tie the teens with the bigger picture of the city,” said Gunn junior Ally Gong, one of the founding staff members. “We have the idea, we have the site and we have a good collection of events, but what we’re pushing for now in the next few months is to get teens to use our site and get places to actively contribute their events.”

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According to Gong, the staff hopes to expand its user-audience and to continue to grow its staff by adding more contributing bloggers and journalists.

“We really just want it to turn into a good program that benefits both Palo Alto as a city and for the teens,” Gong said. “I definitely hear from a lot of people, ‘There are a ton of things going on in this city.

We just want to organize everything in one place so that it’s easier for teens to find everything they need.”

Text by Tira Oskoui

News

Homeless shelter to ‘hibernate’ for a year Heart and Home Collaborative Women’s Shelter, a Palo Alto women’s homeless shelter located in the College Terrace neighborhood, is ceasing its operations on April 6 after six weeks of providing local homeless women with free room and board.

According to Lynn Huidekoper, a staff member at HHCWS, shelters such as this one generally run for several

weeks during the coldest part of the year before shutting down until the next winter.

The HHCWS’s first year of operation was two years ago, in 2012, but last year a shortage of funds made operation of the shelter financially unfeasible.

According to Huidekoper, there are at least three other women’s shelters in the Bay Area.

Text by Joe Meyer

“Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” author to sign book Ann Brashares, author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, will be signing her newest book, “The Here and Now” on April 11 at 7 p.m at Kepler’s Bookstore in Menlo Park.

The signing will be accompanied by a talk given by Brashares on her book, a question-and-answer session for audience members, and a chance to take pictures with the author. This event is free and open to any who wish to participate.

“Usually we have a mix of long-time fans, local high schoolers, young adult bloggers, librarians and adult readers,” young adult events coordinator Angela Mann said.

“The Here and Now” follows Prenna, an immigrant to New York who comes not from another country, but another time.

She comes from the future to a new life she fights to keep.

This is among many events hosted by Kepler’s Books that include both young adult and adult authors discussing and signing their literature. To see who else is coming, find the events page on Kepler’s Books website.

Text by Eliza Ackroyd

By the

NUMBERS

THE SKY’S THE LIMIT Paly SciOly team poses with their trophy after winning the regional competition earlier in March. Photo by Yingjian Chen

Science Olympiad to go to state The Palo Alto High School Science Olympiad team will attend the California state competition in Sacramento on April 12.

“We want to place top three in all study events and top five in all engineering events,” SciOly president senior Grace Lin said. “Engineering is typically a weakness for us, because we often aren’t able to afford the same quality of materials as many of the heavily funded teams that compete at a similar caliber.”

92%

of Palo Alto homeless live unsheltered p. 59

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The team hopes to repeat its success at states last year by again defeating Sacramento rival Mira Loma High School.

“From how I view it, this year is going to be a very important year as an indicator for the club’s future success,” said SciOly team member senior Annie Chen. “I want the team to come together and pull off another win, and if not, there are always things to be learned from failure.”

Text by Samantha Dewees

28%

of US children from 12-18 years-old reported being bullied p. 49

News

Foundation gifts media boosters to honor free speech icon

CAN’T BE SILENCED Mary Beth Tinker speaks with students on her Student Press Law Center tour March 25 in the Haymarket Theater. Tinker has been traversing the nation since August, educating students on free speech. Photo by Bryan Wong

A visit by free expression pioneer Mary Beth Tinker to Palo Alto High School was the cause for a donation to the Media Arts Center late last month.

In honor of Tinker, journalism teacher Esther Wojcicki announced an $81,500 donation by the Brin-Wojcicki Foundation to Palo Alto High School Media Arts Boosters funds. The donation brings the Media Arts Booster funds up to $189,870, from a previous $108,370.

Tinker, who visited and spoke to Paly students on March 25, is currently on a Student Press Law Center-sponsored tour with SPLC attorney Mike Hiestand.

Text by Bryan Wong

A first step to high-speed Internet

Revamped Not In Our Schools Week

Film festival winners to be announced

Google has listed Palo Alto as a potential candidate for Google Fiber, its highspeed fiber-optic system.

The City Council must first complete a checklist by May 1 to ensure that Google has full knowledge of the existing infrastructure in the city.

“We’re kind of proceeding along their [Google’s] proposed timeline,” said Jonathan Reichental, chief information officer of Palo Alto. “We may even get ahead of it towards the end and that gives us a little bit of time for refinement.”

After the submission of the checklist Palo Alto will undergo further consideration for Google Fiber installation. According to the Google Fiber website, final chosen cities will be announced by the end of 2014.

Text by Kelly Shi

Palo Alto High School will begin its annual “Not in Our Schools” Week on April 21. According to Eric Bloom, the school climate teacher, the main problem faced by NIOS in the past years was the lack of awareness. Many students were unaware of the occasion until it was announced during the daily bulletin.

To pique the attention of the student body, NIOS will be organized like Spirit Week, with a specific theme paired to each day of the week, such as racial equality or gender equality.

“We want to make the events more resonant for high school students,” Bloom said.

NIOS is a week-long event that aims to promote equality and acceptance at Paly.

Text by Will Queen

The award ceremony for the annual Greenlight Film and Fashion Festival will be held 7 p.m. on April 24 at the Cubberley theater.

Hosted by the Mid-Peninsula Media Center, the film festival is a contest for students for fashion pieces or short films surrounding eight environmentally focused topics.

“These video projects explore environmental citizenship and hopefully show how individuals can reduce environmental impacts,” executive director Annie Folger said. “Topics have always been about environmental citizenship. It’s more about taking responsibility and trying to make a difference so that the environment is better off.”

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number of cats that Alice Read fostered check out the story on verdemagazine.com

100,000

Estimated number of readings psychic Benson Wong says he has done p. 31

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Text by Angela Xu

54%

decrease in homelessness since 2005 due to the Downtown Streets Team p. 55

COVER | APRIL 2014

Cleared for Takeoff STUDENTS EXPLORE THE WORLD FROM A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

Test by LUCY FOX and BRIGID GODFREY Photography by LUCY FOX and ANA SOFIA AMIEVA-WANG Art by ANTHONY LIU

P

A I G E H A N S E N P L AC E S T H E muffs of her headphones over her ears and adjusts the microphone. To her left, orange clouds and billows of dust engulf the tinted windows as the propeller whirs in front of her. The pilot and co-pilot yell directions at one another over the anticipation of the rumbling engine.

As the wheels begin to accelerate, Palo Alto High School junior and pilot Hansen opens the small window to her left and yells “Clear!” at the top of her lungs. The plane gains momentum and the Palo Alto Baylands rush past the window until we have a birds’ eye view of the marshland. The plane is airborne.

Hansen turns around to beam at her passengers. The smallest adjustment of the yoke – the plane’s steering wheel – dips the plane up and down. Seat belts strain at our waists as the plane turns away from the bay and towards Downtown Palo Alto. After her instructor requests a photo mission and the air traffic controller accepts it, Hansen drops the plane to 1500 feet above the ground and it hovers over 50 Embarcadero Rd. before rotating and speeding up above University Avenue.

Palo Alto students Paige Hansen, Cormac Siegfried and Théo Zaharias bring popular childhood dream of flying to life. United

States law does not require children to be a particular age to begin flight training, but aspiring pilots must be 16 years old to solo and 17 to obtain a pilots license.

When a person soloes, their instructor oberves them from the ground and keeps a radio handy in order to give mid-flight instructions.

This October will mark Hansen’s two-year anniversary of flying. She began as a sophomore when her father, who had been flying for nine years, encouraged her to learn.

“My dad wanted me to take lessons because he needed a copilot,” Hansen says.

She soloed for the first time in September of 2013.

“That’s… the biggest milestone because it shows you can handle the airplane on your own,” Hansen says.

Flight is a family affair for Siegfried, a senior and former Palo Alto High School student and current Lydian Academy and Foothill College student.

“I pretty much grew up in this plane,” Siegfried says, gesturing to his family’s BE-18S. The expectation has always been that he would learn to fly.

Siegfried learned from his father, who learned from his father in turn.

“We set expectations…that you do well in school, that your

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COVER | APRIL 2014 ROLLING Paige Hansen and her instructor, Will McAdams, previous page, push the plane in preparation for her flying lesson. They have flown together since October 2012.

READY TO FLY Cormac Siegfried, left, puts on headphones.

He has wanted to fly since childhood.

IN THE CLASSROOM Hansen and McAdams review softsurface landings. In addition to flying, students have a textbook curriculum.

honest, that your good citizens, all of those things,” Siegfried’s father, Rand Siegfried, says. “Another expectation is that you’re going to learn how to fly.”

He learned to fly alongside his sister, former Palo Alto High School student McKinely Siegfried.

Siegfried’s gandfather had always yearned to fly and obtained his license at age 17. Siegfried began flying as soon as his feet could reach the pedal and earned his license at the same age.

“There wasn’t ever an option but to learn to fly, but I also never even considered not learning,” Siegfried says.

Paly junior Zaharias began flying last year, when his father decided to learn. He and his father dad took an introductory flight together.

“I was actually more interested than he was, so I started taking lessons,” Zaharias says.

Zaharias takes one to two lessons a week and studies outside of lessons from two to four hours a week. He is about halfway through the process of getting his pilot’s license.

“Just being able to go up there and see things from a new perspective… it’s just kind of liberating,” Zaharias says.

For Zaharias, flying provides a broader lens through which to view the world.

“My favorite flying is over the remote valleys and rural areas because there’s so many things to see that people in Palo Alto would never get to see otherwise,” Zaharias says. “It’s eye opening.”

In his many years of flying, Siegfried has flown over 200 hours, including a nine hour trip with a single pit stop.

“My favorite type [of airport] has no tower; [it’s] a sort of grass airport,” Seigfried says.

“You have nowhere to go,” Siegfried says. “You’re just flying cause you’re having so much fun.”

At the moment, Zaharias sees flying as a possible future career.

“Maybe I could become a pilot for commercial flights,” he says.

“Or maybe go join the military or the air force.”

Siegfried, on the other hand, views flying as a life-long hobby.

“I think I’ll always fly,” Siegfried says. “I always want to have a place to go fly.”

Hansen looks forward the freedom flying will give her, “I can go on day trips to different places” 1500 feet above the Earth, the blue sky seems to stretch on forever, but eventually we must plant our feet back on the ground.

Hansen adjusts the yoke and the nose ducks. Ears popping, we feel the seat belts tighten across each of our waists as we descend towards the flat black asphalt of the airport. v

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Warrior

DAIKI MINAKI USES KENDO TO T Text by KELLY SHI and ANNA LU Photography by ANA SOFIA AMIEVA-WANG

T

WO GUTTURAL yells ring through the dojo as masked figures lunge toward one another. Through their explosive shouts, the warriors announce their attacks immediately before they strike.

The cuts are quick, and the three referees promptly raise their flags in response, touting the victor.

Though they are loud, the two students are only part of the focus. With six to eight matches happening at any given time, the stomps, yells and strikes all blend together under the high arched roof of the dojo. Palo Alto High School senior Daiki Minaki’s calls only contribute to the din as he trains against a fellow kendoka.

Minaki began his kendo training at the age of 13, visiting a dojo once a week with his dad. He now travels to different dojos, practicing more than three times a week for at least three hours.

His dedication has paid off — just last year, Minaki placed first in the 1-2 dan division of the Northern California Kendo Championships.

Minaki is currently preparing for the All United States Kendo Federation National Championships in San Diego in May. Though this championship takes place every three years, Minaki attends six or seven competitions annually.

“I try to go to as many tournaments as I can — competitions are my favorite part [of Kendo],” Minaki says. “I like going in with my team and getting really pumped. Winning just feels really awesome.”

Although martial arts often evokes images of aggressive kicking and chopping, according to dojo instructor George Nishiura, kendo is less about force

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THE ART OF KENDO

unmasked

O TRAIN HIS MIND AND BODY

Kendo, a Japanese martial art, features oneon-one combat using wooden swords and protective armor. The goal is to strike the opponent in specific target areas, called datotsu-bui, while displaying high spirits and correct posture, as judged by three referees.

Daiki Minaki explains that the kendo ranking system comprises two sections, the kyu and the dan. Kendoka, those who practice kendo, start at 6-kyu and work their way up to 1-kyu, before moving on to the dan system. From there, they progress from 1-dan to the highest rank of 8-dan.

and strength; the kendoka instead relies on speed and endurance.

Minaki does not have any specific plans for the future of his “You have to be focused,” Nishiura says. “[In] kendo, some- kendo career, but he knows he wants to continue advancing his thing happens in a split second. It’s the fastest sport of any sport current rank of first dan after he graduates. … focus, reflexes and concentration; I think it’s the innate nature “I want to get at least to fourth dan,” he says. “I might take a of kendo.” break in college, and start again after.”

Minaki agrees that a lot of his kendo skill comes from the But according to Nishiura, despite all stops and starts, kendo mind, not the body. is for life.

“There’s a lot of physical training,” he says. “But you also “It’s a lifelong learning experience,” Nishiura says. “There need a lot of mental discipline if you want to succeed.” isn’t any endpoint to kendo training, so everybody at any stage According to Minaki, kendo’s resulting mental discipline helps are beginners. At the same time, they are experienced.… We don’t his productivity when it comes to know exactly where we are in academic work. the cycle.”

“I’ve been able to push myDespite the spiritual equalself, and I can work a lot harder ity, kendoka ranks are taken sebecause I put a lot of time and efriously in the dojo. At the end “Minaki takes the training very fort in kendo,” Minaki says. “That of each practice, the men and seriously. ... It makes him a very translates into my schoolwork. If I women form two lines: one of dependable person. If I ask him really don’t want to do something, senseis and one of students.

I can now force myself to do it.”

“Respect’s a big part,” to do something, he does it.”

However, kendo contributes Minaki says. “You bow to the to more than just the individual front … you pay respects to be mind. According to Nishiura, the able use the facility. You bow ­— mental discipline kendo requires to everyone you practiced with. extends to a kendoka’s everyday Then you bow to your senseis.” character.

As students begin to form “The main subject of kendo a separate line in front of the is not hitting each other, but trying senseis to receive comments to build character that’s good for on their performance, Minaki society,” Nishiura says. “[Minaki] breaks away to kneel behind takes the training very seriously … it makes him a very depend- Nishiura. He quietly takes Nishiura’s protective armor and begins able person. If I ask him to do something, he does it. There is no to fold it. question asked.”

“That’s just common,” Minaki says. “The younger people in Kendo’s focus on good character is reflected in the compe- the dojo tend to do it for the more respected.” tition evaluation. At tournaments, kendoka are ranked based on According to Nishiura, Minaki has shown great promise, both their kendo skill and their spirit and respect for their opponents. in sparring skill and kendo character.

The kendoka cannot progress through the ranks unless they show “He’s a good kid,” Nishiura says. “I think he will be a very good self-control. useful person for society.” v

Sensei George Nishiura, palo alto dojo instructor

– 19 –

PROFILES | APRIL 2014

GIVE US A BOW

SENIOR DUO PASSIONATELY PURSUES MUSIC PATH Text and photography by MICHELLE TANG Art by ANTHONY LIU

O

N AN ORDINARY Wednesday night, a duet of string music can be heard spilling over the high wooden fence around the Chin family’s home in Palo Alto. The strings spin velvet melodies and the occasional burst of laughter rolls out onto the sidewalk. Palo Alto High School seniors Tessera Chin and Megan Rohrer are practicing their instruments together.

In the music room of Chin’s house, the girls furrow their brows as they focus on Handel’s “Passacaglia.” Sweet, complicated music flows from their bows and through the room, bouncing off the walls.

Their thin fingers dance on the violin and viola, their other arms directing wooden bows swiftly across the strings. Occasionally, they peer at each other and giggle. But they never stop playing.

Rehearsals like this are common, because both Chin and Rohrer are diligent musicians who practice often. They are both in the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, or PACO, a prestigious musical community of the Bay Area’s most talented musicians.

Rohrer is an advanced violinist and Chin plays both the violin and the viola.

PACO holds four concerts every season and three to four hours of rehearsal weekly, but Chin and Rohrer still make time for quartet performances at such venues as the Stanford Shopping Center, Neiman Marcus and the American Heart Association. The events they play at include weddings, funerals, open houses and fundraisers. Chin and Rohrer say that they’ve done more than 50 gigs thus far and, because they are good friends, they do most of their gigs together.

Chin’s love of music is steeped in tra-

dition. Her grandmother taught her to sing Chinese operas; her father started her on violin when she was in first grade; her older brother majored in music at the University of Southern California and her sister plays the cello; and both siblings are pianists.

Music is in Chin’s blood.

“I honestly can’t remember a time when music wasn’t part of my life,” she says.

Chin joined the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra in 4th grade. Starting from Superstrings, the most juvenile among the five orchestras in the organization, she worked her way up to higher level orchestras. Orchestra has remained her major extra-curricular activity throughout the years, and she says that she spends about 10 hours total practicing each week.

“My family is pretty dedicated to music,” she says.

Chin’s house has become a center for rehearsals, as her father teaches group music classes. When her parents remodeled the house in 2001, they designed the music room just for the kids to practice in, Chin says.

Rohrer’s earliest forays into music were very different. She grew up in New Mexico, where she was in the Albuquerque Youth Symphony, moving to California just before her freshman year.

“I was scared to leave because I had an orchestra that I really liked there,” Rohrer says. “It was pretty much the only one in New Mexico...I was one of the best violinists my age. I was in a quartet, but it wasn’t very serious. The music community was just so much smaller.”

The two joined in 2011 when Rohrer had just moved from New Mexico. In the Santa Cruz mountains, Rohrer met Chin

– 20 –

PROFILES | APRIL 2014

“Megan and Tessera are both very talented, accomplished, and hardworking people in and outside of orchestra. It’s easy to tell how dedicated and passionate they are about music when you hear them play.”

— Claire Chevallier, Paly junior and PACO musician at the Summer Chamber Orchestra Workshop, or PACO camp. Together, they faced one week of intense rehearsals.

“I was really intimidated because the music world was so much bigger, and it seemed like everyone played at a higher level and there were so many people who were so much better than me,” Rohrer says.

Ben Simon, the director of PACO, says that Rohrer seemed “extremely nervous when she first started,” but that it was clear that PACO was the perfect fit for her.

She was quick to befriend bright, talented girls like Chin and her sister, Delenn Chin.

Rohrer says that playing with many talented musicians pushed her to try harder and improve.

Even though there are many talented and dedicated students at PACO, the environment is by all accounts competitivity free.

“It’s a community to belong,” Chin says. “Most of my friends are from PACO… We’re all comfortable around each other and confident in the music that we’re able to produce together.”

Other than focusing on improving their own musicianship, the girls also teach other, less experienced children every Monday after school at Willow Oaks Elementary School’s after-school music classes. For two hours the girls help out by putting on tapes and fastening shoulder pads, straightening backs and pointing out notes on the staff.

“Even though sometimes it feels impossible to get them [the kids] to listen or understand, I always feel kind of rewarded afterwards because I know that we’re helping them develop one of the most important skills ever,” Rohrer says. “The results aren’t immediate, but it’s really amazing to

– 21 –

be able to help and watch the kids grow over time.”

This summer, Chin and Rohrer are going to the PACO camp as “Chamber Music Fellows” chosen by Director Ben Simon to coach kids in the program.

At this point, they are both accomplished senior musicians who stayed in Senior PACO for three years each. Chin is the orchestra’s first viola, leader of her section.

“Tessera is the best viola in the world,” Rohrer says, grinning at Chin.

Rohrer is the first violinist and the concertmaster, chosen by Simon, for the concert coming up this March.

“She holds lots of responsibility,” Simon says, “She is one of the strongest violinists this year and she deserves the promotion.”

The girls have also gained recognition from their fellow musicians at PACO. “Megan and Tessera are both very talented, accomplished, and hardworking people in and outside of orchestra,” says Claire Chevallier, Paly junior and PACO musician. “It’s easy to tell how dedicated and passionate they are about music when you hear them play.”

Rohrer plans to major in violin performance at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music this fall, and she also wants to sing in the school’s choir program.

Chin, who is majoring in computer science at Stanford University, says she will “continue to play music no matter what.”

When looking back at all these years at PACO, the girls feel that they’ve acquired skills beyond the music world.

“The best thing about PACO is that it teaches you about life,” Chin says. “To teach, to cooperate, to follow and to lead.” v

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Looking past the lens

PROFILES | APRIL 2014

Text by ESME ABLAZA and ELIZA ACKROYD Photos courtesy of MARGO WIXSOM

A GLIMPSE INTO PHOTO TEACHER MARGO WIXSOM’S PAST

T

HIS IS THE SECOND IN A SERIES OF profiles on Paly teachers. Photo teacher Margo Wixsom attended Bishop Kearney High School in New York and participated in several of the school activities available, such as color guard, stage tech and the art programs. We asked her to discuss how life is different at Paly, give advice to students, and reminisce about her time as a teenager. v

ABOVE The cover art of Bishop Kearney High School yearbook from 1973, which Wixsom designed and drew herself.

What was your best best moment in high school?

any WORDS OF WISDOM for students?

“My best moment of high school was in our senior year. They took four seniors away who they thought were the biggest leaders in the school and I was picked. They put the four of us in charge of a program called Senior Volunteers [which dealt with community service], and they gave us a closet and that was our office. We just felt so proud of ourselves. We had 480 seniors in our class, and we got about 400 of them matched up with different community service activities you had to do to graduate. I was one of the founding members of that program.”

“Have good friends. Talk to people when you’re down and bad things are going on. Have someone who you can talk to, don’t keep it inside, have a good cry. Make sure you have a lot of joy and laughter in your life. My friends were just really great. They kind of saved my life. They gave me a really happy place to come to and they gave me a lot of positive experiences. And I can’t tell you it was anything really awesome, just lots of hanging out. Hanging out time is really important.”

BELOW Margo Wixsom’s high school yearbook picture from 1973. She took the yearbook portraits for her entire school.

how have your values changed?

“I don’t think they really have. I got really good values in high school, mostly just from watching people that [I knew]. You have good things happen to you, and you just say, ‘that’s how I want to be and that’s how I want to treat people.’ They’re just really kind of simple, like treat people the way you want to be treated. [Also,] I don’t have to iron my hair everyday and I don’t have to spend an hour putting on makeup because I don’t think I’m pretty. I think if you let go a little bit more of that and just really focus on what you’re doing and who you’re with, life is really great. That would be my advice; learn to like yourself early.”

how IS PALY DIFFERENT FROM YOUR HIGH SCHOOL? “I love public school, I went to private school and there are so many flippin’ rules that really wear you down. And I think the biggest change is we’ve become a culture where we learn to trust our young people and we encourage them to be trustworthy. Teens have a much more confident, worthy place in the world today. Before it was more like, ‘Wait until you’re 18. Wait for your turn. Just sit down and shut up and, you know, behave yourself.’”

what was your high school experience like?

do you have any advice for your teen self?

“I loved high school. I had really, very good friends. My friends made things so much fun and introduced me to new things.”

“You are just fabulous the way you are. Relax. Have fun. Don’t worry as much.”

– 23 –

The man behind the screen

ROBERT MINKOFF REFLECTS ON PALY INFLUENCE ON HIS MOVIES Text by BRITTANY NGUYEN Art by ANTHONY LIU

R

OBERT MINKOFF, THE DIRECTOR of “The Lion King” and multiple other children’s films, graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1980, and went on to study animation at the California Institute of the Arts in San Francisco.

His first movie, “Tummy Trouble,” was released in 1989, and he has directed nine movies since. His new movie, “Mr. Peabody and Sherman,” came out March 7. In a phone interview with Verde, Minkoff reflected on his time at Paly and how it has influenced his current life and career.

What’s the best part of being a director?

Getting a chance to see your ideas come to life.

How did you participate in the movie business while you were at Paly?

I was an actor, did a lot of theatre. For me, animation was a great way of making films. I used to draw cartoons for the Campanile.

I loved film in general and I loved animation. I did a lot of performing, a lot of singing. I was in the choir and performing in the musicals and in drama as well.

What makes your work special? What characteristics do you bring to directing?

I think my background in animation, the fact that I started my career at Disney. The experience that I had really shaped my work as a director. I think every director is different, unique, and has a different point of view. My hope is that my work is special, but that’s for others to decide.

How has your childhood in Palo Alto influenced your career in directing?

When I was 15 years old, these two sisters had a book called the “Art of Disney,” a big coffee table book filled with artwork from all the Disney films and on the front of it was this huge embossed picture of Mickey Mouse. Thirteen years later, we were finishing “The Lion King,” and the producer came in and told us that a book was going to be written called the “Art of the Lion King.” It was the same person who wrote the “Art of Disney,” Christopher Finch. It was an amazing full circle. The whole point of [this story] was you can accomplish whatever dreams you have so long as you believe in it and work hard to achieve it.

What’s your style of directing?

I’ve directed a diverse group of movies. I’ve done some traditional animation, animation in live action setting, film shorts, computer animation in the live action world, live action...I’ve even done a martial arts film, so I really have a lot of different styles of movies.

Was there anything that particularly influenced your decision to go into directing?

It was really my love of animation that led me to apply to go to CalArts. I actually made a short animated film with a friend of mine who was also a Paly student named Kirk Wise. He was the one who actually told me about CalArts. I went to CalArts the year before him, but we both worked together closely, and we both ended up working at Disney. Kirk ended up directing “Beauty and the Beast.”

When did you know you wanted to be a director?

I really enjoyed the process of performing and storytelling. I would go to see films, get a bit of an education about movies by watching older movies. That had quite an impact on me. I wanted to find a way to participate in that.

Which of your movies would you say was the most

fun to direct?

I suppose whichever movie I’m working on. It’s really a privilege to be able to direct films. So whatever movie that I’m working on at any given time is the most fun.

What does being a director entail?

It’s obviously a combination of things. He’s a bit like the conductor of an orchestra. He’s also like the master of ceremonies and a bit of a storyteller. I think that’s the most important quality a director can have: an ability to tell stories.

Do you have any advice for Paly students who want to go into your field?

My advice would be to invest themselves 100 percent in whatever they want, and not give up until they get it. v

– 24 –

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PROFILES | APRIL 2014

THE ROAD LE THE PATH TO SUCCESS MAY NOT ENTAIL A COLLEGE DEGREE

M

ARSHALL BEDDOE, DRESSED in khaki’s, an ironed white shirt and dress shoes drove his 1989 white Ford ranger 60-miles to interview at Irvine-based computer security company Foundstone. During his interview Beddoe, then 17, sat across from George Kurtz, the founder, staring at a five-figure check that would effectively take him off the computer engineering market.

“I could not believe I pulled this thing off,” Beddoe says.

After over a decade of being in the computer engineering field, Beddoe, 31, has never attended college. His high school hacking skills have carried him through the young computer industry as it has evolved. He recently founded his first startup, Adtonik, with co-founder Michael Masters. As Chief Technology Officer, Beddoe has worked at some of the top computer security companies in the world, including Macafee in his 13 year career.

Being in the computer engineering field, Beddoe has learned that it takes hard work and perseverance to be successful, and that one can do so with or without a college education. Laszlo Bock, the Senior Vice President of people operations for Google says the technology industry evolves rapidly to satisfy the parched well of engineers by turning away from people of their kind with bach-

– 26 –

PROFILES | APRIL 2014

SS TRAVELED Text and Photography by CLAIRE PRIESTLEY

At Foundstone, Beddoe, new to the industry, had not yet garelor’s degrees, and instead gravitates toward those with the skills nered the knowledge and skills that an engineer acquires after years and experience necessary to work in the engineering industry.

The growing computer industry has reflected the talent of of experience, and thus experimented during his six years there.

Beddoe’s lack of a college education has in the past affected a young hackers and given them the opportunity to mold to engineering directed fields. With the recent job openings, the number few job opportunities, but as the technology world has evolved, he of engineers graduating has fallen short of the number of avail- has been able to flourish without a degree.

“I’m a scrappy, come-from-the-bottom underdog guy,” Bedable jobs.

Beddoe never went to college and has a bad memory of his doe says.

Beddoe’s involvement in the startup Adtonik, a second screen high school experience. Although those years were difficult, they advertising platform targeting mobile users based on the television prepared him to pursue a career in computer engineering.

“To be brutally honest I didn’t take school seriously,” Beddoe shows they watch, has helped him push through tough times and says. “I put a lot of stock into being smart and considered myself has learned to avoid any feelings of excitement or dread when things do or do not work out. a smart kid in high school.”

“It’s more of a mental game doing a startup than anything After transferring schools three times during high school, Beddoe became involved in the computer hacking scene, using it else because you have to have endurance,” Beddoe says. “One is consistently oscillating between positive and negative. It can really as an escape from his social frustrations. mess with your head and your emotions and “It was pretty innocent. ... [hacking] stuff like that.” was more for the challenge of learning how Beddoe recently went through the rethis stuff works,” Beddoe says. Beddoe “I had this great opcruiting process at Adtonik, keeping his own grew up in a family with the expectation of portunity, it was the origins in mind. No matter your pedigree, if going to college; had he not received such right time, right place.” you are creative and capable of thinking outan attractive offer from Foundstone, he ­— Marshall Beddoe, side the box, you are ahead of the game, Bedwould have gone to a community college and later transferred. co-founder of Adtonik doe says.

“Here’s the thing,” Beddoe says. “I have “But I had this great opportunity, it interviewed Ph.D.s. I have interviewed people was the right time, right place,” Beddoe says. “What’s really the purpose of college is to teach you, give you with Master’s degrees. All that stuff really proves to me is you’re a broad set of knowledge, show yourself and others that you can really good at paying attention in class, and really good at taking stick with it, do the work, balance life and your responsibilities. … tests and doing your homework. It doesn’t mean you’re a critical thinker. It doesn’t mean you are a problem solver.”

I was kind of getting that education through work.”

Over the years, Beddoe has learned that because the technolMissing out on college forced Beddoe to realize that his growth had been stunted in his emotional development and his ogy world is constantly evolving, the industry looks for someone who can adapt and learn as new software is released. understanding of responsibilities in other areas of his life.

“I’m hiring somebody who is willing to understand what they “I missed out on my young adulthood, I missed out on that period of growing up,” Beddoe says. “I kind of went from kid in don’t know,” Beddoe says. “If they don’t know, they can figure it high school to adult with six figure job responsibilities, there was out. That’s a really big skill. That’s a huge skill.”

Beddoe prompts students to explore alternatives to college no transition period.”

Once Beddoe got the big picture, he realized that there were a and believes that not everyone is designed to go to a four-year lot of things he had yet to learn, and being a self-learner, he would school, especially since, according to Beddoe, universities are often go and pick up a book and read it and learn it as he went. This type behind the times on some of the newer technologies and learning of learning worked for everything except math, Beddoe says. To habits.

“Entrepreneurs are usually not made from that kind of strucmake up for that deficiency Beddoe attended Calculus, Linear algebra, Probability and Statistics classes at Saddleback Community ture,” Beddoe says. “We don’t do well in environments where there is only one way to do something.” v College in Orange County.

– 27 –

CULTURE | APRIL 2014

DO YOU WANNA BUILD A SNO-ZEN? A N E W O P T I O N F O R S H A V E D I C E I N T H E B AY A R E A Text and Photography by ELIZA ACKROYD

U

P UNTIL THE AFTERNOON OF FEB. 23, I was living a naive, simple existence. It was then that I lifted a life-altering spoonful of fluffy ice into my mouth not knowing what to expect when it hit my tongue. Nothing turned into something, an experience similar to eating cotton candy, and I slipped into a nirvana. In the bowl, the ice was arranged in jagged peaks and valleys, a cold landscape boasting an assortment of colors. Mochi, chocolate drizzle and strawberries among other condiments littered its slopes and add to the palette of complementary flavors. A mix between frozen yogurt, ice cream and snow, Sno-Zen’s dessert ice, a traditional Japanese street food, was light but flavorful, satisfying yet not guiltinducing.

Located in Mountain View, this family owned business is in a residential area removed from the hustle and bustle of busy downtown areas. One corner is home to a TV that plays Netflix, and a stool nearby is host to cards and board games.

Jennypher Doan and Teague Ho, a married couple, founded the business with the help of their family members Tom Ho,

Mary Nguyen and Thien Ho, who work with them and assist when things get too busy. Their location attracts people from all demographics, creating a welcoming atmosphere.

“We have people from all different backgrounds coming to enjoy our snow,” Doan says. “We knew that shaved snow has universal appeal [and] it really is something that everyone can enjoy.”

Palo Alto High School students have begun to flock to there to satiate their cold dessert cravings.

“We wanted to try the shaved snow,” senior Aashli Budhiraja, who frequently documents her Sno-Zen expeditions via Snapchat and Instagram, says. “I go, like, once a week.”

In contrast to ice cream and frozen yogurt, which are mainly creamy, the snow breaks apart in flakes then melts into a sweet swirl of flavors in your mouth.

Shaving the snow allows for the absorption of syrup by the ice, making for a more flavorful, light and gourmet experience.

The flavor infused in the ice is complemented by syrups, enhancing the experience. The result is delicious, and keeps customers returning for more. v

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The Chocolate Kiss consists of chocolate snow, strawberry slices and chocolate drizzle.

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THE SNOW WHITE The Snow White includes sweet milk snow, red beans, mochi and black sesame condensed milk on the top.

THE MANGO TO TANGO Mango snow, with mango chunks and passion fruit jelly makes for a fresh treat.

CULTURE | APRIL 2014

NOTHING WILL WORK IF YOU DON’T

D

Text by WILL QUEEN and LANDE WATSON Photography by WILL QUEEN

Pa

ne

er Devi rk

li

Weitzma n

on

An

Powe r

Where: Round Table Pizza How Often: 12 to 22 hours a week Why: “I wanted to save up money because I have big plans for this summer that are going to require big funds.”

Most Memorable Experience: “One time I got a phone call from someone who lived in Walla Walla, Washington. They tried to order pizza and it took me five minutes to convince them that I in fact worked in Palo Alto and did not take calls for a pizza place in Washington.”

Where: YMCA (Lifeguard and Swim Instructor) How Often: 25 hours a week Why: “To be able to have money for anything that isn’t clothes, food at home, or other basic necessities.”

Opinion on Minimun Wage: “$10 [my wage] is honestly a very good rate for high school students. Even though many of us are bright and talented, we, in the words of Mr. Bloom, have no human capital.”

ew Wats dr

n va

s

Where: Peet’s Coffee How Often: 20 hours a week on average Why: “Experience. Having a job should be necessary for a lot of teenagers, especially Palo Alto teenagers, who don’t realize how much real world experience they’re lacking.”

Most Memorable Experience: “One time I took an order from a guy named Julian but I thought I heard him say tree, so I put his name down as tree.”

Opinion on Minimum Wage: It should be raised to $10, but $12-14 is more realistic.

E

Where: CREAM How Often: 12 to 16 hours a week Why: “I got a job because I wanted to make my own money and gain work experience for next year when I’m going to be on my own. I’ve learned a lot about customer service and especially how to be patient with certain customers.”

Opinion on Minimum Wage: “I don’t think it should be raised drastically because then employers would be looking for more qualified employees since they would have to pay them more.”

E

ina Dutr ar

a

K

uring his recent State of the Union address, President Obama announced that he would raise the minimum wage to nine dollars an hour. With seniors reaching an age where they must learn to support themselves, many are getting jobs. Verde interviewed Paly students, asking them about their jobs and how they feel about minumum wage. v

Where: City of Palo Alto Aquatics (Lifeguard and Swim Instructor) How Often: 30 hours a week during the summer, significantly less during the school year Why: “I first got a job for the experience and money.”

Opinion on Minimum Wage: “I think the minimum wage should be raised.”

On Internship at the Veteran’s Association: “I decided to intern at the V.A. because it seemed super interesting. My internship was quite educational because we studied human anatomy in depth and we had to learn to work with a lab technician.”

– 29 –

CULTURE | APRIL 2014

Shattering the Crystal Ball

– 30 –

CULTURE | APRIL 2014

INVESTIGATING THE WORLD OF PSYCHIC READERS Text and Photography by JACK BROOK

T

HOUGH HE NEVER GRADUATED from college, Randall Koll still reads at a much higher level than, say, your average Harvard professor. Psychic reads, that is. Sitting cross-legged in the middle of his green-and-purple living room, hair neatly parted, Koll doesn’t look like your stereotypical “neon sign” fortune teller. The only indication that this is the workplace of a thriving psychic and not merely the pad of a sophisticated fashionista is the copy of Bhudhadharmism: Practitioner’s Quarterly on the coffee table.

“I had it all,” says Koll, 45, of his illustrious career as an interior designer. “The fame, television appearances— notoriety. But I wasn’t happy.”

Believing he always had a sixth sense, Koll began training at the Berkeley Psychic Institute 15 years ago, eventually opening up a full-time practice in San Francisco three years ago. Charging from $65 for a half hour to $250 for an hour-and-a-half reading, Koll is one of over 82,000 psychic readers in the United States. Gallup reports that 32 percent of Americans believe that the spirits of the dead can return, and more than half of Americans believe that psychic, spiritual or mind power can heal the human body.

Unlike a psychiatrist or a psychologist — positions which require a degree and a license — anyone can be a psychic reader, or at least say they are, though professional readers like Koll often undergo formal training. Thus, as Koll and others are quick to concede, there is a wide variety of readers with differing levels of ability and sincerity. As a result it is difficult to judge the industry as a whole based on any one of its readers. The vague knowledge and lack of science surrounding psychic reading make it nearly as hazy and undefined as the spirit world with which psychics claim to communicate. Much of what psychic readers do is shrouded in ambiguity, yet psychics, and their clients, are quite forthcoming in that regard.

moment to realize who they are.”

Because psychic readings are “intensely private” and intimate, Koll places paramount importance on maintaining objectivity by not judging his clients in order to be able to offer clear advice.

“I don’t want to bring any of my own emotions into the reading,” Koll says. “I’m purely focused on extracting their information, letting them process and heal on their own. Letting people be who they are is fascinating.”

Psychic readers report seeing images projected from a person’s aura or energy field that serve to provide a snapshot of the person’s internal state or a link to their past; it appears, Koll says, as would a picture on a television screen.

Koll says that his relationship with the future is that of an educated guesser, not a predictor, helping to prepare people for tomorrow.

He worries that, by being too specific with what he intuits lies ahead, he may mislead clients down errant paths, “programming” them to take certain actions. Koll says that his clients come for a variety of reasons, — Randall Koll, whether they seek to learn about their past, prepare for the future, or SF Psychic Reader simply to gain advice.

Another established psychic, Benson Wong, 62, has provided psychic readings from his San Francisco home in Presidio Heights for the past 40 years, attracting a wide variety of entrepreneurs and professionals. He estimates he has done over 100,000 readings.

“I shift their energy, get them to a gold space, a place where they want to be,” Wong says. “I identify the person’s challenges, and show them how they can get better. I say: ‘It’s up to you, but here are the ways the paths lead’.”

Wong says that a responsible psychic does not encourage his clients to return; at most, he will see a client once every few months. Wong is of the “teach a man to fish” philosophy.

“I don’t want to be anyone’s guru,” Wong says. “It’s not about getting them to come back, but getting them to be able to go off on their own. I don’t want people hanging on to me, I want to teach them how they can use energy for themselves,

“People need validation. They want to know that what they’re doing has a purpose, that it matters, that they belong here.”

Reading Between the Lives “[When performing a reading] I am in a meditation space, with my eyes closed,” Koll says. “I ask permission to view their [the client’s] energy and then when I am done, I separate, so much so that if I were to see them on the street, it takes me a

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CULTURE | APRIL 2014 tences but in words,” says Thomas, who also works as a reading aid in the Santa Clara School District. “I might hear, ‘heart attack’. I’ll have to ask: ‘Did your mother have a heart attack?’ [The spirit] didn’t say that, but that’s what I am guessing. You have to check in and get validation from the person: Why am I getting what I am getting?”

and improve their lives, and teach others around them so they can feel good too. I give them the tools, hopefully they can use them.”

Likewise to Wong, Koll believes the importance of psychic readings transcends the sort of pageantry it is commonly associated with.

“People need validation,” Koll says.

“They want to know that what they’re doing has a purpose, that it matters, that they belong here. I think it’s important for people to know they were meant to be here.” “...Who Happens to See Dead People.”

Unlike Wong and Koll, Leanne Thomas does not work as a psychic, instead lead-

ing a relatively modest life as a “normal wife and school teacher who happens to see dead people”.

Thomas is a medium, meaning that she says she can communicate with the spirits of the deceased. She says that, while all mediums are psychics, not all psychics are mediums, the difference being that psychics gather information from reading the energy of their client while a mediums collect information from a third-party, a spirit.

Thomas says attempting to understand what a particular spirit is trying to convey through the sounds or mental images they send to her can require quite a bit of conjecture, like playing a game of charades. Except with ghosts.

“Spirits communicate not in full sen-

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Mixed Media Messages While Thomas practices her mediumship as a sort of hobby, others, such as James Van Praagh, have gained international fame and recognition by commercializing their psychic abilities through books and television shows.

After moving to Los Angeles in his early twenties, he was invited to visit a psychic medium who informed a skeptical Van Praagh that within two years he would become the voice of the spirit world. Despite his doubts, Van Praagh began meditating for one hour every Tuesday night for the next seven years, eventually gaining, so he claims, the ability communicate with the dead.

Much of the criticism towards psychics has been aimed at television shows like Van Praagh’s short-lived“Beyond: With James Van Praagh,” a reality show in which he conducted televised readings of audience members. “[TV psychics] throw stuff out to the audience, and follow the trail,” says Leonard Tramiel, a prominent skeptic of psychics and the coordinator for the San Francisco Center of Inquiry, an organization which actively seeks to disprove the supernatural.

Tramiel believes that psychic readers have a legitimate, albeit mistaken, interest in helping others and a genuine belief in their own abilities. Through remembering the correct insights and forgetting the misses, Tramiel says that psychics come to believe they are endowed with special powers, when really what they are doing is getting lucky with an educated guess every now and then.

Van Praagh looks to particular phenomena that occur during his readings as adequate proof of his abilities.

“The evidential details that come through, like, ‘You have a birth certificate in your right-hand drawer’ — how do you explain that?” he says.

CULTURE | APRIL 2014

LEANNE THOMAS (opposite page) operates out of her house in Santa Clara. It was only after marrying her husband that she told him she could communicate with the dead.

BENSON WONG brings down the hammer on a crystal ball. Wong discovered his psychic abilities at age 8, after the spirit of his deceased younger sister returned to talk with him.

T

“It’s chance. HOUGH Pure chance,” Tramiel HE says. “If I say youNEVER have a particular document in the upper right drawer of your graduated from coldesk, well, the average desk has four to six Randall drawers, and if thelege, document was in Koll your reads at have a much desk — lets say onestill in 100 people that document in their desk — then the odds of higher level than, say, your average guessing the right drawer, is one in 600.

If Harvard professor. Psychic reads, you do 1000 readings, you’re going to get it that is. Sitting cross-legged in the right a few times.”

middle of his green-and-purple living room,about his hairPsychics neatly parted and Psyched Whether or not the of psychics his lower lip full ofeffect braces, Koll is based on the spiritual world, intuition, doesn’t look like your stereotypical or even lucky guesses, it is evident that the “neon sign” fortune teller. The only benefits many derive from psychics are indication that this is the workplace real. of aAnthony thrivingZamudio, psychic and Ph.D.,not themerely Direc-

tor of Behavioral Sciences at the California Hospital Family Medicine-Keck USC School of Medicine, went to see his first psychic in 1996, at the age of 42, in the midst of a particularly difficult four year period of his life in which his father passed away.

Zamudio compares believing in the power of psychics to believing in God: it is often through personal experiences that someone begins to have faith, to believe in something intangible and essentially unprovable, at least scientifically.

“For me, my gauge of a psychic is this: If what I’m hearing is helpful, if it clarifies things, if it makes me feel better inside, then that’s great,” Zamudio says.

Elizabeth Kumari, 40, a chef and yoga

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teacher from Saratoga Springs, New York, has a reading every few months, as she has for much of the past twenty years.

“I have a sense of feeling clearer about my options and which is the right one to take,” says Kumari, of the benefits of a reading.

Kumari likens a psychic to a life coach, therapist, mentor and spiritual guide, contending that most people who visit psychics have a genuine need for personal growth and development, as well as a desire to understand how they can achieve their goals and motivations.

“True clairvoyants offer a way to become more good, more sensitive, more spiritual,” she says. “And how can that be bad?” v

CULTURE | APRIL 2014

Y UTH of the YEAR

Text, photography, and videography by CLAIRE PRIESTLEY and MADISON MIGNOLA

THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF THE PENINSULA RECOGNIZES ITS MEMBERS

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HE YOUTH OF THE YEAR, HELD ON March 27, was an important part of the Boys and Girls Club of the Peninsula, an event recognizing its senior members for their hard work and perseverance. The high school seniors, Sandy Orozco, Edgar Hernandez, Losimani Ulukivaiola and Stacie Foreman competed in a friendly competition involving public speaking and speech writing. Following hours of hard work, their efforts culminated in a public speech in front of the audience gathered in BGCP Moldaw-Zaffaroni Clubhouse, where they were evaluated by judges Sheryl Sandberg, James Slavet, Gideon Yu and Odette Harris.

Video coverage of the event can be found online at Verde Magazine’s website at www.verdemagazine.com. v FUNDRAISING Jeff BGCP to a room full of WINNER Sandy Orozco PANEL Sheryl Sandberg,

Weiner, Linkedin successful Silicon won the Youth of a judge, talks to

CEO, pitched Valley residents the Year award. the contestants.

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CULTURE | APRIL 2014

Keep calm and App on We breathe apps like we breathe air

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fter the bulky orange

“get ready” sign flashes fingers begin to tap upon the smart phone screen in a rhythmic beat guiding the pixelated bird, the main character of the viral game “Flappy Bird,” between rows of green pipes. All of a sudden, the world shakes and “game Over” blares across the screen. A hammer swiftly smashes itself onto the smart phone, and the black screen is webbed by silver cracks.

Although destroying a smart phone with a hammer seems ludicrous, it doesn’t fall far from the reactions people have towards the popular application Flappy Bird.

People have obsessively played with it to the point where the creator of the game, Dong Nguyen has allegedly pulled the game off the application store due to concerns over the game’s addictiveness.

Addicted to apps Games found on smart phones and the internet like Flappy Bird are addicting, and their impact can be found all around the world.

In China, there are actually rehabilitation centers for people whose love for games has turned into a medical disorder. With a

combination of health and military drills these teenagers are taught the dangers of the internet and how to stay away from it.

While boot-camp-esque facilities are necessary when a person plays games for more than three days they should be called into play for everyday use.

Addictions of this level are extreme and abnormal, but the fact remains that app use takes up big proportion of student’s time.

Palo Alto High School senior Freddy Kellison-Linn, who created an app game, cites the longevity of games as a factor in their appeal.

“I think what makes a lot of the conventionally addicting games so addictive is the fact that you’re never really done,” Kellison-Linn says. “You can always beat the next maze or fly through the next pipe, so there is tons of replay value.”

However, games do not just provide replay value — it has been shown that they affect the brain in a similar way to drugs.

A study presented at the British Neuroscience Association Festival of Neuroscience showed that when participants felt that they were about to win, the areas of the brain that were activated overlapped the areas of the brain that are activated when the person won.

In other words, losing set off similar

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Text by ZOFIA AHMAD, BRIGID GODFREY and ANGELA XU Art by ANGELA XU neural reactions to winning, although the two should normally trigger opposite reactions.

This means that the participant would feel successful even if they only came close to winning, which makes playing the game more appealing (and addicting).

A Community for Apps Apps can also be used to bring a population together and foster collaboration on a community’s problems.

One example of this is the Hack Palo Alto challenge, recently conducted by Palo Alto’s Chief Information Officer Jonathan Reichental.

“This challenge creates a forum for a public-private partnership in experimenting with technology innovation for the benefit of community,” Reichental says.

The finalists were announced on March 13, and included ideas like improving the use of public transportation and parking, ideas to support greater community participation in city decision making and several solutions to support Palo Alto animals and pets, according to Reichental.

Future of Apps Apps have already had a huge impact on

CULTURE | APRIL 2014

Addictive Internet usage Survey Results 1.4 hours 1.2 hours

1.2 hours

2 hours

58 o o

42 o o

Many would assume Paly males spend more recreational time on smartphone games. In actuality, Paly females, on average, spend 1.4 hours on smartphone activities dialy. More time spent than the average 1.2 hours for males.

Paly students tend to spend more time on computers and laptops instead of smartphones. Paly students spend 1.2 hours daily on smartphones as opposed to the 2 hours spent daily on their computers or laptops.

1

2

3

Students rely mostly on texting, to connect with others. The second most popular medium is Facebook, followed by e-mail.

A majority of Paly students, 58 percent, believe that they are not addicted to the internet, while 42 percent of Paly students believe that they are. Internet addiction is more likely among users who use the internet longer than six hours daily. The average Paly student spends about half that amount of time on recreational electronics.

2.3 HOURS Students spend an average of 2.3 hours daily on nonelectronic activities, compared to 3.6 hours average spent on electronics.

Source: 188 students surveyed anonymously filled during English classes.

the world, and continue to change the way our society works every day.

“The world is increasingly at our fingertips, wherever and whenever,” Reichental says.

However, Reichental believes that this new accessibility does not come without challenges and concerns. Despite negative aspects, Reichental thinks that apps will become a bigger part of every day life.

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“Ultimately, I think this shift is positive,” Reichental says “but I think we’ll all be surprised at the capabilities and unanticipated outcomes it enables in the years ahead.” v

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2

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Text by ESME ABLAZA and JASPER MCEVOY Photography by ANA SOFIA AMIEVA-WANG and ESME ABLAZA

LOST AND FOUND

TREASURES AND TRINKETS OF PALY’S FLEA MARKET

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HE SUN BEATS down on two long rows of tents, reflecting off of brass belt buckles and handmade jewelry. Colorful tapestries at one stall flutter lazily in the light breeze, while small spherical terrariums sway back and forth on strings at another booth farther down the line. Customers bargain with vendors, and children excitedly sift through merchandise laid out on the cement.

The relative quiet is shattered as a tall man wearing a floppy white hat and dark sunglasses strides down one of the rows, brandishing two paintings and shouting, “One dollar! One dollar each! Anybody love me?”

This is just a normal day at Palo Alto

High School’s Flea Market, which takes place from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. one Saturday every month. Anything from old sheriff ’s badges to painted skulls can be found in the parking lot in front of the Tower Building.

Founded in 1989 as a fundraiser for the Paly band, the flea market has grown into a time-honored tradition, serving not only as a source of revenue, but as a gathering place for a diverse slice of the Palo Alto community.

Phyllis Smith and Cathy Brown, two Paly parents, were faced with the task of organizing a fundraiser for the band 25 years ago. According to Smith, who still coordinates the event, the original plan was to do a marathon, but the idea came up to

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run a flea market during the race. At first an afterthought, the market proved to be a quick success.

“People are always looking for a bargain, that’s a fact of life,” Smith says. “People came when they heard that there was going to be a flea market here.”

To gather funds, the band sells spots to vendors ahead of time and runs a barbecue the day of the market. According to current band director Jeff Willner, the barbecue is an efficient way to help the vendors as well as the school. Besides bringing in money, it assures that the vendors do not have to leave their stalls to get food, and thus miss potential customers.

In addition to the vital funds that the event is able to provide for the band, Will-

w CULTURE | APRIL 2014 ner attests to the unique experience that the market provides.

“A lot of the flea markets you go to now, it’s a lot of people selling new garbage,” Willner says. “For us, it’s a real live flea market, It’s people selling stuff from out of their garage... So it’s a little more diverse and eclectic than a lot of them that you go to now.”

The flea market’s uncommon environment, as well as being a product of the wide variety of merchandise available, results from its small and manageable size.

“We haven’t outgrown our capability of being able to control it,” Smith says.

“There’s a couple of incidences in the past

where we have not invited people back, but because we’re small, we’ve really been able to keep a handle on that type of thing.”

As the years have gone by, the band has become increasingly adept at running the event. According to Willner, the process is so efficient that he has little role other than organizing volunteers at the beginning of the year.

“All I do is, I make sure that people can get in, because we really try to make it so that the parent volunteers and [Smith] are able to do their thing,” Willner says.

“Right now, it’s been going for so long, that it’s almost like it’s this continuum. … It’s a pretty well-oiled machine at this point.” v

4

5

THE VENDORS

SHIRLUI LAM Time as a vendor: 2 years Merchandise: Sun hats, potted plants, and school supplies Favorite part about being a vendor: “The customers are very nice here.

I like making friends. Everybody here knows each other. That’s why I’m here.”

IMAN ROZIBYE Time as a vendor: 2 or 3 years Merchandise: Oriental rugs, power tools, baseball bats Favorite part about the market: The Palo Alto community

6

1. Jon Frias, who attends Barron Park Elementary School, plays with a toy truck from the market. The market was started by two Paly parents in 1989.

2. A glass terrarium dangles in the parking lot in front of the Tower Building.

3. A row of scarves hangs on a tent at one vendor’s stall.

4. Mini cacti are on display at Shirlui Lam’s stall. Lam also sells sun hats and school supplies.

5. Trinkets rest in a glass case, awaiting inspection from potential customers.

6. Handmade jewelry hangs on a stand at a stall in the middle aisle of the market.

Many vendors make their own wares.

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JOSH FRIAS Time as a vendor: First time Merchandise: Clothes, power tools, instruments, rainbow looms Impression of the market: He likes the environment and can see himself coming back.

CULTURE | APRIL 2014

We want the Airwaves PALY RADIO CLUB ANTICIPATES THE LAUNCH OF ITS STUDENT-RUN RADIO SHOW Text by SAMANTHA DEWEES and JAMIE ALLENDORF Photography by SAMANTHA DEWEES

I

N THE HEART OF STANFORD campus in a small studio under the Pigott Theater, tucked behind a corner and beneath a short flight of stairs, lies a heavy black door with the words KZSU peeling off the front. Small and insignificant to the common passerby, this hidden studio is in actuality home to an assortment of dedicated individuals, several live broadcasting studios, and an eclectic collection of vinyl music records.

KZSU, a nonprofit student-run radio station based on the campus of Stanford University, aims to entertain Palo Alto residents with a mixture of content ranging from music to sports to local news. Originally founded in the 1940s, KZSU received an official FM license in 1964, and now broadcasts a wide range of material, according to general manager and Stanford student Ma’ayan Dembo. Dembo joined the radio station during her senior year at Gunn High School, and has now contributed to the station for five years. She runs her own radio show titled “Pumping Iron,” and explains that the station is run entirely by students, school funding, and community volunteers.

“It’s totally open to anyone,” Dembo says. “We’re always look-

ing for people to produce their own sound and play it … it’s more representative of the community.”

It is this aspect of the radio station that has led a group of dedicated Palo Alto High School students to create Paly’s first Radio Club, founded with the intention of expanding Paly’s media department to include radio journalism. The club hopes to lead a Paly student-run radio show broadcast weekly on KZSU. “[We want to] produce a show each week at KZSU Stanford that is somehow meaningful and relevant to our school community,” says sophomore Maya Kandell, co-founder of the Paly Radio Club.

Drawing its inspiration from the NPR radio show “This American Life,” the Paly Radio Club hopes to combine a mixture of pre-recorded news segments, student musicians, student writers, and a variety of other material on their weekly show.

“We want what we produce to matter and to reach people,” Kandell says. “We want to try and produce as much as we can on campus … not everything will be live.”

The Radio Club hopes to begin broadcasting a live radio show in April, but before this is possible, they must first receive air clearance through a course offered free of charge at the KZSU station.

“Whatever you need to know you learn as part of the class,” Dembo says. “I think it’s great that they [Paly students] are getting involved. It would be really cool if there was some sort of ongoing

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FROM LEFT TO RIGHT Paly sophomores Clara Wolfe, Saba Moussavian and Kai Gallagher are involved in KZSU’s radio training program.

exchange between Paly and KZSU.” The Paly Radio Club hopes for the same.

“It’s possible that this could be turned into a class or a publication at Paly,” Kandell says. “For now what we want to do is start to gain a following.”

According to Dembo, KZSU has long been involved in broadcasting information about social movements, music, sports events, and local news.

“We do most of the sports for most of the home games,” Dembo says. “It’s always live.”

The station hosts and broadcasts live music performances every week, in a special event called Wednesday Night Live.

“Every Wednesday night we have a live band come in,” Dembo says. “We get to bring in local bands and give them some air play.”

Likewise, the Paly Radio Club hopes to bring student musicians and bands onto their show, and additionally feature student journalists, writers, and actors in readings and performances.

Sophomore Saba Moussavian, the Radio Club’s Digital Strategist, has high hopes for the club’s future.

“It’s pretty exciting to be introducing a new medium of journalism to Paly,” she says. “There is so much you can do with radio and I am looking forward to giving a new angle on stories.”

Paly English teacher and Radio Club adviser Lucy Filppu looks forward to the Radio Club’s prospective debut in April.

“I am a personal radio fan,” Filppu says. “We’ve lost the auditory aestheticism of the voice. … Voice has a really important place in media.”

Filppu, who has wanted to start a radio class for several years, believes the new Radio Club will be especially successful because it is student-generated.

“It feels more authentic because it’s being student-driven,” she says. “I am so interested in the idea of student-driven storytelling … [to be able to] listen to stories from your own student body.”

According to Dembo, KZSU prides itself in its diversity, as it aims to give a voice to all members of the community, regardless of their background or interests.

“Anything you can think of we have at the station,” Dembo says. “Anyone can get involved, there are no limitations … anyone can come and play regardless of their age, background [or preferences].”

The Radio Club hopes to expand these ideas to Paly radio journalism in the future.

“Radio is a really egalitarian way to give new voice to the school,” Filppu says. “[It provides] more of an opportunity for voice from the campus to be heard.” v

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CULTURE | APRIL 2014 Text by ESME ABLAZA and JOE MEYER Photography by ANA SOFIA AMIEVA-WANG

INTO THE WOODS ALICE’S RESTAURANT OFFERS REFRESHING ESCAPE

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AT E A F T E R N O O N S U N L I G H T fil ters through towering redwood trees, creating dappled shadows on the asphalt of the snaking highway CA 84 as it ascends the Woodside mountains. Gaps in the trees reveal miles of greenery intermingled with houses set against a backdrop of bright blue sky. The forest eventually opens at the intersection of Skyline and 84 to reveal a wood cabin, guarded by an iron owl and an American flag. A welcoming front porch beckons behind an asphalt parking lot overflowing with motorcycles and teeming with life. Picnic tables line the porch, crammed with the patrons of Alice’s Restaurant. On the far side of the porch, through a set of doors, lies the main inside area of Alice’s, and a building in the back houses an additional bar.

The restaurant, renowned for its unique location and ambience, serves classic American comfort food. Alice Taylor opened the restaurant in the 1960s, naming it after an Arlo Guthrie anti-war song that shared her name, but the restaurant has since changed hands and is now owned by a different family. According to their website, the building was a general store catering to local loggers in the early 1900s before being converted into a restaurant in the 1950s.

People from all walks of life visit Alice’s, from biker gangs in leather jackets embroidered with their gang names to families winding down after a long day’s hike. The restaurant is a notorious biker hangout, and conversation is often punctuated by the revving of motorcycle engines. The patrons at Alice’s are friendly, smiling

and making conversation with a genial American hospitality. Alice’s is the type of place where waitresses call customers “honey” and smile as they take orders.

One of the more subtle pleasures of the restaurant is the drive there. The roads wind up through the Santa Cruz mountains, and you can choose between the peaceful redwood forests of Kings Mountain or Old La Honda roads, the spectacular views of Page Mill Rd., or the more direct yet slightly less scenic route 84. It takes approximately half an hour to get from downtown Palo Alto to the restaurant, so Alice’s is definitely a place that should be reserved for leisurely weekends.

Alice’s boasts a truly unique ambiance. Customers seat themselves at one of the picnic tables on the restaurant’s deck, often sharing a table with at least one other party. The tables are set up in a communal, open-seating arrangement. The porch, warmed by numerous heat lamps during cold weather, feels cozy despite its open-air format. The restaurant’s indoor seating area is similar to the outside, though it has upholstered booths and single-party tables. In the back is a bar with a smaller porch, which looks out on a backyard lawn, where children often play while they wait for their families to finish eating. The location in the redwoods makes for a refreshing, natural atmosphere impossible in an urban setting.

Alice’s is an excellent place to escape to with friends after a long, hard week. It is a refuge: a cabin among the trees where one can seek a good meal and get away from the mind-numbing grind of day-to-day life, if just for a little while. v

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URBAN CANOPY

L O C A L N O N P R O F I T S H A D E S PA L O A LTO Text by LUCY FOX and KATIE EBINGER Photography by LUCY FOX

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AVIER VASQUEZ GLOWS with pride as he gestures towards a row of trees that he helped plant and prune through the organization Canopy. The now-mature trees shade the Eastside College Preparatory School campus in East Palo Alto where he attends high school. For Vasquez, the row of thriving trees is a step toward a thriving urban forest.

Canopy is a local organization that dedicates itself to nature preservation in Palo Alto, East Palo Alto and surrounding communities. Vasquez, a senior at Eastside College Preparatory School and a Canopy youth staff member, has been working with the organization for the past two years.

As Palo Alto continues to expand as a mediumsized city, the trees and wildlife that once dwelled here are pushed further and further away. Founded in 1996 to combat this problem, Canopy consults the city when new trees need to be planted.

“Canopy’s mission is to educate, inspire, and engage youth, residents, schools, businesses and government agencies to protect and enhance local urban forests,” says Anwyn Hurxthal, part-time Communications Director at Canopy.

Canopy relies on volunteers from within the community to achieve its mission of preserving nature in the city by educating the community, plant- TREES Canopy volunteer Carole Langston by a tree planted by Canopy at Nixon Elementary School in Palo Alto several years ago. ing and maintaining trees.

Vasquez’s job includes planting and maintaining trees and educating community members about place on the second Saturday of every month, certified arborists like proper tree care. herself identify trees, give care advice, provide historical context for “I wanted to work with something outside,” Vasquez says. “I trees and answer questions. knew the basics of planting a tree but I’m pretty sure before CanoAt Henry M. Gunn High School, students are currently depy it [the tree] probably would have died within a week.” veloping a tree walk where students can scan a QR code on trees Vasquez works with Canopy twice a week during the school around campus, which will direct them to a website to learn about year and longer hours during the summer to plant and maintain the scanned tree. A similar tree walk was once developed for Paly, trees. He has worked hard during his career at Canopy and was thus although according to Langston, it failed to attract an audience. awarded the Young Forester Award, which is awarded annually to “The more you know, the more you understand … [and] the an involved youth who models Canopy’s core values of stewardship, more likely you are to want to help take care of it,” Langston says. education and service, according to Canopy’s website.

Canopy exemplifies this philosophy with the education they “I think the most rewarding thing was when I got the Young provide to the youth of the area.

Forester Award because it was great to be up there being acknowl“Canopy brings awareness of the environmental, social and edged by so many people,” Vasquez says. economic benefits of the urban forest,” Hurxthal says. “Today, Carole Langston, Palo Alto High School parent and volunteer at Canopy, plants trees around the community during the winter Canopy’s programs reach thousands of area school children through and educates people about the urban forest. Langston also leads tree campus tree plantings, tree care and environmental science lessons walks through different neighborhoods. On tree walks, which take that support school curriculum.” v

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FEATURES | APRIL 2014

A PRINTED REVOLUTION

THREE-DIMENSIONAL PRINTERS WILL CHANGE THE WORLD Text by WILL QUEEN Photography by ANA SOFIA AMIEVA-WANG and WILL QUEEN Left The printing mechanism can shift in any direction, allowing the construction of objects in any shape or size Right One of the small models on the market, usually running around.

Bottom A 3D printer in the process of printing an object. The printer works by slowly layering plastic to create the object.

F

OR A WHILE AFTER the first modern automobile was unveiled in 1886, it was referred to as the “horseless carriage.” Its potential was not fully realized at the time.

What the car did for transportation, the 3D printer might just do for the production of objects.

People will think about creation differently, as people will be able to print in their own homes, and will be able to print anything they want.

As of late, stem cells are also being printed to create new organs for transplants. In the future, we may be able to print food and even living organisms. The possibilities are endless.

3D printing works by layering thin coats of plastic, in the shape of the programmed model. These models are created using computer-aided design programs such as Solidworks or Autodesk.

The family of John Alex Warnock, a UC Berkeley freshman, purchased a 3D printer about a year ago to explore the possibilities that the technology offered.

“We bought one that suited our exper-

imental purposes and cost less than other models,” Warnock says.

Most of the items the Warnocks have printed are fairly simple and small in size, meant to be experiments more than anything.

Beyond tinkering, this technology has some incredible applications. One company, Defense Distributed, is exploring how printing can be incorporated into firearms.

In May 2013, the company revealed its prototype for a fully functional plastic handgun, the Liberator, to Forbes. The gun is completely plastic, except for one piece.

Defense Distributed originally published the blueprints for the weapon online, but the Department of Defense quickly recalled them. The blueprints had already been downloaded 100,000 times.

3D printing poses a threat to Homeland Security, creating opportunities for violent individuals or terrorists to create and carry them without being detected.

In a different sector, printing is being used positively in the medical world. Organovo, a company based in San Diego, expects to unveil the first fully-functional, printed human liver in 2014.

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They will do this by layering different types of cells within a jello-like liquid which supports them to create the finished product.

Stevan Garan, the Directior of Bioinformatics at the Center for Research and Education on Aging, is very excited about the future of bioprinting.

“In 10 to 15 years, if you need a new organ or part of your body, we’ll be able to print you a new one in just a couple of days,” Garan said. “Since we’re using your own cells, you don’t need antirejection drugs.”

Garan sees this technology being used very extensively in the future. People may choose to simply replace their hearts or other organs to remain healthy longer.

In several decades, we may see bioprinting used to create livestock and other living beings. Hypothetically, we could create entirely new organism that did not exist.

In 50 years, we may move from commercial to substinance industry, where every household is self sufficient, and peoples lives may be greatly extended. The possibilities are limitless, and we need to prepare for the changes. v

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Spring

Text and Photography by ANA SOFIA AMIEVA-WANG

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LEFT Connor Simrell during an afternoon game of frisbee.

UPPER MiDDLE Carl Wolfgramm preparing for his shotput throw at spring track practice.

CENTER RIGHT Matilda Kenrick warming up for JV lacrosse practice.

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FEATURES | APRIL 2014

CONFUSION, BATTLES AND SETBACKS:

BULLYING

PAUSD STRUGGLES WITH THE AGE-OLD PROBLEM Text by TIRA OSKOUI and ANAND SRINIVASAN Photography by TIRA OSKOUI

W

ITH TENSIONS RUNNING Law requires public school districts to update their anti-bullying high in the Palo Alto Unified School Dis- policies to focus on protecting students who are disabled, belong trict meeting room, school board mem- to a minority race, or are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender — ber and chair of the Board Policy Review groups deemed most vulnerable to discriminatory harassment.

The district recently faced the bullying of protected-status Committee Camille Townsend struggles students in 2011, when a case of bullying at Terman Middle School to maintain order. The room is hot and full of angry community involving a disabled student resulted in a lawsuit against the district members, silenced lawyers and flustered board members. by the student’s family.

A parent protests as superintendent Kevin Skelly speaks on According to Palo Alto Online, the suit claimed that PAUSD the handling of bullying incidents in Palo Alto, and Skelly moves did not take appropriate action to handle the harassment of the to address the parent’s accusatory question. disabled student.

The Office of Civil Rights, a branch of the U.S. “Excuse me, Dr. Skelly, I am the chair of this committee, and Department of Education that seeks to ensure equal eduyou direct comments to the chair,” Townsend says, stopcational access to students by enforcing civil rights, ping Skelly from responding to the parent. found the district’s actions inadequate and unconA jumble of impassioned whispers, sarcastic stitutional. laughs and Townsend’s pleas for order fill the Multiple incidents of discriminatory hacramped space.

“It [the policy] is rassment have been reported to PAUSD “Excuse me, folks, come on, we’re tryalready broken, since the Terman case, and this new policy ing to move ahead on bullying,” Townsend and they haven’t is aimed at preventing similar cases in the says. “We’re supposed to interact with each even done it yet.” future.

The updated draft outlines a two-tier other in a formal and kind way, and I would — ­ Michele Dauber, policy to handle reported bullying incidents, like this spot to be a kind place so we can giving further protections to students who fall have kind conversations about how our chilStanford law professor into the protected classes such as a set timeline, dren should get along with each other.” an appeals process and written documentation Palpable tension dies down, but the innate of the handling procedure. conflict between community and school board According to a Jan. 10 Palo Alto Weekly article, members over bullying remains clear.

Skelly expressed support during a board meeting on Dec. 3 for Since January 2014, the Palo Alto school board and district a single-tier policy that would handle all bullying cases equally. Two committees have been actively debating and formulating the guideweeks later, after speaking with various district and school leaders, lines of PAUSD’s new bullying initiative. California’s 2012 Seth’s

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FEATURES | APRIL 2014 DISCUSSION (Previous page) The PAUSD Board Policy Review Committee held a public meeting on March 12 to discuss the bullying policy. The meeting included, from left, Coordinator of Student Services Brenda Carrillo and board members Camille Townsend and Heidi Emberlinger.

81.9% of u.s. LGBTQ students were bullied in 2011 based on their sexual orientation.

27.8%

of u.s. students ages 12 to 18 report being bullied.

40-50% Of palo alto middle school students reported being bullied in 2012.

41.6%

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics, the National School Climate Survey and the Palo Alto Reality Check Survey.

of u.s. students report hearing racist remarks at school.

40%

OF SCHOOL BULLYING VICTIMS NOTIFy AN ADULT OF THE BULLYING.

he changed his mind; he now recommends a two-tier policy like Dauber opposes the newly suggested draft of the policy. Acthe current draft due to its alleged simplicity. cording to Dauber, the policy contains wording flaws that could Opponents of the updated, two-tier policy include Michele cause confusion and even legal trouble for the district.

Dauber, a Stanford law professor who led the drafting of the Stan“The new policy that’s supposed to apply only to the unproford Disciplinary, Sexual Assault and Title IX policies three tected classes — regular bullying — now applies to proyears ago after unsatisfactory statistics and reports on tected class students,” Dauber says. “It [the policy] is harassment at Stanford arose. She supports the already broken, and they haven’t even done it yet.” policy that Skelly was pushing initially, the policy Nor does Dauber find recent drafts of the that essentially outlined a uniform approach to lower-tier bullying policy to be comprehensive “Who is here to handling cases of bullying, thereby advocatin setting clear guidelines for the process the help the children? ing equal protective measures against bullying board will follow in cases of bullying. The for all students, regardless of legal protected current online draft, which shows all edit No one.” status determined by Seth’s Law. marks, reveals that certain segments of the ­— Kate, mother of a “I am an advocate for following the law,” policy that outlined deadlines for the board bullied student Dauber says. “I think it is more likely that we’re when handling bullying cases were removed by going to follow the law if we have one policy. I policy makers. Since December 2013, the policy think that’s why CSBA [California School Boards has been revised to no longer include a timeline, Association] thinks we should have one policy, bewritten decision or appeals process for non-protectcause I think that mistakes are much more likely the ed bullying complaints. more complex you make the situation.” “[The policy] has no record-keeping documentation, no timeAccording to the California Department of Education, the line at all, no requirement ever written, so it violates everything state grants the legal right to protected class students to follow about the law [Seth’s Law],” Dauber says. “Process protects everythe Uniform Complaint Procedure, or UCP, when discrimination, one. It protects the accuser and the student who is being accused.” harassment, bullying or intimidation directed at them violates fedSkelly attributes the changes made to the policy to the diseral or state law. The current draft of the two-tiered system, which trict’s want for as simple, efficient and straightforward a procedure is available to the public on the PAUSD website, does not specify as possible. that cases of discrimination should move up to the higher-tier pol“Part of the reason for eliminating that [timelines] is that icy dictated by the UCP, as protocol for cases involving protected people [district staff] tend to stretch [deadlines] to the end, and we class students. don’t want them stretching it until the end,” Skelly says.

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FEATURES | APRIL 2014 STUCK AT HOME (Below) Kate’s daughter left a PAUSD school after her bullying persisted. Kate presented this poster at the school board meeting on March 12, where her main complaint was that she felt her case was neglected by school and district staff from whom she sought help.

MEETING (Counterclockwise) Board members Camille Townsend and Heidi Emberlinger meet with superintendent Kevin Skelly to discuss and debate key points of the new PAUSD bullying policy.

This lack of timeline or specific procedure affected the fam- bullying as “any severe or pervasive physical or verbal act of conily of Kate, a Palo Alto mother whose name has been changed duct, including made in writing” that involves sexual harassment, to protect her daughter’s identity. Her daughter has been out of hate violence, threats, harassment or intimidation. school since Jan. 12 due to persistent bullying that Kate claims was Now, Carrillo says that her committee hopes to consolidate not appropriately addressed by PAUSD. the two-tiered policy to create one uniform procedure for all stu“The principal was ready to jump at us when I went to her dents. The school board has not yet approved such a proposal, but for a meeting,” Kate said in the March 12 school board meeting. according to Carrillo, community feedback seems to favor it.

“She wouldn’t let us have any advocates for our side. ... Who do we Alexander Davis, a Palo Alto High School social studies teachhave to help us? No one. Our kids have to go school, it’s er and the teacher adviser of the Queer Straight Alliance the law. I’ve been trying to work out an appropriate Club, understands the rationale behind a two-tiered placement for her [her daughter]. No one ever system, but advocates a uniform policy. calls us back. Who is here to help the chil“Bullying someone on the basis of hair dren? No one.” color, weight or academic performance “Bullying someone on Three years have passed since the can have as much to do with identity as the basis of hair color, initial Terman case and the drafting of race or sexuality,” Davis says. “We need a new policy, a delay that has become a uniform policy for dealing with cases weight or academic perthe source of common complaints that of bullying.” formance can have as little has been accomplished in estabSkelly commends Palo Alto’s genmuch to do with identilishing an appropriate anti-bullying poleral atmosphere of safety and accepty as race or sexuality.” icy for all students since that 2011 wake tance, but notes that there is no perfect ­— Alexander Davis, social up call. Brenda Carrillo, the coordinator solution to a problem as broad and conof student services for PAUSD and the troversial as bullying. studies teacher leader of the committee drafting the policy, “We have a community here that is one attributes the delay to the lengthy process of of the safest to go to school in,” Skelly says. receiving and implementing feedback on the “I think this is some of the hardest work we do. policy from the school board and the Palo Alto There is no solution where all those people [in Palo community to try and create the most comprehensive Alto] will be fully satisfied and where there isn’t an eleand satisfactory policy possible. ment of people feeling unresolved.”

“We’re really striving to have a holistic approach, and we’re Dauber says that many Palo Alto residents do not realize how not just focusing on bullying, we’re focusing on school climate in important of an issue bullying is, even in a seemingly placid comgeneral,” Carrillo says. “We’re constantly striving to improve in munity like Palo Alto. She blames the notion that an affluent and making sure that students can go to school to learn.” liberal city would be devoid of issues like discriminatory harassIn its attempts to solve this problem of bullying, PAUSD ment. added a page titled “Bullying Prevention” to its website in early “In Palo Alto, there’s a little bit of a prevalent attitude of 2014 to involve the community in drafting the policy while also ‘Don’t they know who we are?’ going on, and I think that’s a real informing concerned community members on issues surrounding impediment,” Dauber says. “We all have to color in the lines. The the boundaries and available support for bullying. The site defines law applies to everybody. That’s what democracy is.” v

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FEATURES | APRIL 2014

70%

ON AVERAGE students WITH a prep get

7.3

hours of sleep on a school night, while students WITHOUT a prep get

of students surveyed had, or currently have a prep

6.9

hours of sleep on a school night.

5%

of Paly students said

OTHER

17%

of Paly students said

SLEEP

What do you do with your prep?

23%

55%

STUDENTS WITH A PREP PARTICIPATE IN AN AVERAGE OF:

STUDENTS WITH A PREP FOR SPORTS:

of Paly students said of students said

SOCIALIZING

of students said

STUDENTS WHO THINK THEIR PREP IS HELPFUL FOR TIME MANAGEMENT AND HOMEWORK:

HOMEWORK

Statistics shown here are from a Verde survey distributed to 237 Palo Alto High School students in nine English classes spanning grades nine through 12 from January to February.

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FEATURES | APRIL 2014

Value of a Prep MORE NUMBERS THAN THE ONES ON THE CLOCK

Text by MICHELLE LI and BRITTANY NGUYEN

R

EMEMBER BACK in middle school, when you looked forward to high school preps as an entire period to do whatever you wanted? Free time, unlimited food, the ability to go home and take a nap… The opportunities preps seemed to offer were unending. But what are preps really meant for? With an open campus, access to EXTRACURRICULARS school resources (and Town and Country), and a considerable chunk of time three days every week, how are students actually using these four hours of freedom?

According to sophomore guidance counselor Susan Shultz, preps are a time that should be solely set aside for studying. The premise of a preparatory period is to prepare for upcoming classes, get work done ahead of time.

But as Josh Goldstein, Paly’s athletic trainer, says, preps are only helpful when used efficiently and effectively.

2

48%

79%

“Whether you end up taking an ex- and extracurriculars, according to Shultz. tended lunch or whether you actually sit Senior guidance counselor Charles Taydown and do your homework during that lor says rarely do administrators discourage period is up to the students and how well students from taking a prep. they want to take advantage of it,” Gold“If we are encouraging someone not to stein says. take a prep, it’s usually because they have to Not all students use their preps to do make something up or are not utilizing it homework, meet with teachers, and study properly,” Taylor says. ahead. In a survey conducted by Verde of Most of the time, preps are used ef237 Paly students in nine English classes ficiently. Fifty six percent of Paly studistributed throughdents said that they out January and Febuse their prep to ruary, 31 percent of do homework, and “Whether you end up about 17 percent of juniors with a prep say that they often taking an extended them said that they use it for socializing. lunch or whether you use it to sleep.

According to In fact, students actually sit down and with preps are getMona Siegel, Paly’s do your homework ting more sleep academic technology during that period is than students withspecialist, a little less than half of Paly stuup to the students out preps — of the dents have a prep, or and how well they students surveyed, blank period, in their sophomores with a want to take advan- prep got an average schedule, whether tage of it.” that be because they of 54 more minutes

— Josh Goldstein, of sleep per night dropped a class, do a seasonal sport, Paly athletic trainer than those without. or signed up for an According to the Naempty period. About tional Sleep Founda51 percent of underclassmen have a prep tion, eight to nine hours of sleep a night some time during the year: 70 percent of are crucial for teens ages 11 to 17 to stay these result from playing a school sport and focused throughout the day.

15 percent are from zero period P.E. But as Goldstein says, in the end, it all “It’s typical for older students to have comes down to the student to utilize preps a prep because their curriculum becomes as they see fit. They simply must rememmore rigorous,” Shultz adds. “It would be ber that their preps are time during which hard to take seven rigorous courses and not they can even out their workload, if used have any study time during the day.” efficiently.

Administrators often recommend that “You’ve got to balance your life, not upperclassmen take preps to minimize just your classes,” college advisor Sandra overcommitment, but emphasize that the Cernobori says. “Colleges are looking for decision always relies on the student’s in- you to have a life outside of your classes, dividual circumstances, including workload too.” v

On a scale of one to 10, students rated the usefulness of a prep...

7.6 8.0

for sleep and health 1

2

3

44

5

6

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7

for homework 8

99

10

FEATURES | APRIL 2014

STUDENTS CREATE DESIGN SPACE FOR TEENS Text by SIDDHARTH SRINIVASAN AND ZOE LUNG Photography by SIDDHARTH SRINIVASAN Art by ANTHONY LIU

X

MARKS THE SPOT ON A treasure on a treasure map. X is the variable, and the question. X is mystery, and to the teens from the organization, Make X, X is the swords, maglev trains, and wooden race cars built in

furniture, selected the equipment, and now staff the space.”

With only a small group of students, the Make X staff applied for a grant to bring their vision to reality. According to Kienzle, their first application for an IMLS Learning Labs grant was rejected, but they revised the application and were able to receive a their makerspace. $67,500 grant from the California State Library Association. KienMake X, a nonprofit organization sponsored by the City of Palo zle hopes that after the launch of Make X, the City of Palo Alto Alto, lies tucked away among the many barren rooms at Cubberley will be able to fully support them financially.

Community Center and, for the most part, escapes the notice of After they received the grant, the group of teen founders set many Palo Altan teens. Make X is a makerspace founded by teen- out to design and furnish the makerspace. age building enthusiasts early this February “We designed everything from the ball for the community to use the variety of tools chairs and tables, to the rotating tool rack, and equipment the organization has available and the ‘Make Shelves,’” says Gunn High “My goal is to help for it’s own projects.

School senior Jeffrey Wang, a Make X emspread the love of Palo Alto High School alumna Karen ployee. making and building.

Kienzle is the founder of this makerspace.

A partner organization manufactured the That is something I “My goal is to help spread the love of furniture and brought it to the Make X openreally enjoy.” making and building,” Kienzle says. “That is ing at the Palo Alto Art Center. The program something I really enjoy. A lot of people in ­— Karen Kienzle, has since relocated to the Cubberley ComPalo Alto may have similar wishes but not a Make X founder munity Center in room F-7. space for it, so here we can provide a home “Our original plan was for Make X to for people to design and make things.” rotate around the city centers every couple The idea for Make X was inspired by the teens who wanted months,” says Paly sophomore James Wang. “However, we felt more space and equipment to express their passion in creating that we needed to establish ourselves before becoming mobile, and hands-on projects. currently, our room at Cubberley is perfect.”

“We heard again and again that local teens wanted a ‘third During the early stages, communication and publicity was the place’, [not home or school] where they could be creative and have main problems for the makerspace. “When we first opened, it was their voices heard,” Kienzle says. really hard to get publicity and coordinate effectively with each To start the project, Kienzle organized a group of students in- other,” says Lavanya Mahadevan, a Paly sophomore and Make X terested in building and design to launch Make X. employee. “It was also pretty hard to find a space that suited all of “This project was created by and for teens, with adults work- Make X’s needs. We have definitely improved our communication ing as facilitators,” Kienzle says. “We had a group of around 20 and publicity.” teens—we called them designers at their request, who designed the Although Make X remains unknown to the majority of teens,

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FEATURES | APRIL 2014

SPARKING (Left) James Wang generates sparks as he cuts metal screws (Right) Nathan Kau works upon a chair designed by the Make X design team. The chair is one of the many pieces of furniture fabricated by the students. the number of visitors who stop by to use the materials offered at Make X is rapidly growing.

“We have anywhere from five to 10 users each Sunday,” Mahadevan says. “Around half of them are usually teens and the rest are elementary school kids and their parents. Currently we are trying to get more people involved in our project [Make X].”

The people who do participate at Make X have found themselves a precious resource in tools of all different needs. Currently Make X has a sewing machine, a drill press, a laser cutter, and much more. They are also expecting a 3D printer soon, according to Mahadevan.

Pedro Alvarez, a freshman at Menlo Atherton High School, learned how to use these tools and developed a prototype at his first visit to Make X. Although Alvarez knew nothing about Make X beforehand, he expressed an interest in returning to Make X on his own time.

“I like that you can come here and make a variety of things for free because there is no other space that you can do that,” Alvarez says.

According to James, this is the mission of the employees at Make X. “We aim to cater to the maker movement,” James says. “For those unfamiliar with the term, there has been an increasing amount of people who wish to make their own doodads instead of buying them from others. We aim to help these people do so.”

After launching and being fully in the operational phase, Mahadevan hopes Make X will become a sustainable project with increasing popularity and a greater community presence.

“We named our project Make X, as we believed the X symbolized the endless possibilities of creations that we hope to foster the development of,” Kau says. With this student run organization equipped with a variety of tools and growing potential, Make X truly is a place where the possibilities are limitless. v

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DETAILING (Above) Nathan Kau and Alvarez observe the laser cutter at work. (Below) Jeremy Trilling mentors a visitor building a wooden race car.

FEATURES | APRIL 2014

Cleaning the Streets Text by JASPER MCEVOY and JACK BROOK Photography by JACK BROOK, JASPER MCEVOY and ANA SOFIA AMIEVA-WANG

DOWNTOWN STREETS GIVES PANHANDLERS A SENSE OF DIGNITY

I

T’S A CLOUDY SUNDAY morning, just before 8 a.m. on the corner of High and Hamilton streets in Palo Alto, and Joe Wysocki walks up and down a quiet parking lot, mud-caked Sketchers resting momentarily on the pavement as he inhales deeply from a Pall Mall cigarette. He has been homeless for over 14 years.

A former alcoholic, Wysocki is now a member of the Downtown Streets Team, a transitional employment program started in 2005 that seeks to empower homeless people by providing them with volunteer opportunities to clean up their communities. For Wysocki, this means meeting other team members at 6 a.m. every Sunday to pick up trash in the area surrounding University Avenue.

“It’s a good feeling … you’re doing something productive for the neighbor-

hood where a lot of us [homeless people], for many different circumstances, have been unproductive for a period of our lives,” Wysocki says.

Ultimately, through the weekly cleanup crews, DST seeks to enable its members to get real jobs and eventually improve their situation. With help from an array of employment specialists and case managers, the program ensures that each individual is getting back on the right track; whether that takes the form of an internship, vocational training, education or a move to permanent housing.

“Over the last year-and-a-half, we have homeless people making over $1.1M in jobs that they have,” says executive director Eileen Richardson. “That’s just counting jobs that we found for folks in the last 18 months. That’s a pretty incredible impact, from people panhandling on the street to

– 56 –

now making that much money in economic development.”

Yet there is something more than housing, Eileen Richardson says, with which DST empowers the homeless, enabling them to rise from panhandling to become independent and productive members of society. With each sweep of the broom, the members of the Streets Team regain their sense of dignity and begin to piece their lives back together.

“We did a survey asking homeless people, ‘What is the worst thing about being homeless?’” Eileen Richardson says. “And they didn’t say, ‘I’m hungry,’ they didn’t say, ‘The rain.’ What they said over and over again was ‘The way people look down at me.’ And so if you can imagine people looking down at you all day, every day, for 10 years, you finally start feeling invisible and you lose all dignity.”

FEATURES | APRIL 2014

Joe Wysocki (opposite page) paused in a downtown Palo

Alto alley on his way to deposit collected trash into a bin. He currently lives in a San Francisco shelter, which he will be forced to leave in March. He has yet to find housing.

Helen Singh (bottom right) pauses during a break in sweeping. The mother of two, Singh works every week with the Sunday crew.

Efren Perez (top left) wheels a garbage can downtown and (top right) pauses for a break.

When DST started, Richardson was Palo Alto. According to the federal agenthe only employee, running the program cy of Housing and Urban Development, with four original members. Since then, homelessness in Palo Alto has decreased 54 the organization has grown to 32 workers percent since the program’s creation. and expanded into four different commu“When we started the program we nities — Palo Alto, San Rafael, San Jose asked business owners what they were and Sunnyvale — with plans to extend into most concerned with in downtown Palo bigger cities such Alto, and they told as San Francisco us it was cleanliness in the future. Helpand panhandling,” “My life is so much ing hundreds of says Chris Richfuller now. When they homeless every day ardson, a Palo Alto and revolutionizing handed me that yellow High School gradupublic service unate and director of shirt, I was part of a der Richardson’s viDowntown Streets family again.” sionary leadership, Team. “So [with ­— Shannon Giovacchini, DST] we managed DST has set its eyes DST “Blue Shirt” to kill two birds on an ultimate goal: to end homelesswith one stone by ness completely. turning the guy With its model of turning homeless panhandling on the corner into a taxpayer people into productive members of the by handing him a broom and asking him to community, the Streets Team has signifi- sweep the streets of Palo Alto.” cantly impacted homelessness in places like You might say that Michael Davis is

– 57 –

the heart and soul of Downtown Streets.

Davis, 65, serves as the operational supervisor for the entire organization — the “black shirt” — shuttling between the four different programs to oversee affairs. Yet before he turned to reconstructing the lives of others, he had been busy feeding substance addictions — the seedy looking guy on the corner passing along countless illegal bills and bottles.

“When you get old enough and mature enough so that you can be honest with yourself and look back on your life and say, ‘I messed up someone’s life’ — that stuff gets to you,” says Davis, who has been with the organization since 2007. “It bothers me, so I may not be able to help that individual, but I can help another individual that’s going that same route.”

Initially skeptical, Davis was inspired to stay after discovering friends — former druggies and alcoholics — whose lives had been dramatically transformed by DST and vouched for the program.

FEATURES | APRIL 2014

“I’m alive now, and I don’t mean that as far as I’m breathing. ” — Michael Davis, DST “Black Shirt”

Michael Davis (far left) went from juvenile hall to overseeing the four DST programs and sharing his story nationwide.

“I’m alive now, and I don’t mean that as far as I’m breathing,” Davis says. “I’m alive, I’m part of the community.”

Like Davis, hundreds of current and former members have joined DST via word of mouth from another homeless man or woman. Allowing the homeless to initiate involvement in the organization ensures that the majority of members arrive of their own volition, with a desire to change.

However, by resting the ultimate responsibility to succeed on homeless people and their own initiative, the organization also risks losing members who don’t quite manage to pull things together. But when the program does “click” for an individual, the effect is deep, not only in helping themselves, but also in inspiring those around them.

One of the most successful cases is that of Shannon Giovacchini. Before Giovacchini became a prominent advocate for homeless people in the Bay Area, she

was moments away from ending her life in front of a train. Devastated after the loss of her mother and grandmother in quick succession, she had left everything behind in her Santa Clara home and found herself sitting in the Palo Alto train station.

“I was done,” Giovacchini says. “I basically figured, all I had to do was figure out a way to stop breathing, because I was dead inside.”

Yet the thought of scarring the lives of those around her in the midst of the holiday season caused Giovacchini to falter. She faded into a sort of half existence, wandering aimlessly, eventually winding up at a shelter in Sunnyvale. It was there that she first encountered DST supervisor Michael Davis.

Still reeling from her personal tragedy, it was only after repeated insistence from Davis that she grudgingly agreed to attend a meeting, where Giovacchini was struck to see her name written on the whiteboard next to the words, “welcoming a new mem-

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ber”.

“My life is so much fuller now,” says Giovacchini, who now serves as an advocate for homeless rights. “When they handed me that yellow shirt, I was part of a family again.”

After that meeting, Giovacchini quickly ascended the ranks of the program, from running the kitchen at the Opportunity Center to becoming the first female “blue shirt”, or team manager.

Inspired by the stories of members like Giovacchini, DST continues on its mission to reshape the Bay Area public’s perception of homelessness and how it should be treated.

“The model [for Downtown Streets Team] is so simple, and it involves the entire community, from the homeless to business owners to police and local government,” Chris Richardson says. “As long as the entire community and all of its components are willing to partner with us, we will be successful.” v

FEATURES | APRIL 2014

IN TRANSITION PALO ALTO’S UNSHELTERED LOOK TO TAKE MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS Text and Photography by ALEXANDRA HSIEH

I

T’S SUNDAY EVENING at the Glass Slipper Inn, and Christie and her mother are fighting over dinner. Christie has accidentally placed an extra order online from a catering service. She hasn’t bought the meal, and yet the tension in the room between the two erupts. It’s not a fight worth anyone’s time, but Christie and her mother can’t help it — it’s the beginning of the last week they get to stay in the Inn. Afterwards, it’s back to living in their vehicle.

With only one emergency shelter and few affordable housing programs, the City of Palo Alto fails to address the significant problem beneath its affluent facade: it is unable to house all of its residents.

Although Palo Alto’s Opportunity Center and other affordable housing venues all offer supportive, long-term housing for families and single persons, they foster a

lack of initiative within the unhoused community. As a result, during a time where the housing market continues to grow while people are trying to recover from an economic downturn, the unhoused population is rising at an alarming rate.

The majority of the unhoused in Palo Alto are resigned to the long-term housing the city provides, which causes the circulation of unhoused individuals to remain stagnant, affecting those who are seeking to better their circumstances. However, by trading shelters for transitional housing, the city would provide a space for those looking to become productive members of the society. In addition, it would provide temporary stability, enabling them to get degrees at community colleges and move beyond welfare.

Christie A student at Palo Alto High School, Christie stops by coffee shops to study for tests, interns at a seafood restaurant and as-

– 59 –

pires to major in culinary studies, possibly with a minor in business. Nobody would notice her situation if she and her mother walked on the street, but the two are homeless.

When their nomadic commutes from church sanctuaries to hotel rooms paid with donated hotel points don’t work out, Christie and her mother reside in their vehicle since all of the shelters in Palo Alto are currently full.

It all began in June 2012, when Christie’s mother was laid off from her job as an accountant. With Christie’s father providing little for Christie’s child support, her mother relied heavily on her meager salary to compensate for the rest. Before she knew it, the family was a few months behind on the rent.

“We got a three-day notice to pay the rent or be evicted from our apartment,” Christie says. “My mother called shelters, but all we managed to do was get on a few waiting lists. My mom managed to stall the

FEATURES | APRIL 2014 VEHICLE DWELLING

Christie and Jane currently reside in this vehicle. Palo Alto’s vehicle dwelling ban may soon change this.

eviction process for a couple of months so that we could get a vehicle—something warm.”

It turned out that the residential supervisor of the apartment mishandled the eviction protocol. While Christie and her mother could have made an appeal and forced the apartment to start the eviction process over, they preferred to take the initiative rather than take advantage of the people who owned the building.

“It would essentially be like living off of someone’s back,” says Christie’s mother. “ I didn’t want to do that — I’d much rather just leave once we could.”

While Christie’s situation is disheartening, she finds hope in her future plans.

After graduating high school, she and her mother plan to move down to Solvang.

“I’m getting a degree, working part time,” says Christie’s mother Jane. “I’m making sure my daughter’s going school everyday. She’s graduating a year early, and, she has an internship. We have a plan, and it’s not to live in the car for the rest of our lives.”

For now, Christie remains tethered in Palo Alto until she finishes up school. Palo Alto, in the meantime, continues to create obstacles for Christie and her mother. With

no permanent place to stay aside from their car, the family might be left with no home at all. After all, the city has been debating whether to enforce a vehicle dwelling ban that was enacted August 6, 2013.

“Living in a vehicle. ... It’s legal now since the enforcement of the ban is suspended,” Christie says. “But if it does happen ... I don’t know. Hopefully by then we’ll have something.”

Jane While Christie dreams of moving down to Solvang, Christie’s mother Jane works to make that dream tangible.

Jane was born in Palo Alto and started working when she was seven, helping her uncle file papers and organize books. At 15, she started working full time, making it hard for her to get a degree.

“With the way the economy is, everybody wants a degree now,” Jane says. “They don’t even care about the experience that I have, which is over 25 years of accounting experience. They want the piece of paper. ... It’s frustrating since jobs I look at online—they ask for a top-tier school, 3.5 or better [GPA], Bachelor’s Degree job that I could do with one hand tied behind my back.”

Despite having grown up in Palo Alto, Jane feels that her hometown’s growing prosperity has ruined its atmosphere, especially for people like her. She believes that the city’s affluence has led people to overlook the fact that some people lack basic needs, like a place to stay while she gets back on her feet.

“Here, your quality of living is expected to be better, so people are more cutthroat to get that quality of living, when all you really need is a roof over your head, clothes on your back, food on the table,” Jane says. “People think that the roof over your head has to be a five-bedroom mansion. It doesn’t need to be. But because of that persona here in this area, in Silicon Valley, people will do whatever it takes to get that.”

Neighbors Helping Neighbors Neighbors Helping Neighbors has emerged as another resources for families in need. The organization collaborates with Palo Alto High School, which is able to refer families to them.

The number of families who have been turning to the organization for food and shelter have been growing at sporadic numbers. The families with high-school-

is above 30.

“Many people think that the unhoused here aren’t Palo Alto residents,” says Caryll-Lynn Taylor, the Director of Neighbors Helping Neighbors. “Don’t get me wrong, every city will have their un-housed, but the number of families is growing alarmingly because the rates of houses are increasing at ridiculous rates.”

Unlike organizations that look to provide education for low-income families or medical services, Neighbors Helping Neighbors looks to provide general immediate needs, ranging from groceries to attorneys that will defend families who have received tickets on a vehicle they might be currently living in.

“What our un-housed in Palo Alto have found is that services have been terribly inadequate for quite some time now,” Taylor says. ”It’s different here: to my knowledge, we’re the only organization who looks to provide many services at once.”

Despite specializing in immediate relief programs, Neighbors Helping Neighbors only looks to help those who want to help themselves. Taylor says that Neighbors Helping Neighbors looks to help people get back onto their feet.

“We don’t promise them great expectations,” Taylor says. “ We will provide them a place to turn to, but we want people that will take the next step. We can help guide them, but we can’t do everything for them.

rotating emergency shelter called “Hotel de Zink,” where churches in the area take turns each month to provide food and shelter for the homeless. It only serves about 15 people a month.

With 500 people in Palo Alto unhoused and growing, Jane believes that it’s time to turn to something more practical.

“You’ve got people perfectly content with living off of social welfare,” Jane says, “That’s not fair for people like us, who want to give back to the community.”

Jane supports the funding of transitional houses, which looks to provide temporary housing for the certain segments of the homeless population, and is set up to transition their residents into permanent, affordable housing. It is not in an emergency homeless shelter, but usually a room or apartment in a residence with support services.

Transitional Housing “One of the challenges for the unhoused is that there isn’t a lot of affordable housing here in Palo Alto,” says Brenda Carrillo, the student services coordinator for PAUSD. “If families are looking for low-income housing it can be very difficult.”

Even the cheapest rent at the Opportunity Center is $399 a month. In order for someone to rent a space, he or she needs to make twice as much as the rent at the very least. This adds up to a minimum income of $9576 a year for the residents of the opportunity center.

Furthermore, Palo Alto only has one

Tim Wong, the senior planner of Housing Development, states that Palo Alto focuses on permanent affordable housing due to limited housing funds and the high cost of living in Palo Alto.

According to Harold G. Berkeley, the residential supervisor of Palo Alto’s Opportunity Center, the city could use more transitional housing programs to handle the growing unhoused population and cultivate initiative.

“I definitely think that we need transitional housing,” Berkeley says. “The [Opportunity Center] opened in 2007, and I think 60 percent of the people who were here in 2007 are still here. I will further jus-

“It’s even more difficult to be struggling with homelessness in our community because there’s so much affluence here.”

—Brenda Carrillo, Student Services Coordinator­

tify that by saying I have a 700-person waiting list. Only around 12 units open every year.”

Although the City currently has no transitional housing program, Wong says, it is willing to review a proposal for a transitional housing project.

Moving Forward Carrillo describes the false perception of Palo Alto, which seems like a perfect combination of small-town community meets urban ambiance. While it may be charming for the children of high-tech company executives, star athletes, and lawyers, Carillo says, for the unhoused, this environment can just bring more distress.

Even PAUSD currently serves four families with students that are in high school.

“I think that it’s even more difficult to be struggling with homelessness in our community because there’s so affluence here that it can feel kind of demeaning to not have a place to live,” Carrillo says.

While many like those in the Opportunity Center are resigned to their place, people like Christie and organizations like Neighbors Helping Neighbors looks to fill in the gaps that Palo Alto continues to excavate.

“She taught me that I am strong, that I can get through any situation,” Christie says.“It’s not always going to be like this.

I’ve been in the situation three times, we always pull through. Things will get better.” v *Data taken from Santa Clara County homeless census

FEATURES | APRIL 2014

Four Parts English

One Part Innovation

ENGLISH PROJECT SPARKS CREATIVITY, 20 PERCENT AT A TIME Text and photography by ANNA LU

W

ITH A CUP of corn syrup and potassium nitrate powder, sophomore James Wang produces fuel for his rocket. Made only of plastic pipes and a UPS shipping tube, the rocket will launch 5,000 feet into the air. In addition to gaining the sheer pleasure of launching a rocket, Wang is getting credit for this creation in his English class.

In Kirk Hinton’s English 10A and Erin Angell’s World Literature classes, students spend 45 minutes a week — 20 percent of their class time — creating self-chosen innovations.

Hinton adopted this initiative from Google’s 20% Project this year, which allots its employees 20 percent of their work time to pursue a project outside of the scope of their job descriptions. Google’s 20% Project, the purpose of which is to nurture innovation, has spawned countless success stories for the company including

Gmail and Google News.

“This project gives students freedom and control,” Hinton says. “More so in recent years, there has been a push for teachers to step away from the role of ‘sage on the stage’, in which we deliver information to students through lecture; and into that of a ‘guide on the side,’ in which we allow students to discover and explore their own passion, and simply help them do so.”

Wang, who is building a rocket with help from sophomore Nathan Kau, has found this process extremely rewarding. “[The 20% Project] provides a unique experience where we can independently create something while being unhindered from the rigid, traditional school structure,” Wang says. “We [Kau and I] started building rockets together a while back….

Everything is made from scratch. For the fuel, we used potassium nitrate, sugar, corn syrup, red iron oxide and sulphur.”

Aside from the student’s individual enjoyment, Hinton and Angell empower their

students to create a product with a lasting impact.

“The purpose is to do something for an audience that’s larger than yourself,” Angell says.

Sophomores Yael Moskowitz, Hannah Subega, Adele Bloch and Alex Rose aim to do just that. The group is creating a photo book of smiling portraits accompanied by quotes of what makes each of those individuals happiest.

“We hope to inspire happiness and joy, and remind people of the good things in life through our love of photography,” Moskowitz says.

But no matter how extravagant the project or noble the cause, students are still graded on their writing ability — just not in the format of a conventional essay.

“I’m not going to grade someone on curing cancer,” Angell says. “Instead of formalized writing and literary analyses, the students have daily blogs and proposals. It’s less about grammar, mechanics and struc-

CARO&COCO

SMILE BOOK

iPHONE APP

ROCKET

LONGBOARD

Senior Caroline Moeser spray paints a cake topper for her online shop Caro&Coco. She has sold over 120 cake toppers since the beginning of the year.

Sophomore Adele Bloch photographs a subject for her group’s photo book of smiling portraits, to inspire happiness through their love of photography.

Sophomore Zoe Limbrick codes her group’s iPhone app that provides easily accessible emergency assistance.

Sophomore James Wang prepares to launch his rocket.

Wang, along with sophomore Nathan Kau, constructed the rocket and its fuel from scratch.

Sophomore Takaaki Sagawa (center) and sophomore Anant Marur (bottom left) build two of five longboards that they plan to sell and donate the profits to a charity.

CARO&COCO CARO&COCO

SMILE BOOK

ture and more about their ideas.”

In order to teach students practical skills in the classroom, Hinton and Angell require their students to write a proposal, find a mentor, create weekly blogs and present their final product through a TED-style talk to the class.

Students are then graded on these components, rather than the final innovation.

“The students are allowed to fail, but they have to learn something from their failure and present that to the class,” Hinton says. “Not failing just means that they’re not trying hard enough.”

However, most students haven’t had to face this problem. According to Hinton, the projects have met their respective goals by allowing students to innovate in the classroom.

Next year, Hinton and Angell hope to adapt this project to other classes as well. v

iPHONE APP ROCKET

LONGBOARD

LONGBOARD LONGBOARD

LEARNING AT PACKARD LONG-TERM PATIENTS RECIEVE EDUCATION AT THE HOSPITAL SCHOOL Text by MICHELLE TANG and ZOE LUNG Art by ANTHONY LIU

I

N THE PHOTO, THE LITTLE GIRL POSES next to her teacher, her face a picture of delight. A teacher sits to her left, matching her bright smile. This is Lindsey Bingham at the Lucile Packard Children Hospital School, and she successfully underwent a heart transplant in February last year.

On May 20, 2012, Bingham was diagnosed with a heart defect called dilated cardiomyopathy, according to the Heart for Binghams website, which is raising awareness and donations for the Bingham family.

While at the hospital, Bingham had few opportunities to go outside or play with her friends — until she signed up for the hospital school.

“Living in a hospital for that long, every day can seem exactly like the one before,” says Stacey Bingham, Lindsey’s mother. “The school gave her the chance to get out of her room and change things up a little.”

Founded in 1924, the Lucile Packard Children Hospital School provides free education to patients at the hospital. The LPHS is both part of the Stanford Hospital and of Palo Alto Unified School District, and includes a total of eight staff members who teach primary, middle and high school sections. The school also provides the children with personal computers to aid their studies.

Bingham is not the only one who benefited from the hospital school and appreciates its support. Sasha Harrison, a former Palo Alto High School student, was also diagnosed with a heart condition during her freshman year when she was getting a routine check-up for her sport. Her family sent her to the Stanford Hospital after they were informed about the illness, and she ended up staying there for almost two weeks.

Life at the hospital was very difficult, both for Lindsey and Harrison, but both looked forward to going to the hospital school.

“The teacher was supportive and cheerful, and I definitely liked him,” Harrison says. “It was a pleasant contrast to the hysteria of the rest of the place.”

As a result, Harrison was able to keep up with school where many might founder during the time she spent at the hospital.

“Our purpose is to make their transition [back] to their old school easier,” says Kathy Ho, an instructor at LPHS. The number of children in class constantly varies based on the different health needs of

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each child, but on a normal basis there are about 30 to 40 kids to whom the school caters, either in the classrooms or at their bedsides.

“In the classroom, everything is individualized, much like a tutoring center,” Ho says.

The teachers develop extremely close relationships with their students and are familiar with their medical conditions.

“We get these connections with kids. I really value the bond with my current and former patients,” Ho says.

The teachers at the hospital school also try to plan daily activities for the kids throughout the year. They often gather the students to play games together, and the games usually have an educational aspect to them, according to Ho. “For this reason, a lot of our kids want to come to school,” Ho says. “It’s a great chance for them to stop watching TV and come out of their rooms.”

“We try to provide what’s normal for them,” says Kevin Danie, another instructor at LPHS. “We are what they know of as real life.”

Every holiday, Bingham would tell Danie excitedly that she was going to get her new heart soon. To everyone’s surprise, Bingham’s wish finally came true on Valentines Day. Since then, she has made a successful recovery, according to Danie.

“The school was an absolutely amazing place for our family,” Bingham says. “It helped give a little bit of normalcy to a difficult and long situation. I don’t know what we would have done without it.” v

DEL ANING DENIED Text by SIDDHARTH SRINIVASAN and BRITTANY NGUYEN Photography by BRITTANY NGUYEN Art by ANTHONY LIU

BOARD KNOCKS FRESHMAN ENGLISH OFF THE RAILS

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H E T H E R they’re in English 9 or English 9A, every freshman reads the same books: “Of Mice and Men,” “Romeo and Juliet,” and “Animal Farm.” What sets these classes apart is the way the curriculum guides the evaluation and examination of these books. The pacing in the accelerated lane in much quicker and the curriculum is supposedly more in-depth. However, as the Common Core standards sweep in with their comprehensive curriculum and for-

ward-thinking strategies, the Paly English Department’s methods are changing to fit the times.

Or at least, they are trying to. At a Board of Education meeting on Jan. 28, the department proposed a delaning of ninth grade English. The department sought a solution to maximize the number of students reaching and exceeding the Common Core Standards, which have an emphasis on depth over breadth.

The English Department hoped to accomplish this by uniting the two laned freshman English classes into the acceler-

ated class. According to Kindel Launer, one of the ninth grade English teachers working on the proposal, this would be achieved by placing all incoming freshmen into the current English 9A class. Students were expected to benefit from the mixed grouping, which would combine all ninth grade students together while at the same time preparing them for accelerated 10th grade English.

“Students will have a more universal experience in ninth grade and will be better equipped because of the alignment,” Launer says.

PALY’S LOW STANDING Palo Alto High School’s standings in API Scores and SAT combined reading and writing scores from the 2012-2013 school year. Monta Vista, Lynbrook, and Saratoga all have unlaned 9th Grade English classes, unlike Gunn and Paly, and have the three highest local API scores.

Chart provided by PAUSD School Board President Barb Mitchell

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FEATURES | APRIL 2014 This proposal was not created by the English Department hastily. The department first discussed the ideas behind the proposal around seven years ago. More recently, department supervisor Shirley Tokheim addressed the problem the department faced.

“When I first came to work at Paly, I noticed that English 9 and 9A seemed to be organized not so much around ability but around socioeconomic status,” Tokheim says. “Students tended to choose their 9th grade English class based on what their friends were taking, not on their own ability.”

According to Launer, another source of motivation to bring change to the system was the observation that despite the fact that the school population has grown to over 2,000 students, the number of students taking AP and Honors English.

“Why haven’t AP Lit and English 11 Literature Honors’ acceptance rates grown at a proportional rate to the growth in student population?” Launer asks.

This baffled the English teachers, who began investigating and forming the proposal. Further research showed that three Santa Clara County high schools, Monta Vista, Lynbrook and Saratoga, reported higher Academic Performance Index scores and have all detracked English 9 and English 10 classes.

The belief was further strengthened by statistics drawn from the California Standardized Testing English Language Arts scores. According to the English 9A pilot proposal, 80 percent of Paly freshmen score proficient or advanced on the CST ELA. According to Launer, despite the fact that 75 per-

cent of English 9 students score proficient and advanced scores on the CST ELA, they still enrolled in English 9.

“Why are students who are scorings fours and fives, proficient and advanced scores in English, choosing not to take a class that will challenge them?” Launer asks. “Qualitatively, it would appear that students whose scores are high choose a lower lane of English because they’re trying to balance math and science.”

According to Tokheim, the 9th grade English teachers sought to solve the predicament by forming a Professional Learning Community. Tokheim reported that the teachers worked to align their curriculum by creating pacing guides, similar writing prompts and assessments in the process.

“Given that the Common Core standards emphasize depth rather than breadth, it makes sense [that] there is little difference in curriculum,” Tokheim says.

Despite the reasoning behind the proposal, the proposal was quietly ushered away with no more consideration, five days after the Board of Education meeting adjourned at 1:15 a.m.

The events during these five days prompted the community to voice its concern over the Board’s handling of the matter. An editorial on the Palo Alto Online website rebuking the Board’s handling of the matter received widespread support from community members in the comments section.

Sally Torbey, a Palo Alto Online blogger, commented on the editorial: “I found it surprising how dismissive the Board members were of the well-researched, wellthought out proposal.”

There was discordance in the Board’s handling of the proposal from

ENGLISH TEACHERS MEET WEEKLY TO PREPARE FOR OPEN ACCESS NOV. 2012

FEB 2013

NEW PRINCIPAL DIORIO BEGINS TO WORK WITH PROPOSAL AUG. 2013

SKELLY GIVES GREEN LIGHT TO GO FORWARD NOV. 2013

SCHOOL PRINICPALS AND SKELLY DECIDE THAT PROPOSAL PASSING IS UNLIKELY JAN. 2014

COMMUNITY OPPOSITION, REMOVED FROM BOARD FEB. 2014

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BOARD UNSATISFIED, POSTPONES PROPOSAL

PROPOSAL PRESENTED TO BOARD JAN. 2014

1-2

7

20132014

10

20142015 15-16

Number of English 9A classes

Number of English 9 classes

DIMINISHING As shown by the graph, the number of English 9 and 9A classes from this school year to next year has grown. Data provided by Kathleen Laurence. the beginning. Only 10 minutes were originally scheduled for the proposal, though it was given more time later in the meeting itself. Board President Barbara Mitchell admitted the original scheduling of the proposal was a mistake, stating in an email that “The English 9A pilot proposal deserved and was given much more time than estimated.”

The proposal, however, was not given any more consideration after the meeting.

According to Board member Melissa Caswell, a sufficient amount of questions had come up that the superintendent’s office decided to remove the proposal.

Launer expressed her disapproval at the Board’s handling of the proposal.

“I think their manner speaks for itself,” Launer says. “If I had elected officials conducting the public’s business at one o’clock in the morning, I would say that that’s not very transparent. Having a meeting in the middle of the night is not doing their business in public. Do you think it’s best to elect people who conduct their business that way?”

Caswell said the district office was the one to act, rather than the Board members, and that its actions match the majority opinion of the community.

Despite its removal from discussion, Paly’s delaning proposal has sparked change throughout the district.

According to Jordan Middle School’s English Department supervisor Kelly Zalatimo, Jordan will continue to shift its curriculum in support of 9th grade delaning.

“Because Paly’s 9th grade English team has done so much work to align their curriculum, assessments, and general expecta-

tions in preparation for a single lane, similar work is underway at Jordan,” Zalatimo says.

Zalatimo says that the delaning of 9th grade English is consistent with the Common Core standards’ shift towards more in-depth, slower paced work as opposed to covering “more” for the sake of acceleration or volume.

“Having a singular 9th grade English lane designed for alignment and consistency allows for the possibility of greater collaboration across disciplines in literary instruction at Paly,” Zalatimo says.

Furthermore, the proposal has led to increased registration for English 9A in the upcoming school year. The 9th grade students had only English 9A available to them on the course selection document for the upcoming 2014-2015 school year, as the guidance department assumed the proposal would be passed. Following the rejection of the proposal, the option to take English 9 has since been added, according to Tokheim.

Despite a letter regarding the addition of English 9 to the course registration, the late addition led to fewer incoming 9th graders signing up to take English 9.

According to Paly’s assistant principal Kathleen Laurence, there are enough signups for one or two sections of English 9 and 15 or 16 sections of English 9A for the upcoming school year, as compared to seven sections of English 9 and 10 sections of English 9A this school year.

Although the proposal may not have formally passed, the majority of incoming freshman are now enrolled in English 9A next year, fulfilling much of the department’s wishes. v

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PERSPECTIVES | APRIL 2014

Double Time THE BOARD OF EDUCATION NEEDS A CHANGE OF PACE

T

Text by MIRANDA COHN Art by ANTHONY LIU

HE BOARD OF EDUCATION MAKES are neither awake nor rational. Looking back through past meetdecisions about the welfare of the Palo Alto Uni- ings, this emerges as a pattern, with some meetings running far fied School District and, as stated by its philosophy, over their scheduled time. Based on the publicly available minutes, is supposed to “provide a school system that repre- it’s hard to say whether this is an overscheduling issue or an issue sents, in its judgment, a synthesis of the best com- with staying on topic. A Palo Alto Online article from Feb. 7 talks munity and professional views.” Looking at the past few years, one about an event where a middle schooler was not allowed to speak cannot help but wonder where those beliefs and philosophies have due to being off-topic, but as one anonymous commenter going gone. The indefinite postponement of the proposal to de-lane 9th by the name “Gunn mom” wrote, “If not staying exactly on topic grade English a few days after it was presented at 1 a.m. on Jan. every minute was grounds for forcible ejection, the school board 28 (technically, Jan. 29) is the latest, though not the greatest, in the days would be empty by 7:00 every other Tuesday night.”

Whether this is true or whether there are just too series of disappointments — one that could have been many issues planned for each board meeting, the avoided had the meeting not run, as they always meetings can’t continue like this.

The seem to do, far over the scheduled time.

If important issues are discussed at 1 a.m., The de-laning proposal was supposed to simplest sensible decisions can’t be made. People are combine English 9 and 9A into just 9A. The solution is to too eager to get home to seriously consider English teachers say that all freshmen should just have board those important issues.

We need some way not be shunted into taking only high lane or meetings every to give the board more time to discuss issues. only low lane English classes by the students’ The simplest solution is to just have week, rather than choice of class in their freshman year. board meetings every week, rather than every Teachers also propose that a mixed 9th every other other week, giving the board twice as much grade class would benefit students socially as week. planned time at reasonable hours.

This would well as grade-wise, shrinking the achievement halve the topics of discussion every week, allowgap between White and Asian students and stuing them to give enough time to every issue, instead dents from minority groups. of having to fit too many topics in one meeting.

“It’s been really clear that students in 9A tend to be Adding extra meetings wouldn’t even mean that the people White and Asian, and students in … 9 tend to be students of colon the board would have to work for twice as long — they’re alor,” says Kindel Launer, the freshman English team leader. Deready putting in the extra hours. Doubling the meetings would just laning would allow for greater mixing of students from different make them pre-plan hours at reasonable times, rather than overbackgrounds. time hours past midnight.

People pitching their proposals wouldn’t This issue has generated a lot of discussion. It’s good that have to stay up late just to make their voice heard, making it easier people are talking about it, considering all its ramifications and that for people with full-time jobs to participate in the community. it brings about many different points of view. The problem is that Doubling the number of meetings would help even more it’s been discussed privately, without a chance for one large public with issues that have deadlines, like the de-laning proposal — it forum on the issue. The board should have scheduled a special had to be either accepted or denied

by Feb. 27, when course selecmeeting or event so that Palo Alto residents could openly discuss tions were due for incoming 9th graders.

Instead it was indefinitely the issue with the people planning it. At the very least, the board postponed, a slightly nicer way of saying that it probably won’t should have heard out the teachers’ proposal at a reasonable time come up again.

If nothing is changed, we’ll just continue on like and let other people come to hear the teachers’ pitch. this, continuing to hear out other proposals in the way this one was Instead, the board originally scheduled only 10 minutes for heard out: at 1 a.m. on a Tuesday — or rather, a Wednesday. v the discussion and ran over until 1 a.m., a time when most people

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PERSPECTIVES | APRIL 2014

Let’s talk about sex

SEX EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS NEEDS IMPROVEMENT

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Text by KELLY SHI Art by ANTHONY LIU

HETHER IT COMES IN THE form of the long-awaited “talk” from a parent, an incredibly graphic educational film in biology class, or a furtive, giggling whisper from a friend, almost everyone remembers their first venture into the scandalous world of sexuality education: learning how babies are made. But on a scale from the infant-delivering stork to egg-seeking, tail-wiggling sperm, how accurate were those sexplanations?

With some parents too embarrassed to give their child the down and dirty details, and the media depicting sex in a gritty, consumer-based approach, high school sexual education, or sexed, is often education’s last chance to take a stand and provide students with an accurate definition of the horizontal tango before releasing them into the wild world of college and adulthood.

Students need high school to provide an explanation of sex and its many consequences through information on STDs and pregnancy, a complete anatomical examination of the male and female genitals, the wide array of gender and sexual identifications, and many other varying facets of sex. While this expectation is more than fulfilled in Palo Alto, not every school has their own Living Skills class equipped with robot babies and poignant documentaries to educate oblivious teenagers.

Since 1996, which featured the deluded implementation of abstinence education, the nation has progressed to varying levels of sex-education throughout the 50 states. According to Sex, Etc., a website that promotes teens’ sexual health, Alabama does not require schools to teach about sexuality, but when schools do, the curriculum must be abstinence-oriented, and teach that abstinence is the only way to avoid STDs and pregnancy, completely ignoring the many possibilities that condoms, spermicide and other types of birth control have to offer a couple’s sex life.

Compared to Alabama, California’s sex-education policy is a wet dream for those who aspire to improve national education.

According to California Education Code Section 51933, all sexed courses must “provide information about the effectiveness and safety of all FDA-approved contraceptive methods in preventing pregnancy.” This policy would get a gold star from me, if not for the fact that schools aren’t required to teach sex-ed.

Although all California public schools are required to teach HIV/AIDS prevention, the public schools are allowed to choose

whether or not to teach about sexuality. If they do choose to follow the noble path of sex-ed, they must follow the comprehensive curriculum set by the state. In 2012, more than half of the schools in Oakland Unified Schools District did not choose the path of sex-education righteousness, according to a study by Oaklandbased reproductive health advocate group Forward Together.

Whether by coincidence or not, according to an East Bay Express article, Oakland has the highest chlamydia rates in Alameda County. The schools’ only hope of redemption are groups like Forward Together, which gives presentations on sex-education to fill the gaping, condom-sized holes in the district’s curriculum.

Even in Palo Alto, where classes like Living Skills provide comprehensive sex education according to the state, there are groups like Great Conversations, who strive to further promote communication between families about puberty, sex and other topics related to growing up.

Great Conversations organizes “Heart to Heart” (H2H) sessions at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital to educate children ages 10 to 12 about their bodies and how they will change during puberty. The childrens’ parents are encouraged to tag along with the children and together, child and adult undergo a pleasant, educational session about puberty and growing up.

H2H is the perfect alternative to middle schools who don’t give a dental dam about sexuality education, and its only fault is that it exists in the first place. If schools did their job properly, programs like H2H wouldn’t need to be birthed into the world.

Nancy Sanchez, Community Relations manager at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, organizes H2H sessions. Luckily for schools in situations similar to Oakland’s, according to Sanchez, Great Conversations is in the midst of creating programs for precollege and pre-high school teens. According to Sanchez, the programs will be ready to debut by the end of 2014.

The teenager’s quest for knowledge is fulfilled, or at least it is for those in Palo Alto. For cities unlucky enough to lack both high school sexual education and organizations like Great Conversations and Forward Together, their teenage population will continue to be in danger of believing the skewed image of sex provided by the media and parents. Teenage Jimmy may believe babies come from the beaks of large birds, while teenage Melinda may hold fast to the words of Coach Carr from blockbuster hit “Mean Girls”: “Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die.” v

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PERSPECTIVES | APRIL 2014

This Land(e) is Your Land(e) Text by LANDE WATSON Photo Illustration by ANTHONY LIU and ANA SOFIA AMIEVA-WANG

B(E) OKAY WITH GETTING A B

Y

OU’RE LYING OUT ON THE QUAD, the sun warming your back while you talk to your friends. It’s 7th period during fourth quarter and you’re just not feeling the whole “school thing.”

Who needs to go to class anyway? When you head home, you decide it would be a good idea to re-watch your favorite movie and roll around on the floor for a few hours. As your clock turns to 10 p.m., you close out of Netflix and log onto Facebook. Eight notifications from your AP Living Skills Course light up the screen. There’s an exam tomorrow and you completely forgot (or chose to forget) to study. What do you do?

It seems that the answer of many Palo Alto High School students placed in a similar situation would be to frantically email their teacher begging them to move the test back a day; Or, ask their parents to call them out of 5th period; Or worst of all, message a friend who already took the exam and ask for answers.

After all, you deserve that A. Despite the fact that all you’ve paid attention to in class for the last three weeks is your own split ends and the guy to your left and that you haven’t done the reading in months, you’re entitled to it. You’ve consistently been an A student, and those occasional B’s were totally not your fault, and you think you should suddenly get points for just showing up. And so you spin around in circles making gorilla noises, looking for someone to blame.

And, when you don’t get it, you do what Paly students have been doing since the beginning of time and go to extremes to blame others for the grade you truly deserve.

Many of us have fallen victim to “I deserve an A” syndrome. It’s much easier to try and give yourself an unfair advantage than to accept the grade deserved for the amount of work you’ve done. It’s true, I learned it in AP Psych.

In psychology this is called the

Fundamental Attribution Error — when we succeed in a task, i.e. get an A on that math test, we assume it’s because of internal factors: we studied well, have a good grasp of the material and are just generally intelligent. However, when we fail in a task, i.e. bomb that psych test, we blame it on external factors: the teacher who didn’t teach us, the material that was too hard and so forth.

This error in attribution becomes dangerous when we fail to take ownership of our less than perfect performance. In high school, mommy might be able to email the school and make your F in English — or the teacher that “gave it to you” — go away, but your parents aren’t going to be there when you forget to prepare for your senior thesis in college, or for that presentation to the CEO of your company, or your taxes for that matter. Responsibility isn’t limited to the classroom and boardroom.

I’m not suggesting that Paly students “need to work harder and do well in school.” I’ve had my share of unsavory grades and I’ve done my share of blame-pushing. But now as I reach the end of my high school career, I realize that I’m okay with getting a B for B work. I understand that if I don’t do outstanding work on a project, I don’t deserve an outstanding grade.

Seeing a letter other than “A” on your report card may be an anxiety inducing experience, and there are certainly external factors that play into you feeling like running away to join a circus unless you get a 4.0 GPA. However, we do not have to fall victim to the idea that we are not good enough.

An 85 percent is fantastic, you know 85 percent of the material! A 75 percent is great, you know 3/4s of the material!

So as I finally succumb to my senioritis, as I gasp for breath under a pile of late math homework, I have one last message, a deathbed wish: Be okay with getting a B. Or a C or a D. Or whatever grade you deserve. v

Anthony Liu

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Palo Alto Unified School District Palo Alto High School 50 Embarcadero Road Palo Alto, CA 94301

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