Teenagers manage to keep secrets from parents, experts favor a transparent relationship pages 14-15
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AS A TEACHER AND A WRITER, READING IS MOST IMPORTANT... PEOPLE [CAN] MISUNDERSTAND THE MOMENT THAT WE’RE IN ... LEARNING HISTORY AND INFORMING YOURSELF OF HISTORY IS ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO GET A SENSE OF WHY THE WORLD LOOKS THE WAY IT DOES.
Clint Smith, guest poet
Colloquium features Clint Smith as
Event fosters discussion, upper schoolers have opportunity to present writings
In 2013, Clint Smith, meritorious poet, teacher and current doctoral candidate in education at Harvard University, was named the Christine D. Sarbanes Teacher of the Year by the Maryland Humanities Council. In 2016, Smith published “Counting Descent,” an award-winning compilation of poetry, and on Feb. 3, he visited ESD for the annual DFW Interscholastic Colloquium to speak about his work.
Seventy-two students were chosen from 11 private schools in the area to attend the colloquium and present their pieces. To apply, students were presented with 14 prompts catering to a variety of stylistic techniques.
“Being a part of this [colloquium] inspires confidence,” English teacher Heather Cernoch said. “As students grow, they’re going to have to speak in front of their peers, and it’s a nerve-racking prospect.”
This year’s colloquium included a commencement ceremony, two sessions in which students shared their works and a concluding keynote address from Smith. Local bookstore Interabang Books sponsored Smith’s visit the school.
“We have never done poetry [for a colloquium], ” English teacher and English Department Chair Tolly Salz said. “I really wanted something from an African American author. I wanted something that incorporated a different voice.”
encouraged his students to voice their opinions with veracity, as well as voice his own.
“As a teacher and a writer, reading is most important,” Smith said. “I think people [can] misunderstand the moment that we’re in because they don’t understand the history that came before it, and I think that learning history and informing yourself of history is one of the best ways to get a sense of why the world looks the way it does.”
“BEING A PART OF THIS [COLLOQUIUM] INSPIRES CONFIDENCE. AS STUDENTS GROW, THEY’RE GOING TO HAVE TO SPEAK IN FRONT OF THEIR PEERS...”
“A Talk to Teachers,” written in 1963 by James Baldwin, a renowned American novelist, inspired Smith, who was working as a high school teacher in Massachusetts when he first read it. From there, Smith further
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Around the world is a compilation of significant global events selected by news editor Lauren Egger
Heather Cernoch, English teacher
“Counting Descent” reveals the experiences and harsh realities that often go unheard, tackling many crucial social justice issues, such as race and mass incarceration.
“Smith is a poet—he brings a political urgency to the page,” Greenhill School English Chair Joel
President Trump acquitted With a vote count of 52-48 on abuse of power, and 53-47 on obstruction of Congress, President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate on impeachment charges on Feb. 5. Senator Mitt Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict the president. With no witness testimony, Democrats were unhappy that his dealings with Ukraine went unpunished.
Garza said. “Smith started working through justice, family and history with words on a page. How will you work through those realities in your life, on your campus?”
Salz hopes that the authenticity of Smith’s work inspires the same quality in students.
“I want a community where your voice is needed and valued—and you know it, too,” Salz said. “That’s the kind of community we need to create, and we can do that with a sense of trust and vulnerability, but we’re not going to get there if we don’t talk and if we don’t hear voices other than the ones that already dominate the narrative.”
The colloquium honored academics, literature and allowed students to express their ideas.
“I admire teenagers today because, for many, there is a desire to move toward openness and recognition,” Smith said. “Everyone experiences the world in ways that are reflective of their identities.”
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Coronavirus kills
Chinese doctor
Doctor Li Wenliang warned the world in December about the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. He was silenced by the local police and the government after speaking out about the virus and was summoned to the Public Security Bureau to sign a letter saying he made “false comments.” He died on Feb. 7 from the disease after fighting it for a week.
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UK leaves the EU On Jan. 31, the UK left the EU, completing “Brexit.” A public vote was held in June of 2016 when 52 percent of the country voted to leave and 48 percent wanted to remain in the EU. The conditions of their departure had stalled the process for years. Members of Parliament backed Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to leave the EU. The transition period will end on Dec. 31, 2020.
grace knudson story by
The Environmental Awareness Club and Baking Club hosted a bake sale with the goal of raising money to aid the people and animals affected by the Australian bushfires on Jan. 16 and Jan. 17.
The bushfires, which engulfed more than 12.35 million acres of Australia, have killed at least 25 people and an estimated 1.25 billion animals.
The Environmental Awareness Club wanted to send aid by donating money to the WIRES Australian Wildlife Rescue Organization, which will help eradicate the fires and rehabilitate and rescue animals. The bake sale treats were provided by members in both clubs, and a slideshow of facts was displayed regarding the Australian bushfire damage to raise awareness about the effects that global warming has on the Earth. In total, the sale raised $712.
“Lending a helping hand in Australia’s time of crisis is important because whenever the U.S. is in a crisis, we’ll want the same help,” Environmental Awareness Club president and junior Susanna Newsom said. “We need to be compassionate because we are all caregivers of the Earth, so we should help people and animals.”
Baking Club president and senior Lily Grace Hoodis said. “The school participation in bake sales is very high, so I thought it would be an efficient way to raise money. While our donation might be small compared to other donations, it’s good that we are contributing in some way.”
The day prior to the bake sale, Middle and Upper School Chaplain Tim Kennedy offered a homily about global warming and Greta Thunberg’s work, Time Magazine’s person of the year and global warming activist, to spread awareness of global warming and how it has affected the environment, including the present fires in Australia.
“THE ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS CLUB IS HERE TO EDUCATE STUDENTS, BUT ALSO TO TAKE ACTION AND NOT JUST TALK ABOUT PROBLEMS.”
“The environment is such a big deal that a lot of us are not even paying attention to,” Kennedy said. “I hope our community here can be thinking about what we can do to take care of our planet and if we can have a larger impact to help the environment because it affects all of us. It’s great to see the Environmental Awareness Club help out the environment, especially Australia.”
Susanna Newsom, junior
This is the first bake sale the Environmental Awareness Club has held this school year. Last year, their bake sale provided relief for Elephant Havens, an elephant rescue center in Botswana. Unlike the past bake sales, this year, the Baking Club helped provide goods.
“I am a huge advocate for the environment, so when I heard that the Environmental Awareness Club was brainstorming ways to help out [with the Australian wildfires,] I thought a bake sale would be a great way for the Baking Club to be involved, also,”
The Environmental Awareness Club hopes that the community can understand the impact of their daily actions and live by the motto of the club, which is to ‘act locally, think globally.’ The next project the club hopes to accomplish is implementing a composting pile on campus in order to reduce the community’s carbon footprint on the world.
“The Environmental Awareness Club is here to educate students, but also to take action and not just talk about problems,” Newsom said. “The climate crisis affects all of us and we need to be ethical global citizens and have an individual responsibility for something that is going to impact us, future generations, animals and ecosystems.”
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Senior Hadley Smith walks across stage while rehearsing a scene with senior Val Mooty, sophomore Luke Mooty, freshman Liam Pham, junior Joseph Santone and junior Andrew Pfaff. Upperclassman made up a majority of the cast for this year’s winter musical. “My character, Finch, is the lead and he is very fun to follow,” Mooty said. “The show is an underdog story that will leave you laughing.”
“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” raises concern about sexism in production, sparks conversation
emily delgado story by
The theater department will perform this year’s winter musical, “How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” Feb. 27 through Feb. 29 in the Bray Theater.
Fine Arts Department Chair and director Dusty Davidson, technical theater director Lauren Redmond and choir teacher Joe Snyder chose the former Broadway production because of their previous experiences with the show.
“[Choosing the musical] is a process that takes a while for us because we have to pick and narrow [the choices] down to see if that show is actually right for the school,” Redmond said. “Mr. Davidson has worked on this show before, so he’s not only taking inspiration from that experience but also creating new things for this particular production. I did this show when I was in college, so I’m bringing that experience.”
Over 50 students auditioned for roles on Nov. 19, the largest amount of auditions for a single production in the theater department.
“We had a lot more people show up than we expected,” Davidson said. “Because this was the largest number of kids we’ve had audition, we had the largest cuts we’ve ever had before. Unfortunately, we just can’t get that many people on stage.”
One of the moments Davidson is most looking forward to is seeing the crowd’s reaction to brothers senior Val Mooty and sophomore Luke Mooty performing together. Val was cast as the male lead, J. Pierrepont Finch, while Luke was cast as his boss, Jasper B. Biggley.
“They have automatic chemistry because they’re brothers,” Davidson said. “It’s been really fun working with them and seeing them interact with each other. They’re playing opposite of each other, and they’ve got several funny bits in the show, which will be interesting to see.”
While this will be Val’s second
musical performance, it will be Luke’s first experience with acting.
“Luke was cast perfectly in my opinion, because he’s really funny, super witty and a great actor,” Val said. “I honestly was not expecting him to get such a huge role, but I’m really proud of him. I actually looked for his name on the casting list before I looked for mine just because I was so excited, and I thought he did really well in auditions. I know it’s something that he and I are going to remember and cherish forever.”
With songs such as “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm” and “A Secretary is Not a Toy,” many students worried that this production would be disrespectful and sexist.
“It was definitely hard to hear [those titles] the first time because you’re like, ‘What?’” senior and female lead Cambridge Bender said. “I could not imagine those words coming out of my mouth. But, those things did happen. Even though it’s making fun of it, women are still patronized today. This musical addresses issues that occurred in the past and show that we’re still battling with them today.”
show, students particularly, that were concerned that it was a very sexist production, and we’re not denying that by any standpoint, because that was the era,” Redmond said. “The women are some of the strongest characters on stage. They’re strong in their own right, but the men are kind of oblivious to them. It’s actually kind of nice to go back and see how it was and see how far you’ve come. This is never to demean women, and it’s never to make fun of women or play up the machismo of men; it was just how it was at that time.”
Val believes that while the production may seem offensive on paper, it is evident in the live performance that it is not promoting sexist ideology but rather criticizing the past.
“EVEN THOUGH IT’S MAKING FUN OF IT, WOMEN ARE STILL PATRONIZED TODAY. THIS MUSICAL ADDRESSES ISSUES THAT OCCURRED IN THE PAST AND SHOW THAT WE’RE STILL BATTLING WITH THEM TODAY.”
Cambridge Bender, senior
“At first, I thought we were not going to be able to do the show because I thought it was going to be called off, but after I read the script, it made a lot more sense,” Val said. “The show does a good job of showing an audience the flaws with the mentality at the time and why now we’ve moved away from that. It’s good to poke fun at the mistakes we’ve made and move on.”
Although theater is a form of entertainment, it also serves as a catalyst for discussion and change.
Because the production is a satirical representation of the workplace in the ‘50s and ‘60s, Redmond believes it is important to see how far society has come in terms of equal treatment and women’s rights.
“We had quite a few people come up to us after we announced the
“Art is supposed to spark conversation and controversy, and if we play it safe and do a little fairy tale every year, it kind of takes away [the challenge,]” Redmond said. “These students should be able to have that kind of educational facility here for them to actually learn and grow and realize not everything is wine and roses, but you can have fun with it at the same time.”
story by Community members reflect on the changes in the school's relationship with Episcopalianism over the years
carolyn langford
Forty-six years ago, Rev. Canon Stephen B. Swann implemented several founding Episcopalian tenants that would come to define the school and allow its relationship with the Episcopal church to evolve over the years.
“Father Swann was very serious when he founded the school that certain things were going to be here for the future,” Middle and Upper School Chaplain Tim Kennedy said. “When we fast-forward, many of them are still here. We have a very strong commitment to continuing them through the board, the student vestry and head of school David Baad.”
Father Swann instituted the core values of daily worship, community, ethical decision making and service, which brought forth several traditions that continue to take place, including every students’ daily chapel experience. This continuity allows for the nourishment of a spiritual relationship with God each day to grow.
“Daily worship is clearly a big part of the school’s identity,” Kennedy said. “It has been one of Father Swann’s most important things from the very beginning. We’ve always had daily chapel, and it’s just a part of who we are and what we do.”
Six years ago, Lower School
Chaplain Amy Heller took interest in the chaplain position at the school with the goal of elevating the school’s Episcopal identity and what it means to be a school in the Episcopal tradition of education.
Part of that role would involve further strengthening our connection with the diocese and worshiping and maintaining consistency with Episcopal values. However, Heller soon became instrumental in one of the most important changes to the school’s relationship with the Episcopal church. With the objective of educating students for a world that is complex when understanding religions, Heller set out to make sure that the school was heavily involved in matters of diversity, inclusion, equity, social justice, matters of service and service-learning.
"PART OF OUR EPISCOPAL IDENTITY HAS TO DO WITH BEING CONSISTENT WITH WHAT THE EPISCOPAL TRADITION IS, BUT THAT ALSO IN A SCHOOL SETTING BREAKS OUT MORE TO BE THAT WE ARE HEAVILY INVOLVED IN MATTERS OF DIVERSITY, INCLUSION AND SERVICE."
say, ‘Father Swann,’ which is a wonderful answer, and yet at the same time, Father Swann wasn’t there. Then, they would explain that there was a priest in charge, which made them Episcopal. This was the beginning of working with the board to make sure we were living out what it means to be an Episcopal school.”
Amy Heller, Lower School Chaplain
This evolution of understanding the school’s Episcopal identity led to the need for growth in the management of the student body’s diversity and inclusion. Thus, Dr. Elizabeth Goatley became the Director of Diversity and Inclusion.
is my hope that it's always a role that allows the community to know that there is someone listening and supporting everyone on campus."
With Heller’s arrival, the student vestry grew from a few students to several dozens, creating the opportunity for a voice throughout the community. The student input allowed the chapel program to grow and evolve at a rapid pace.
“There are many students who participate and help lead chapel every day, so it’s not just the chaplain running chapel, it’s a whole group of people who are helping,” Kennedy said. “As a student vestry, people have ideas, and the students who go to chapel everyday have ideas. We are always balancing how to be loyal and respectful of the past and open to people who have new and different ideas.”
are common in Episcopal churches and then certainly come through with those moments in our life in Chapel.”
Although the school’s Episcopal identity has evolved over the years, both students and faculty believe there is still room for growth.
“Sometimes the Episcopal part of our identity is so ingrained that I don’t think people are always mindful that we do certain things as a part of our Episcopal identity,” Kennedy said. “We want to make sure that every student is part of the process of being fed spiritually.”
“When I got here, I would ask students, ‘What’s our Episcopal identity?’” Heller said. “They would
"It is my hope that a director of diversity and inclusion helps facilitate unity by helping the campus engage and learn about areas of diversity," Goatley said. "Sometimes that means listening to different groups lived experiences on campus. Other times that means facilitating interesting and challenging conversations, but it
The different ideas within the student vestry led to the generation of new traditions. Students were able to leave a mark on the school with their ideas that sometimes stemmed from family traditions.
Heller appreciates the combination of ancient rituals and new ones.
“I loved my time with the student vestry, developing traditions like the flowering of the cross last year or even the building of the creche and the washing of the feet,” Heller said. “These are all elements that
Sophomore Weston Hargrave also shares the belief that the school’s Episcopal identity has room to be strengthened in the community. He believes this can be achieved through the modification of certain daily practices.
“Many churches and parishes value tradition and the importance of liturgy,” Hargrave said. “The overuse of projectors and the underuse of "The Book of Common Prayer" has become a problem, and I think it’s important that the school take a step in starting to use "The Book of Common Prayer" more often instead of projecting words on the screen. That would bring more structure to our daily worship as an Episcopal school.”
When Lake Travis’ cedar trees begin to release pollen, wind blows the pollen up to North Texas, initiating allergy season.
Dallas was ranked the fifth city in the United States with the highest pollen amount in April 2019, according to the Dallas Morning News. Allergy season starts at the beginning of February when most of the trees that emit pollen begin to bloom; mountain cedar and elm trees both bloom from February to March, which is why those months are considered pollen season.
“My allergies are the worst during the spring because that is when everything in nature starts to come back to life,” sophomore Finley Nelson said. “I am also outside more [often] in the spring.”
Many students face mild-toextreme allergy symptoms during the spring because of all the pollen in the air. Symptoms, such as sneezing, watery and itchy eyes, runny nose and asthma, can all be caused by pollen floating in the air, which can be hard to avoid. In some cases, the best option to avoid allergic reactions is to just stay indoors.
“Pollen is everywhere all the time,” junior Madison McCoy said.
“I can’t avoid it. I’ve had to learn how to work around it.”
Texas has one of the longest and worst allergy seasons, according to Dr. Vinita Schroeder from Park Cities Allergy and Asthma. Due to the short winters, trees begin to pollinate earlier.
Mountain cedar and ragweed are amongst the most prevalent factors that cause allergies. However, some of these allergic reactions can be a result of one’s genes.
“A lot of it is environmental, and a lot of it is what we call the ‘Hygiene Hypothesis’ where we have overused antibiotics,” Schroeder said.
allergic reactions over the course of five years.
“We test the patient for what they are allergic to, and we make a serum based off their allergies that is made from the plant extract,” Schroeder said. “We sensitize them to their allergies over a three-to five-year period. It is basically a cure.”
"I HAVE TO STAY HOME SICK SOMETIMES...
PEOPLE
[SAY,] 'YOU'RE NOT SICK,' BUT I AM. I DON'T THINK IT WOULD BE PRODUCTIVE FOR ME TO BE AT SCHOOL WHEN I FEEL THAT BAD.
Madison McCoy, junior
“It has changed our immune systems to suppress. We have altered our immune systems to become more prone to allergies.”
Patients are tested and are given a serum that is specific to the patient and their allergies. The serum is then injected into the patient and slowly cures the
McCoy has had a severe case of allergies since she was four years old. After visiting an allergy doctor, she was prescribed allergy shots three times a week. The amount of shots lessened over time and helped her become immune to some of the things she is allergic to.
“I had a ton of allergies before I started allergy shots,” McCoy said. “After five years of doing the shots, I was immune to some of them, but I just developed new [allergies], so it didn’t help at all.”
In other cases, allergy shots seem to help calm the patient’s symptoms and lessen the amount
Claire Cahoon’s experience in Youth and Government leads her to managing political campaigns
sloane hope story by
When alumna Claire Cahoon ‘13 moved back to Dallas after graduating from the University of Southern California in 2016, she was trying to decide which law school she wanted to attend, leaving her with a lot of time on her hands. And that is how she got involved in local politics.
Cahoon has been a part of numerous Dallas political campaigns, her first being Ed Meier’s campaign for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives in 2017. Currently, Cahoon is the campaign manager for Alex Enriquez, who is running for the DISD District 2 Trustee position.
“[Enriquez] runs everything on the administrative side, which is great for me because I get to work on the strategic side,” Cahoon said. “I work on campaign strategy and run the communications and the politics part of his campaign.”
Enriquez relies on Cahoon for a large portion of his campaign and says that she has been the ultimate backbone throughout the whole process.
“Cahoon is the reason I am going to win this election,” Enriquez said.
“Her belief in me and her dedication to our message is the single most important component of our campaign. She is a brilliant strategist and communicator, and she has an otherworldly ability to take my words and phrases and make them pitch perfect.”
Although politics plays a large part in her life, Cahoon is in her final year of law school at Southern Methodist University and will be moving to Houston in May to practice law, specializing in whitecollar crime and data privacy. While her parents are also lawyers, Cahoon says it was participating in Youth and Government in high school that made her realize her dreams of becoming a lawyer.
“Being in Youth and Government, I got a glimpse into what an environment centered around government, politics and law looked like,” Cahoon said. “It all started in seventh grade with history teacher Denise Stark. I credit so much to her as she really pushed me from the day she met me.”
Stark remembers every detail of Claire’s journey in Youth and Government, recalling her drive,
personality and argumentativeness as the main proponents of her success.
“Claire worked tirelessly during her seventh and eighth grade years to research and write substantive legislative bills, recruit dedicated members, organize meetings, attend frequent and lengthy practices and to motivate and stimulate fellow Junior Youth and Government Members,” Stark said. “High school sponsors from other Texas schools noted Claire’s leadership ability during District and State events and nominated and selected her to attend the YMCA’s U.S. Conference on National Affairs. Claire was the first ESD student to represent Texas at Conference of National Affairs where distinguished students from across the United States gather to discuss national affairs.”
Cahoon was very involved in numerous clubs and extracurriculars while at ESD as an Eagle Edition reporter, a Mu Alpha Theta member and tutor, the International Society Micro-Lending Chair and cofounder of the popular club Girl Talk. Cahoon said she learned many skills from these clubs, and the experience gained from each one has
of substances they are allergic to. Allergy shots are also more popular for those who have bad allergies than regular over-thecounter medicine. According a Feb. 9 poll of 200 students, 90 percent get allergy shots.
“Allergy shots are more efficient than the medicine I take because they are more effective,” Nelson said. “I get three in one day once a month.”
Severe allergies can also affect students’ ability to perform in academics, arts and sports. When a person breathes pollen, it sparks the release of histamine, a chemical compound, which causes inflammation that can make one feel sick. Symptoms can often feel like an intense cold, which sometimes leads to students having to take sick days. Despite feeling sick, according to the Feb. 9 poll of 2000 students, 78 percent said they still attend school.
“I have to stay home sick sometimes because my allergies get so bad,” McCoy said. “I know a lot of people don’t actually believe me, which is frustrating. People [say,] ‘You’re not sick,’ but I am. I don’t think it would be productive for me to be at school when I feel that bad.”
Both McCoy and Nelson often
go to school while they have strong allergy symptoms. Having to deal with these symptoms is distracting to both the people with allergies and those in the classroom. Allergies are not treated as a disease, which is troubling for students who are having to come to school under these circumstances.
“If your eyes [are] watering, it is kind of hard to focus,” Nelson said. “Sometimes you just have to deal with it.”
McCoy takes sick days once a month during the allergy season. She believes that teachers often don't believe she is sick because they're not taking into consideration how taxing her allergies can be. However, she says that allergies can make someone drowsy and can be equivalent or worse than a bad cold. McCoy believes it is an unfair disadvantage for students who face allergies to have to come to school and push through the day while feeling so sick.
“It would make me feel better if teachers knew that allergies are a real problem, especially in North Texas,” McCoy said. “It is really hard to always be feeling sick. I would appreciate [it] if everyone would be more sensitive to it.”
been extremely valuable to her work.
“The monotony of leadership is so real,” Cahoon said. “You have to respond to emails and sit on phone calls and fill out forms and learn what to do when an application isn’t working. That’s the kind of stuff you need to learn before you get out into the real world because if you try to do it in the real world for the first time, you get frustrated and bored and freak out, and the consequences are way greater in the real world than in high school.”
Cahoon also believes in the importance of doing what you love in high school, even if you lose friends or get judged because of it.
“If you find that something that you really love—whether that’s being really into school, being really into music or being really into some weird, obscure sport that no one understands—don’t stop pursuing it,” Cahoon said.
In her opinion, no one should stop pursuing their passions despite feeling misunderstood or judged.
“If you find that people don’t really understand it in high school, people will understand it in college,” she said. “You will find those people that are into the same things you are. It’s just not worth giving up.”
After leaving politics to pursue priesthood, Kennedy ordained in All Saints Chapel
story by
lauren egger
Kneeling with his head bowed before Bishop James M. Stanton and dressed in red to symbolize the fire of the Holy Spirit empowering him, Middle and Upper School Chaplain Tim Kennedy is presented before God and the bishop in the All Saints Chapel on Jan.16.
As the bishop and the priests lay their hands on Kennedy’s head and body, the bishop says, “Therefore, Father, through Jesus Christ your Son, fill your Holy Spirit to Tim; fill him with grace and power, and make him a priest in your church.”
Kennedy is ordained as a priest.
Kennedy is then handed a Bible by the bishop to remind him of the authority he now possesses to preach the Word of God and administer His Holy Sacraments. He is now officially connected to the priests and bishops, his predecessors since the time of Jesus and the apostles, through the symbolism of Bishop Stanton placing his hands upon him.
“[Being ordained] is like when you’re doing a 1,000-piece puzzle, and there’s this great satisfaction in placing that last [piece] because you’ve spent all this time [on the puzzle],” Kennedy said. “And let’s be clear, 999 pieces takes a long time, so there is a lot of blood, sweat, tears and energy going into [becoming a priest,] not to minimize that at all, but that last piece is sweet because you just step back and are like, ‘It’s done.’”
Kennedy’s path to priesthood was different from most—he began his career in politics. Fresh out of Austin College in 1998, he moved to Washington D.C. with no job lined up and enough money to last him only for one month. At the end of the month, if he had no job, he would have to work as a waiter or move home. So, he met with politicians on Capitol Hill and dropped off his resume where he could, and on the 25th day of this endeavor, he was hired in a
congressman’s office.
“I’m a planner, and it was scary to move without a job,” Kennedy said.
“My mother was horrified, but I felt like God [was] calling me to do this. It was a testing of my faith, and I felt like God was saying, ‘I told you to be patient,’ [after I got the job].”
Kennedy worked for a congressman and the speaker of the U.S. House. He had an office in the Capitol building for three-and-ahalf years.
“I got to work at the White House for a year, and if you had asked me at 18 or 22, [what I would be doing], it would not have been anywhere close to what happened,” Kennedy said. “God’s timing is different than mine, and I can be upset about that, but that’s just how it works. So, as I’ve gotten older, I can be a little bit more trusting because I have more evidence of how God has been faithful [to me].”
After President Barack Obama won the 2008 election, fewer jobs were available to those in the Republican Party, and that was when Kennedy decided to make a career change. Usually, someone who wishes to enter divinity school first gets pre-permission from a bishop to do so. This starts the discernment process where the person consults with other members of the Diocese, which is administered by the bishop, to figure out which position best fits what God is calling them to do. No one can just decide what position they want in the Episcopal Church—it is a gradual process that takes years.
“Most of the time people go through the process before [and during] seminary, and then you get ordained,” Kennedy said. “My process was a little bit unusual because I went to seminary before I had permission to go from an Episcopal bishop. But, my brain was hungry for something new and different, and that’s when God
opened this door.”
Kennedy entered divinity school at Yale, and then began working in D.C. at Washington Episcopal School. He worked as a lay chaplain, not ordained, in the Diocese of Washington D.C. with the Bishop Mariann Budde. In the Episcopal Church, the bishop controls what happens within the Diocese.
“THIS ORDINATION IS COOL BECAUSE IT IS THE END AND THE BEGINNING OF THE NEXT [PHASE IN MY LIFE], AND I HAVE BEEN WORKING ON THIS FOR A LONG TIME.”
Tim Kennedy, Middle and Upper School Chaplain
“I knew I wanted to be a school chaplain,” Kennedy said. “My friends going through seminary wanted to work in churches, but I wanted to be with students. I loved the idea of being a chaplain who would teach and lead worship.”
Kennedy was the chaplain for five years at the school until the bishop decided he could move to being ordained as a deacon. In June of 2019, he was ordained at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. as a transitional deacon. For some, deacon is their final stop in the church, but at this point, Kennedy knew he was called to be a priest. A transitional deacon must remain as one for six months before being ordained as a priest.
“It was an emotional moment when I realized that I was being called to be a priest but in a school setting,” Kennedy said. “It was like, ‘I think I am being called in this way but it doesn’t feel right, and then—OH!’ The opportunity to go to Yale divinity school and get to do
the special chaplain track [at Yale] on top of that was just really cool.”
At Austin College, Kennedy double majored in religion and political science. Then in D.C., he received his master’s degree in education from The George Washington University in 2005. At Yale, he got a master’s in divinity in 2014, and now, he is working on a doctor of ministry in educational leadership degree at Virginia Theological Seminary. His life had been leading up to his ordination, but he will not stop learning.
“I love learning,” Kennedy said. “If you get to read stuff that you like, yes, it’s school, and it’s a lot of work, but it’s stuff I want to learn about anyways. We should be students forever.”
On Jan. 16, Chaplain Tim Kennedy was ordained to the Sacred Order of the Priests in Christ’s Holy Catholic Church. He now leads Eucharist every Wednesday, which Lower School Chaplain Amy Heller was doing previously as he was a deacon, and only priests and bishops can lead Eucharist. Kennedy and Heller are still referred to as chaplains; this title was given to both of them once they became deacons and is still used for priests. They could also go by reverend or father or mother if they chose, but because they preside in a school setting, the two decided together to officially go by chaplain.
“[Kennedy] can preside at the Eucharist [now], so I won’t be there unless I am needed,” Heller said. “He’ll be serving at the middle-and-upper-school level. The beauty of having two chaplains on campus is that there will be times when [Chaplain] Kennedy is at a conference or can’t [attend] for some reason, so we are here to help each other in ministry.”
Heller recognizes the significance of the position Kennedy now holds.
“Across the clergy, [we have] the desire to serve,” Heller said. “[We want] to serve the people of God
and show who Christ calls us to be.”
Kennedy’s bishop in D.C. allowed him to be ordained and work at ESD. Bishop Budde formally asked Bishop Sumner, the current bishop of Dallas, if he could be ordained in Dallas. Then, Bishop Stanton, the former bishop of Dallas, was asked to perform the ordination instead because of his connection to ESD. He has grandchildren at the school and has worked within the school.
“It was exciting to me that [I was ordained] where I am with [the students] everyday and in our chapel where we are every day,” Kennedy said. “It was more special for me to be ordained here than for me to go back to D.C.”
Senior Isabella Pfister said a prayer and acolyted during the ordination. She was honored to be chosen, as ordinations are rare.
“It was a special ceremony that I am glad I got to experience,” Pfister said. “Seeing all of Kennedy’s work finally paying off, and the joy from his loved ones was very touching.” During the ordination, Kennedy was presented to Bishop Stanton, where he offered himself to God to always serve Him. Kennedy’s sister was a presenter in the ordination, and his parents served as vestors. This meant that his sister brought him before the bishop, and his parents were the ones who placed his stole on the correct way. Previously, Kennedy wore his stole sideways as deacons do.
“[I have learned] to be faithful because God is with you,” Kennedy said. “I am an impatient person because I want to fix things now, and sometimes, it just takes time. But God is working on different people in different places at different times, and sometimes it takes awhile to get all of those moves done before you are ready for the next thing. This ordination is cool because it is the end and the beginning of the next [phase in my life], and I have been working on this for a long time.”
The film department hosted the annual film festival on Jan. 17 in the Bray Theater. The event showcased 19 short films that students worked on from last spring to this fall.
“Film is just another way to express ourselves as people,” film teacher Robert Weiss said. “It’s unique because you can work hard on something and have a finished product that is shown multiple times.”
This year, the theme of the film festival was the ‘70s and ‘80s. Although not all of the films portrayed the theme, the night had a ‘70s and ‘80s aesthetic by having the vintage-like credits before every film.
“The film festival felt a lot different than last year,” junior and threeyear film student Robert Giles said. “I feel the quality of films improved, and [the festival] was much more popular. Film is very unique because of the variety of things that a person can produce with just a camera and a computer. You just start with an idea and over time you get to see your idea get evolved into a piece of art.”
by raleigh toledo
As senior Sarah Morrow helped walk a lower school student during carpool, she was reminded of her own memories from the Lower School.
Associate Head of School Ruth Burke used to wait on Merrell every day to help with lower school carpool, so the seniors decided to step up and take over this initiative.
“Helping out with carpool reminded me that even though we may not see the lower schoolers every day, the Lower School is on our campus and sharing a space with us,” Morrow said. “It is a great way to make the lower schoolers feel welcomed and inspired.”
Every week, a new advisory has two or three seniors stand every day in the carpool line from 7:30 a.m. to 8 a.m. to help the lower schoolers walk safely to their building.
“Waking up is a big sacrifice and it shows that [the seniors] are the class to lead us into this new tradition,” senior dean Caryn Rossiter said. “They get the chance to see everybody from the Lower School, Middle School and Upper School coming on campus and greet them.”
The Blue Print Gallery hosted the second annual Young Artists Exhibition on Jan. 16, showcasing the work of several upper school students. The show, which closed on Jan. 20, represented 17 Dallasarea schools, such as Greenhill and Hockaday. Sculpture teacher Dane Larson, art teacher Charlotte Chambliss and photography teacher George Fiala selected the ESD students who participated in the show.
Seniors Biz Newsom and Sofia Weinstein and juniors Ellie Bass, Elle Etcheverry, Olivia Hagge, Lizzie Kelley, Hadley Mattocks and Sumner Wooldridge had work featured in the show, and senior Val Mooty was invited to perform as a guest musician during the event.
Mooty’s performance consisted of 15 pieces, including five originals.
“The music I played was a collection of some of my favorite songs, as well as my own songs,” Mooty said. “It was great to see the positive reaction to my
original songs, because I felt like the other artists at the event were appreciative of my hard work with the arts as well. It’s always great to get an opportunity to support other students who are talented and passionate about their art.
I was grateful to the Blue Print team for inviting me to play at an event showcasing so much student talent.”
Weinstein, a current AP sculpture student whose work was featured in the gallery, is planning to continue studying art in college.
“Mr. Larson emailed me and said I had the opportunity to show my work in the gallery,” Weinstein said. “I immediately wanted to.” This was Newsom’s first time featured in the gallery.
“I was so glad that I got to go and see not only my work, but also all of the amazing pieces that others created,” Newsom said. “I loved seeing the ESD arts program represented in a real show with such great work.”
1
AMAZING ART
Showing off her latest photography, junior Hadley Mattocks displays her work at the Blue Print gallery in Dallas on Jan. 16. Her photos, along with several other upperclassmens’ sculptures and art, were chosen to be showcased in the gallery for the second year in a row. “It was so amazing to see my work up against and with so many other astounding works,” Mattocks said. “The amount of talent was seeping through each painting, sculpture and photograph. I was elated to have my work next to the other schools’ in the galleries.” photo provided by Hadley Mattocks
2
PAPARAZZI
Juniors Preston Moderi, Eddie Salinas, Robert Giles, Ava Thompson, Sam Curtis and senior Sabrina Gies pose in the Susan M. Frank building on Jan. 17 before the beginning of the film festival. The festival showcased the films of 19 film students in the Bray Theater. “[The film festival] took a lot of planning, so I was so relieved that everything fell in place,” Gies said. “I love to see the reactions of my family and friends. It really makes me feel like all the work we put in is worth it.” photo provided by Sabrina Gies
3
ONE CAMPUS, ONE COMMUNITY Senior Zain Mian high fives a lower schooler as he walks to school on Nov. 8. During that week, the McCarthy advisory walked the lower schoolers from their cars to school.
“The seniors get to see everybody coming on campus,” senior dean Caryn Rossiter said. “They help the dads in the carpool and the administration to make sure the kids are getting places safely.” photo provided by Caryn Rossiter
will
Increase in amount and brutality of shootings causes compassion fatigue, desensitization toward suffering
When choir teacher Joe Snyder’s nephew Trey Schafer walks into a restaurant, the first thing he looks for is not the menu but rather, a seat away from windows. A seat with his back to the wall, a seat where he can keep an eye on the entrance and exit.
It’s become almost a habit by now, a part of his day-to-day life—like his emergency tourniquet, which he keeps in his backpack or car at all times.
“I don’t ever think two cents about it,” Schafer said. “Some people are like, ‘That’s so weird. Why do you need that?’ But when I explain to them what happened, they go, ‘Oh, I can see why you would need that.’”
Arapahoe High School, Denver,
A week before finals, Schafer, a senior at the time, sat in psychology class, anticipating the end of the semester. Then “pop.”
“It almost sounded like a book dropping in the hallway,” Schafer said. “But everything just seemed to freeze. I [felt] an impending sense of doom.”
Students looked around for the source of the sound, but then another “pop, pop.”
“At that point, we knew it was a gun,” Schafer said. “Everyone was freaking out. A bunch of people were crying. Some people were just completely frozen in fear.”
Hiding in the corner of the classroom, all his class could do was wait.
“[It felt] like time had stood still,
protect my classmates.”
Around an hour to an hour-anda-half later, the SWAT team arrived and evacuated Schafer’s psychology class. He and his classmates were reunited with their parents.
“Once I was reunited with my dad, I was finally able to relax and begin to process everything,” Schafer said. “I was just happy to finally feel safe, being back with my parents.”
Both the shooter and the victim, Claire Davis, were part of the senior class. The shooter
have to go through [this loss],” Schafer said. “He took it pretty hard and secluded himself from everybody....Every single one of my classmates seems to be affected by the shooting. For the most part, we’ve all tried to move on from it, but it will always be something that affects our lives.”
“...[SHOOTINGS HAVE] ALMOST TURNED INTO THE DAY-TO-DAY LIFE WE LIVE NOW... YOU JUST SHAKE IT OFF BECAUSE YOU KNOW THERE’S GOING TO BE ANOTHER ONE.”
Trey Schafer, school shooting survivor
The shooting has left an indelible mark on the lives of the Arapahoe students, but a 2015 Washington Post study revealed that America forgets mass shootings after three weeks. According to a Feb. 9 poll of 200 students, around 35 percent of students stop discussing mass shootings after a few days. One reason for this short span of discussion could be that since 1966, there has been an increase in frequency and lethality of shootings, according to the National Institute of Justice.
Four percent of the student body has been affected by gun violence, and around 25 percent of students know someone who has been affected by
“It’s hard to read about [school shootings in the news] because I know what those students are going through,” Schafer said.
“At the same time, [shootings have] almost turned into the day-to-day life we live now, unfortunately. It still breaks my heart all the time. Because [shootings have] happened so often and had so much national news coverage, it’s hard to grieve the same way that we did back [when I was in the Arapahoe shooting].
Local gun violence receives less coverage than national mass shootings
While mass shootings are quickly forgotten, inner-city shootings are rarely discussed, according to engineering teacher Barton Burnett. Over 65 percent of students believe that these shootings are less frequently reported than mass shootings.
“The news is often concerned with one thing—shock value,” Burnett said. “What goes untalked about—except as a statistic—is the number of people who are killed with a gun in the inner cities. If you look at the number of mass shootings that are taking place, there’s no time [for the news to report them]. If you get a mention of a shooting [in the news,] it is a brief little blurb.”
Fort Worth, 1990: “I can’t get the image of my friend’s brains and blood out of my head.” Burnett will never forget these words.
At the time, he was teaching at a Fort Worth ISD school when a student approached him.
“I don’t know what to do,” the student said.
“What’s the problem?” Burnett asked. And it all spilled out.
The students were drunk. They thought that Russian roulette would be fun, that it would be a thrill. They never thought they were going to die. The .357 magnum revolver went through one round...two rounds.... It would have been the student’s turn next. But first, it was his best friend’s turn. His friend grabbed the gun and put it to his own head. He pulled the trigger.
“You can see something in the news, however graphic—[that only lasts] one minute,” Burnett said. “It’s different
when it happens to someone you know. That is something you will have to live with for the rest of your life.”
Deep Ellum, Jan. 30, 2017: After his Monday night show, Middle School substitute Beth Ellsberry’s friend playwright Matthew Posey got into his car with a passenger. Suddenly, the door opened. Two shots were fired, and they ricocheted around the car, hitting Matthew in the leg and going through his mouth. Matthew was able to make a full recovery, and three weeks later, he finished the run of his show.
“It’s just so shocking [for this to happen to someone you know],” Ellsberry said. “I lived half a mile from there. It’s shocking how random it is and how quickly it happened. We’re going to know more people who are affected by [gun violence] as time goes on.”
Ellsberry, along with 55 percent of the student body, supports gun control policies. Although Burnett is a gun rights supporter, he is against gun violence and believes that more attention should be called to the issues of gun safety and shootings. Thirty-six percent of students hold these same views.
“Gun violence is horrible—there’s no doubt about it,” Burnett said. “On the topic of gun safety, it’s gotten to a point where I don’t think anyone really cares anymore. People will go, ‘Oh, it’s so tragic,’ but on both sides, you only see knee-jerk reactions—not meaningful action. Violence is a whole separate subject that needs to be studied in its entirety. If we’re going to do anything about gun violence, we’re going to have to go way beyond guns.”
Now, you just shake it off because you know there’s going to be another one.”
While Schafer believes in the importance of media coverage of shootings, he warns against potentially providing inspiration for copycat shooters.
Arapahoe High School, 2014: A student spray-painted the walls of the school with threatening messages, writing that he was going to finish what the original shooter started. Later, there were guns discovered in his locker.
“It’s hard to say what the media should and shouldn’t do because they could upset somebody and trigger something in somebody that they didn’t know was there,” Schafer said. “They could be trying to do the right thing, and it might end up being the wrong thing because it could [inspire] copycat shooters.” Schafer commended the news for their exclusion of reporting the shooter’s name.
“It was one of the first times that we’ve seen the [media] not say the shooters name repetitively,” Schafer said. “They chose to say the shooter’s name once, and then, everybody just referred to him as the shooter. We never heard his name on the news, which helped a lot of people.”
Another reason why shootings are quickly forgotten could be compassion fatigue, according to Emotional Wellness Counselor Meredith Stuelpe. Forty-nine percent of students feel compassion fatigue because of the overwhelming amount of shootings. Around 74 percent of students believe that it is a normal occurrence to read stories about shootings.
“We start to feel less empathetic,” Stuelpe said. “We start to feel like it’s just another shooting because we’ve already been there. We’ve already internalized all of this trauma and these experiences, and we’ve gone through this process so many times that we’ve built up a tolerance to it.”
Senior and gun-control activist
Nick Harapanahalli has noticed this compassion fatigue among his peers.
“People don’t know what else to do besides send their thoughts and prayers,” Harapanahalli said. “Compassion fatigue is not apathy. It’s a lack of knowledge of what else we can do to help. Help begins by taking initiative. What do you want to see? We can call our representatives; we can send letters and emails; we can change the world if we believe that we can.”
Whether it be through media reporting or student activism, Harapanahalli believes that society must work together to address the desensitization toward violence brought about by increasing global and domestic crises.
“We’re normalizing violence, but we need to condemn it,” Harapanhalli said. “We must remember the people whose lives were lost for what it is. It is not a memorial, not another school shooting, not another statistic—it is a tragedy.”
guitar
emily delgado story by
Senior Benjamin Goodman stands at the front of the room while 20 children sit with various instruments on the floor, performing an original song they wrote together. Goodman has taught at a summer camp for children, School of Rock, in Frisco for the past two years, helping kids learn the basics of playing guitar, drums, bass and keyboard.
“Teaching a kid how to play his first chords and him actually enjoying it is incredibly gratifying,” Goodman said. “I had never really been able to express how I felt about just playing in general until I passed that on to someone else.”
Goodman’s earliest memory of a guitar was at the age of three when his uncle and cousin were playing “Can’t Buy Me Love” by the Beatles.
“We were in the garage, and I remember dancing to it,” Goodman said. “I just remember gravitating toward the guitar. [When I got older], I was never reluctant to pick it up because it was always something I wanted to do.”
After receiving his first acoustic
guitar from his grandmother as a bar mitzvah gift, Goodman began practicing independently for a year before taking lessons.
“It has been the most significant gift I’ve ever been given,” Goodman said.
“That is when I started taking [playing guitar] seriously.”
At age 14, Goodman began taking lessons at School of Rock, a music program where children of all ages learn to play various musical instruments and gain experience performing on stage. He has continued taking weekly lessons there for the past four years.
pursue music.”
Through School of Rock’s program, Goodman has traveled on two national tours with other music students in 2017 and 2018, opened for the band
“EVERYONE GETS INTO A ZONE WHILE DOING SOMETHING, WHETHER THAT’S TENNIS OR RUNNING OR WHATEVER IT IS— PLAYING GUITAR IS THAT FOR ME. IT’S JUST PURE BLISS.”
Benjamin Goodman, senior
“I’ve had some of the most amazing opportunities and met some of my closest friends because of School of Rock,” Goodman said. “It’s a place with like-minded people who like similar things that I do and have the same drive to
Lights. Camera. Action. Senior Sabrina Gies grew up directing short films, unaware that she would soon study it in college and pursue it as a future career.
“I’ve always made little home videos with my brother and my friends,” Gies said. “I did it for fun, and at the time, I didn’t know that I wanted a [job in the film industry, but] it has always been my hobby.”
During her sophomore year, Gies enriched her knowledge of film by taking a course taught by teacher and filmmaker Bobby Weiss. She was then presented with the opportunity to work with brandnew, high-tech cameras and develop Adobe film-editing skills.
“I learned so much from Mr. Weiss about Photoshop, editing and
how to use a professional camera,”
Gies said. “In the past, I would use iMovie for everything, so it was [challenging to operate] Adobe Premiere Pro, the editing software we use [in class]. I had no idea what anything was when I first got into film, but now, I’m familiar with everything. I wouldn’t know how to use [proper equipment] if I didn’t [enroll in] the course.”
Working with Gies for three years, Weiss has seen her flourish in all aspects of his course, which he believes has shaped her to become the talented director she is today.
“I’ve seen her script writing abilities, and [how she has] increased her editing skills and worked with actors,” Weiss said. “She has produced some really powerful work
Drowning Pool, performed mainstage for Summerfest in Milwaukee and played at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
With multiple performances lined up in his schedule, Goodman’s friends regularly attend his shows in support.
“I’ve known Benjamin since I was really little, and I’ve seen several of his shows,” senior Brooks Butler said. “He’s progressively gotten really good at playing
guitar, and I love that he’s been able to experiment with playing guitar and find his passion. Guitar is a big part of his life, and I don’t think you could truly know him if you don’t know about his love for playing guitar.”
Using his performing experience from School of Rock, Goodman has created his own bands with friends that share a similar musical taste.
“My first band that we actually took seriously was called Killjoy, and that was when I was a sophomore,” Goodman said. “[My friends and I] also formed a band called Tessellate. We recorded some music and never released it because it was nothing good, but it was fun.”
Despite having performed at major events and on many large stages for several years, Goodman still gets nervous before going on stage.
“[Playing guitar] is somehow simultaneously the most natural and unnatural thing I do,” Goodman said. “I get so much anxiety before I perform, and it
kind of makes it difficult getting up initially, but once I’m there and once I get into the music, it’s the most gratifying and the most Zen experience. Everyone gets into a zone while doing something, whether that’s tennis or running or whatever it is—playing guitar is that for me. It’s just pure bliss.”
In the fall, Goodman will be attending New York University to pursue music while majoring in political science and English. He hopes to continue playing music and one day play professionally after graduation.
“I’m gonna say this until the day I die—guitar is the love of my life,” Goodman said. “Ideally, I want to be in an original band, put out my own music, tour with it and ultimately be somewhat successful. Successful by my definition means I can support myself. I don’t necessarily need to be making money. I just need to be able to live without doing anything but music, with people appreciating the art I’m making. I just want to feel content in the work I’m doing.”
about social issues that are relevant to our current time.”
Her process for creating and editing films occupies much of her spare time outside of the classroom. However, she has thoroughly adjusted her schedule to balance her passion with her school assignments.
“You definitely have to be committed if you want to create a good production,” Gies said. “If you don’t spend a lot of time working on your film, it will show.”
For inspiration, Gies finds topics and issues from everyday life that people can relate to. Her bestknown film, “Sixteen,” highlights the seriousness of sexual harassment and spreads awareness on the issue.
“A lot of times, I’ll see something and think, ‘Oh, that’d be cool on video,’” Gies said. “Sometimes, I just come up with a story, most of which are about serious topics and pressing issues that I am passionate about, and then begin filming.”
“In 10 years, I hope to be in New York, maybe becoming a better dancer or helping other people find their passion because doing something that you are passionate about means a lot to me. [I believe] you don’t always get to choose what you get to be or what your passion is. I hope to be one of those people helping others find their way in the world; that would be super cool.”
Bridget Wang,
From traveling to all 50 states to working on Wall Street, students and faculty predict where they will be in 10 years
alexander konradi story by
“I would preferably be graduated from a good college. I want to be in a field where I am helping people, preferably young children. I want to be married with three dogs, two cats and one bird. The cats would be hairless, of course. I also would hopefully live somewhere in the Northeast because I have family there, and it would be fun to live with them.”
Sofia Sabella,
“In 10 years, I see myself having graduated from college and getting a great job out of school. I’ll travel whenever I can, going to see two states at a time to accomplish my goal to see all 50 by the time I’m 30. I’ll also be working on an extensive car collection— despite my relatively young age, I’ll have built a couple custom cars of my own. I’ll hopefully be in a relationship, looking to get married, start to get a house and whatnot.”
Sam Lindsey,
“In 10 years, I will have graduated college. I hope to see myself as a main player on Wall Street. I want to be in the investment banking industry. Hopefully I could be the legal Wolf of Wall Street. I’ve always loved New York and the stock exchange. I have always liked analyzing data and numbers, and I feel like I could possibly do something that involves working in a major investment bank.”
Drew Wasserman, senior
“I was trying to decide if I should be in the White House or the cover of GQ. I decided why not both. The year will be 2030. Why should I limit myself when I am a multi-talented, multifaceted human being? Alternatively, if that doesn’t work out, after leading ESD to numerous SPC championships, I will be hired as the head coach of the Arsenal Football Club.”
Phil McCarthy, history teacher
Every year, many people make New Year’s resolutions in the hopes to improve themselves. This can be in the form of taking up a new hobby, quitting a bad habit or just about anything that could promote happiness and health. According to CNN, about 40 percent of Americans make resolutions, and only about 44 percent of that group sticks to them.
Although resolutions sound like a great idea, obstacles in our life tend to impede our ability to follow through with these new goals. According to CNN, believing in oneself makes these goals up to 10 times more achievable.
At the school, 53 percent of students believe that New Year’s resolutions are sometimes effective, according to a Feb. 9 poll of 200 students. And 37 percent of students have had an effective New Year’s resolution in the past.
- Freshman Asher Hoodis “
I’m going to do my best to eat a lot of vegetables. I feel like being healthy is the most important thing so I’m going to do my best to stick with my resolution.
- Sophomore Avery Vafa “
My New Years Resolution is to exercise more and to eat healthy. I’m going to try to do this but I think that most of the time resolutions only work for the first week or so and then people forget about them.
My New Years Resolution is to be more green by using fewer water bottles and recycling more.
- Junior Henry Nurenburg
Since I only have a semester left with everyone at ESD I’m just trying to reach out and make as many friends as possible.
- Senior Virginia Baker “
CULTURE CRASH is a compilation of significant pop culture events made by life editors Blair Batson and Luke McCabe that highlight tech news & other short snippets of info regarding important people and events from around the globe.
1A groundbreaking night
“Parasite” reached new heights at the Oscars, taking home best picture, best international feature film, best original screenplay and best director. The South Korean film is the first film not in English to win best picture. However, the Academy still has a long way to go in making the award show more representative.
2 3 4 5 6
Raucous caucus
The much-anticipated results of Iowa’s democratic caucuses were delayed due to a code error in a new app. This debacle, along with Iowa’s lack of diversity, has left people questioning whether Iowa’s primary should still come first. They do say first is the worst.
Superstars
Shakira and Jennifer López gave a powerful performance at the Super Bowl halftime show, bringing out guests Bad Bunny and J Balvín. López later claimed on her Instagram: “We are proud to recognize that all of us together are what makes this beautiful country truly great.”
A not-so-perfect union
American politics’ polarization was salient at the State of the Union address with Trump awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi ripping the speech.
Creepy crib
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West confounded fans with a tour of their minimalist mansion in Architectural Digest. With their home lacking much detail and embracing light colors, Kanye described it as a “futuristic Belgian monastery,” but really, it’s just weird.
A filming of “Hamilton” with the original Broadway cast will hit theaters on Oct. 15, 2021. With Broadway tickets costing as high as $791, this is big step in making the show’s stunning talent and profound message more accessible. Finally, we will be satisfied.
Focusing on one task yields better results, technology creates more opportunities for distractions
It’s a typical Sunday night for senior Ned Dockery. He lays out his planner for the upcoming week and realizes that he has three assignments due the next day. He scrambles to respond to emails and eat dinner all while trying to complete his homework. Even though he believes that he will succeed in completing his assignments before 11:59 p.m., he is not aware that he is actually causing his brain to become more disorganized. And he is not alone.
“When I try focusing on two tasks at the same time, I cannot truly pay attention to either [of the tasks],” Dockery said. “Despite the fact that I work on each task simultaneously, I spend more time completing them than I would if I focused on each one individually. When I sit down to work, I always make sure to put my phone away and turn on the Do Not Disturb setting.”
In an experiment conducted in 2001, Drs. Joshua Rubinstein, Jeffrey Evans and David Meyer completed four experiments that consisted of young adults switching between different tasks, such as solving math problems. As tasks got more complex, participants lost more time. Experimenters shared their results with the American Psychology Association and concluded that for all tasks, the participants lost time when they had to switch from one task to another.
“Students multitask a lot more now due to cell phones and social media,” psychology teacher Amy Henderson said. “They try to keep up with the apps and messages on their phones and do the tasks at hand, which is not a good idea.”
Netflix is experimenting with a new setting called “chipmunk mode” which allows viewers to set the speed to 1.25 and 1.50 times faster than normal as well as 0.25 and 0.50 times slower. This is
similar to the setting on YouTube that allows watchers to accelerate a broadcast, including its audio.
Even though this feature is not brand-new to the internet, it has raised some concerns as to why people would need to speed up a film or TV show. In regards to the increasing pressure of society, it is clear that people feel like multitasking is the only way to get things done. Multitasking is when a person tries to do multiple things at once. Although people, students in particular, believe that multitasking helps them accomplish their goals more quickly, evidence has proven that multitasking only holds them back even more from doing their best.
with students who struggle with multitasking.
“When multitasking, it results in study times taking longer than necessary, information not being learned efficiently, and as a result, longer study times encroaching on students’ sleep,” Lichty said. “Students’ brains are not fully engaged, thus it is harder to encode new information, which makes retrieving that information harder on tests. It creates a barrier between the students and their work getting fully accomplished.”
“DESPITE THE FACT THAT I WORK ON EACH TASK SIMULTANEOUSLY, I SPEND MORE TIME COMPLETING THEM THAN I WOULD IF I FOCUSED ON EACH ONE INDIVIDUALLY.”
Ned Dockery, senior
“I despise the new chipmunk setting,” sophomore dean Phil Bryan said. “With the overall sense of urgent rushing that our culture has taken on, being able to stop and do one thing and absorb it well is a much higher good than doing multiple things at once and not doing your best. I see how students are affected by multitasking, and most of them multitask by default.”
According to a Feb. 9 poll of 200 students, 83 percent of students multitask while studying or doing homework.
“I physically cannot multitask,” freshman Bryce Hill said. “I just focus on one subject and complete it fully and then move on to the next. That way I don’t forget an important task.”
Manager of Coaching for Academic Success at the Housson Center Jenny Lichty has seen this first-hand as they work closely
Director of Educational Technology Mary Hansell performed an experiment with a World Cultures class to show them the difference between multitasking and focusing on one thing at a time. Students were told to write out “switchtasking is a thief” and the numbers one to 21 which took students about 20 seconds to complete. The second time they had to switch between writing a letter and number until they finished writing all of the words and the numbers.
“This task forced their brain to switch between spelling and counting,” Hansell said. “It took most students twice as long to do the same task.”
Some believe that the sudden urge to get everything done on time has overpowered our society, making quantity over quality a large importance.
“Our brain needs to successfully focus on one task at a time to be most effective,” Henderson said.
“Due to your lack of focus on one thing, your brain might become distracted more easily. Students should plan things out and set goals for themselves to be more efficient.”
riley
I’ve eaten at Raising Cane’s countless times, but since the chicken strips are so good, I never felt inclined to try the sandwich.
I ordered the sandwich combo, and before I could even find a seat, my name was called to come pick up my order. When I unwrapped my sandwich, I realized that the whole thing is just a chicken strip combo made into a sandwich–three strips between two pieces of bread with lettuce and Cane’s sauce. It’s really smart of Cane’s to do it this way because when they added the sandwich to the menu, they didn’t need to add new ingredients.
I took a bite, and it tasted just like I expected—a chicken strip combo as a sandwich. It had the right amount of crunch; the strips were juicy and well-seasoned; and the sauce added just the right amount of sweetness—everything you’d want a Cane’s sandwich to be. Its only flaw is that since the chicken inside are strips and not a chicken breast, the chicken falls out if you don’t hold the sandwich level. All in all, the Cane’s sandwich is great, but not incredible.
If I tell you to picture a chicken sandwich, chances are you’re thinking about a Chick-fil-A sandwich—and that’s for good reason.
I ordered the Spicy Chicken Sandwich without pickles. Being a big Chick-fil-A sauce guy, I applied the golden ratio of about three-quarters of a packet and dug in.
The sandwich is everything you want a chicken sandwich to be—juicy, crunchy and just a little bit spicy. According to Chick-fil-A, the secret is that they pressure-fry the chicken in order to make it crispy and so they can cook it fast enough for all the customers coming in. The beauty of the Chick-fil-A sandwich is really in the simplicity. It’s just chicken, sauce and bun, and it doesn’t need anything else—a hard mark to achieve. The Chick-fil-A sandwich is hard to beat. For many, it is the golden standard of chicken sandwiches.
I never thought I’d see the day when someone would get stabbed because of a sandwich. Then, Popeyes decided to start a Twitter war with Chick-fil-A. Just after announcing the release of their chicken sandwich, Popeyes retweeted Chick-fil-A’s tweet stating that they are the original sandwich and commented, “...y’all good?” Popeyes was soon trending on Twitter along with “#ChickenSandwichWar.” People hopped on the train in numbers so big that Popeyes couldn’t handle the demand and sold out in less than two weeks.
When the sandwich finally returned months later, I was one of the first in line. I waited 45 minutes and finally ordered a Spicy Chicken Sandwich without pickles. Upon first bite, I realized that the Popeye’s sandwich was, in fact, superior to Chick-fil-A’s. Upon second bite, I realized that they really weren’t kidding when they named the item the “Spicy Chicken Sandwich”—it was hot.
The Popeye’s sandwich has more chicken, more crunch, more flavor and a sweeter bun than Chick-fil-A’s. The only place where Popeyes fell short was that when I thanked the employee after handing my order to me, she replied “you’re welcome” instead of the “my pleasure” I had grown accustomed to at Chick-fil-A. The Popeye’s sandwich exceeded all expectations and deserves its spot at the top of this list.
Shake Shack isn’t home to just burgers, but after my visit, maybe it should be. I ordered the Chick’n Shack with no pickles. When my buzzer finally went off after close to 15 minutes, I went to the pickup counter and looked at my order sitting there. I don’t even think the size qualifies it as a sandwich, but rather, a slider—a seven dollar slider, at that. I asked the employee, and he confirmed that, yes, that was the normal size for a Chick’n Shack.
I sat down and dug in to the most underwhelming chicken sandwich I’ve ever eaten. There wasn’t anything necessarily wrong with it, but it lacked the flavor, spice, crunch and juiciness that the other sandwiches had. I was really disappointed since I love the Shake Shack burgers. I wanted that same quality as the burger, but I got something much worse. I left feeling dissatisfied, robbed out of my seven dollars and still slightly hungry after eating a sandwich fit for a 6-year-old.
editors-in-chief
Emily Delgado, Victoria Willox & Evelyn Zhao
copy editor
Jiaying Fu
news editor
Lauren Egger
life editors
Blair Batson & Luke McCabe
views editor Alán Benítez
sports editor Lauren Weber
business manager Gardiner Vose
photo editor Riley Breaux
digital relations
Ava Brennan
staff writers
Smith Cochran, Kara Dross, Sloane Hope, Alexander Konradi, Carolyn Langford, Emily Lichty, Gina Montagna, Raleigh Toledo
cartoonist Sumner Wooldridge
adviser Ana Rosenthal
MISSION STATEMENT
The
From Facebook to Snapchat to Instagram and now TikTok, social media companies continue to abuse their data access.
At this point, it is known that companies, known and unknown, buy and sell our private data, and they are not legally required to tell us, so they don’t. Further, due to the size of the broker industry, it would be impossible to request knowledge of what type of data is collected from each of the many companies individually.
The first major social media data privacy scandal that occurred was in 2013 when Snapchat’s supposedly deleted files surfaced, thus exposing their facade claiming to delete all received photos from their server. This scandal gave the world insight into how much social media companies hide from the public and how they are able to do so.
It would be ignorant to think that stricter privacy laws will solve this issue because the data brokers will always find a way to get past this issue and buy and sell information. The companies are not held accountable for their actions and aren’t legally required to inform users as to how exactly they are being surveilled. Most of the time users don’t know anything about the shady anti-privacy laws that go on until independent researchers uncover their findings.
The next most monumental affair was in 2018, when Facebook announced the data security breach that caused the account data of 50 million users to be exposed. In the same year, they confessed to address book mining. These incidents were
important reminders of how much we don’t know about what is done with our data.
Lastly, with TikTok on the rise in popularity, it has been overlooked that the Chinese app may be surveilling users closer than any other social media platform through facial recognition. It is crucial that teenagers understand the ways in which they are being watched through social media. Whether it’s through the collection of data or facial recognition software, teenagers are also victims in the crisis. According to CNN, the
The
The
Eagle
89
percent of students use social media often*
84
percent of students are aware that social media companies buy, sell and use personal data*
*according to a Feb. 9 poll of 200 students
Let’s be honest. Last semester was difficult. For two of us, it was the onset of junior year—a semester filled with an abundance of tests, quizzes, research projects and standardized test prep; to say the least, adjusting to junior year was a challenge. The other third of our trio managed to balance the stress of both senior year and college applications. In addition to this, we had to take on our responsibilities as editor-in-chiefs and as leaders of a 22-member staff.
Trying to be a role model for the Eagle Edition staff when we could barely handle our own personal responsibilities proved to be a major challenge. At first, it led to disorganization, careless mistakes, procrastination and pushed back deadlines, and it decreased our overall productivity. On the week of our third deadline cycle, with a missing EIC, we scrambled to finish writing last-minute stories and create graphics, and as we prepared to ship our pages at 10
p.m., we encountered errors. It was terrifying, but we learned from it— no matter how long you look for mistakes, a newspaper can never be perfect, and mistakes are bound to be discovered.
Transitioning from a new adviser to another was also a challenge.
average teenager spends more than seven hours per day on entertainment apps, making them the most frequent overall users of social media platforms. Their information composes a large sector of the data collected by companies. It’s impossible to say what will happen with this data in the future, so it’s important for teens to be mindful of their use of social media. The need for transparency from social media companies is more urgent than ever but is impossible to achieve when they are not legally required to oblige.
For one, we barely managed to complete our second issue without an adviser. And because every adviser organizes its production process differently—from the editing process to deadlines to the individual roles of each staff member—we decided it might be time to adjust our previous production habits in order to work more efficiently, especially after a very disorganized third issue. With a new adviser, we combined our expertise to improve the production of future Eagle Edition issues.
Despite all the setbacks we faced and the many changes thrown at us, we successfully completed three issues, and along the way, we grew as a staff and learned hard lessons. The past semester was essentially a learning process and an adjustment period that we gracefully overcame.
We are looking forward to what 2020 will bring. It will certainly be a year full of surprises.
& Victoria
Dear Eagle Edition staff,
Thank you for your request for information regarding the classroom device management program, Impero, that we plan to pilot for two weeks at ESD. We are currently piloting Impero in the Middle School; the Upper School pilot will start as soon as we are able to implement it with our BYOD program.
ESD is interested in this type of program in order to remove distractions and help students focus on their studies during class. Other ISAS schools use Impero, or some similar program such as Go Guardian, DyKnow, or NetRef. At ESD, the program is scheduled from 8 am to 4 pm. Some schools choose to extend the hours into the evening and on weekends, but we are not doing that at ESD.
The Impero extension was pushed out through the Chrome browser to all ESD MS and US students, so you might have seen the Impero icon appear when you were in Chrome. Although the icon appeared to US students, it was not working in the Upper School, since Impero needs to be installed on personal devices. After hearing concerns from US students, I asked the tech department to remove it from the Google user group for US students, so if you log out of Chrome and log in again, you will not see it.
If your teacher is one of the 6 teachers in the pilot for Upper School, they will let you know when it starts, and ask you to download the Impero software to link it to MyBackpack rosters. They will also send a letter to your parents to let them know about the pilot. Teachers in the pilot program will only be looking at your screens during their class, not all day. They will show you how it’s working and you can give feedback about it. Once we collect feedback from teachers and students, we will determine if it is something we want to implement at ESD.
After a discussion with her students, Lindsey Cullins noted, “Students often think that programs like these are indicative of a lack of trust and a desire to control, but proper implementation would allow for conversations between students and teachers about how students can better regulate their digital choices themselves and stymie unproductive habits. It also could provide students necessary relief from distractions that push into the classroom from parents, friends, and social media. If programs like these allow us to turn down the noise that follows students with their devices, then we can more comfortably use [them to] enhance learning.”
Mary Hansell, Director of Educational Technology & Department Chair for Religious & Historical Studies
Amidst all of the speculation regarding Meghan and Harry’s royal retreat, the hysterics over World War III’s imminence and the fiery debates concerning impeachment, it seems as if we missed a critical development: the beginning of Harvey Weinstein’s trial.
Weinstein is facing charges for first-degree rape, third-degree rape, first-degree criminal sexual act and predatory sexual assault. Some claim the stakes are high for Weinstein in this trial—he could face life in prison—but the stakes for his victims and sexual assault survivors are even higher. If Weinstein goes unpunished, this sends a swarm of toxic messages: that power can make you immune to consequences, that some men can get away with anything and that the cries of his victims are worthless.
More than 80 women have come forward with allegations against Weinstein—allegations that indicate clear signs of predatory behavior— yet Weinstein’s attorneys have still constructed a pathetic defense. On top of picking apart the intricacies of these women’s allegations, they are arguing that in all of these instances, Weinstein was actually the victim, and these women were “using” him to advance their careers. It should go without saying why this is wrong—why the imbalance of power between Weinstein and his victims means
guest columnist
Weinstein must be convicted, acquittal would promote rape culture, set back #MeToo movement
nothing he did to them can ever be regarded as consensual. A man who has raped multiple women cannot be the victim. That’s just not how it works.
His defense is merely trying to propagate a false narrative, to convince the jurors to see a nonexistent perspective. No one should succumb to this nonsensical reasoning that avoids the real question: Who are you going to believe? The man who is trying
to preserve his reputation or the woman who has put her career and her life on the line to fight to bring justice to someone who has done her wrong?
The allegations against Weinstein were, to put it lightly, revolutionary. They galvanized other women into sharing their own stories, not just regarding Weinstein, allowing the #MeToo movement to grow substantially. Seemingly overnight, social media was flooded with
striking allegations. The world was a new place. We began to note the flaws in our society that nurture some boys into thinking that sexual assault is okay, and we started to see men facing consequences. If Weinstein is not convicted, this might unrightfully undermine the #MeToo movement and all of the brave women who garnered enough strength to share their stories.
Since #MeToo’s inception, we’ve seen some men get what they deserve. But, we’ve also forgotten about the men who have faced little-to-no consequences. We forgot about James Franco. We forgot about Louis C.K. We forgot that Brett Kavenaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court while Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser, received death threats. We forgot that Donald Trump allegedly raped E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room and bragged about sexually assaulting women on tape. We can’t forget Weinstein’s accusers. We need to quit approving the message that sexual assault and harassment can go unpunished.
The news is packed right now, but we can’t ignore this story or simply predict the outcome. This trial is too important. The stakes are too high. #MeToo grew into such a large movement because people used their voices and paid attention. Why should we stop now?
By Blair Batson
racist words not only affect my mental health but also the mental health of thousands of other minorities.
I gazed at my phone. The words came at me as if they wanted to tear me apart. “That Asian with tiny eyes, why do you like her? She’s Asian!”
My eyes began to fill with tears. I had never felt so ashamed of myself. Am I different? What’s wrong with me? Do I deserve to be here? Those thoughts consumed me. I never understood what discrimination was until I experienced it that day for the first time. The harsh words from a schoolmate destroyed me on the inside. It poisoned my body, mind and confidence. I felt as if I was a lesser being because I was a minority. But most of all, I felt alone.
The horrid words that spewed from my phone took a major toll on the way I viewed myself. I started to think about my appearance and how I looked “different” from everyone else at my school. I started to feel ashamed and embarrassed about my culture and my ethnicity. But I’m not alone—hurtful and
In a policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatricians, pediatrician Jackie Douge wrote that children suffer long-term health effects because they are exposed to racism in the news and social media. This means that young children have an increased risk of depression, stress, obesity and sickness because of racism and discrimination. Douge also linked racism to worse sleep, higher rates of doctor visits and lower selfesteem. A 2016 survey by JAMA Pediatrics found an increase in teenagers’ stress and worry about discrimination. Furthermore, these researchers found that teenagers who were more stressed were more likely to drink, smoke and experiment with drugs.
Discrimination can also affect children’s health in other ways. The AAP policy statement pointed out structural problems resulting from discrimination, such as a disproportionate number of minority youths incarcerated by the juvenile justice system and
disparities in access to health care, food insecurity and poverty. Because of my experience, I found that racism could threaten a child’s sense of safety and security of the world. Nia J. Heard-Garris, a pediatrician at Northwestern University, said in a recent Washington Post article that children who face discrimination try to “shut it out and tune it out.”
She believes that “they’re trying to figure out ways of coping that previous generations didn’t have to.” Heard-Garris is talking about the children who, like me, are being discriminated against and are bottling up their feelings and emotions because they are scared of confronting people’s racist views.
Scientists have documented health care disparities among races in the U.S. for years. Even though environmental factors, such as income and education have affected the health of different races in the U.S., researchers think that racism and discrimination play a major role in the way minorities take care of their health. African Americans are more likely to die of diabetes and have a higher frequency of heart disease and hypertension
than Caucasians. Black children are also four times as likely to go to the hospital for asthma. Some studies have used real-life situations to measure the effect of racism. One study linked the increase in harassment of Arab Americans after the 9/11 attacks to negative health effects. Six months after the terrorist attack, Arabic women had a higher rate of preterm birth and low birth weight babies. Another study was performed after a 2008 immigration raid of Latinos at a meat-processing plant in Iowa. Nine months after the raid, there was a greater risk of premature birth and low birth weight babies among Latina women.
After being discriminated against multiple times by my classmates, I told myself that I was overreacting and that I should let those comments blow over. However, my mental health has never been the same. The pain that people are going through because of insensitive comments is disturbing and breaks my heart.
Racism needs to be put to a stop completely unless we want our world to be plagued with depressed and unhappy children.
Count six seconds. Someone has died from smoking. Repeat. By the end of this century, upwards of one billion people will die from tobacco usage or exposure, according to the Maurer Foundation, a cancer education organization.
The repercussions of smoking are terrible. Negative health effects include strokes, heart disease or cancer. Smoking has become the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S., according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but cigarette sales have continued to skyrocket over the last 50 years.
The Maurer Foundation estimates that the global tobacco industry profits over halfa-trillion dollars per year, but revenue should never be valued over life. Furthermore, countries don’t even profit from tobacco sales. Smoking is actually economically detrimental because it increases health care expenditures and decreases productivity in the workforce through illnesses and premature deaths.
Many organizations have tried to reduce smoking and the use of tobacco, but the tobacco industry continues to subvert and undermine these efforts through creating legislative barriers and preventing the dispersion of anti-tobacco ads. Even government regulation cannot control these companies. Despite a global treaty, U.S. tobacco companies continue to target youth through flavored cigarettes, according to Harvard School of Public Health researcher Hillel Alpert. The act of targeting youth has a purposeful and uniquely damaging consequence—youth nicotine usage increases the possibility of addiction, leading to a life-long customer for the tobacco industry and a short life for the user. It would not be exaggerating to say tobacco usage can destroy someone’s life. Besides the aforementioned health consequences, the price tag of addiction is high. A user smoking a pack of cigarettes a day will spend over $10,800 each year, according to Quit.org.
Now, more than ever, it’s not enough to simply attach a 15-second anti-smoking ad to a YouTube video. It’s not enough to raise the smoking age to allow for later addiction or possible subversion with fake IDs. It’s not enough to take a tiny legislative step and call it progress when tens of thousands of people are dying from smoking every day. The only solution is to abolish the tobacco industry entirely. Only drastic actions can yield the appropriate results. The tobacco industry should nevermore be allowed to profit off death.
61 percent of students believe the legal smoking age should remain at age 21*
My friends’ eyes widen in shock. We exchange alarmed glances as the outrageous words are spoken by one of my best friends.
“I just don’t believe in climate change—the Earth is getting warmer naturally, humans have nothing to do with the increase in temperature,” my friend said.
How can someone actually believe humans don’t leave a mark on the planet? How can anyone look at the evidence presented by
Adults should have the choice
On June 7, 2019, Gov. Gregg Abbott passed legislature that raised the legal age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21 in Texas. Many other states have followed soon after, but in 33 states, the legal age still remains at 18. Despite the fact that 18 is the legal age of adulthood, many argue that those who start smoking at a young age develop addiction quicker. Although this is a proven fact and cannot be disputed, at 18—as a legal adult— it is part of an individual’s liberty and freedom to buy the products they desire despite any health concerns.
There is no debating the fact that tobacco and nicotine are highly addictive and can cause health problems, but if an adult is willing to accept these risks, they should be permitted to do what they see fit.
Although the legal age to consume alcohol is 21, some argue these substances should be one in the same, but they are not. The reason that the drinking age is 21 is chiefly because of the frequent issue of drunk driving. In 1984, the age of alcohol consumption was raised to 21 after protests and research by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The idea behind it was to decrease the amount of deaths due to motor vehicle crashes. According to a MADD, it was found that raising the legal age just three years has saved over 25,000 lives and decreased vehicular accidents by approximately 16 percent. Alcohol must be treated differently than tobacco and nicotine because these substances are very different in nature, and alcohol poses problems for more than just the user. With tobacco, there is no such problem, and the implications of this substance do not include being incapacitated and a risk of driving impaired.
If a legal adult is mature enough to own a house, file a lawsuit, enlist in the military, gamble and legally marry, they should have the choice to smoke if they would like to. If a person is old enough to vote in this country’s elections, which is one of the most important civil liberties given, it seems wrong to deny them the choice to smoke a cigarette. The freedom of choice should be held above what a governor deems morally wrong because, after all, we are a free country with social liberties. If an 18-year-old, a legal adult in today’s society, wants to accept the health risks of tobacco and smoke a cigarette, then by all means, he or she should be able to do so.
39 percent of students believe the legal smoking age should be at 18-years-old*
*according to a Feb. 9 poll of
Climate change and extreme weather situations are not coincidences, action must be taken to help
scientists and climate specialists around the globe and believe that this is a natural progression?
I think the possibility of losing life as we know it scares them too much to look at the alternative.
It is scary to think that in a short 20-ish years, our planet will be irreversibly affected by climate change, and the next generation may not see the ocean or beaches as we know them now. They won’t visit a rainforest or snorkel to look at reefs. They’ll just watch plastic islands grow larger and witness catastrophic natural disasters.
It is even scarier to think that there are people who don’t want to believe in helping. Not believing
in climate change is taking the responsibility away from yourself. It is saying, “I can’t change our world, this is natural progression, so I should go on living my life.” This is laziness. This is the stance that allows future children to live lesser lives and species to go extinct. But hey, at least you won’t be around to see it, right?
And I get it to an extent. It is scary to think that humanity did this, but ignorance isn’t the answer. From a young age we are taught to own up to our mistakes and apologize for hitting Susie when she took your crayons. Now is the time to apologize to the Earth and the displaced animals, and now is the
time to make changes.
I’m not a scientist, but I do know that things are different and it’s time to face the facts. According to NASA, 97 percent of climate scientists believe humans are causing climate change, and most top science organizations around the world have publicly stated their belief in this claim. This group of supporters includes the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Many natural disasters have been found to be the result of climate change. Changes in the Earth’s temperature increase the risks of extreme weather. The increase in air and water temperatures cause rising
sea levels and bigger storms with high wind speeds and worsened droughts, according to Oxfam International. More than 150 million people live on land that will be below sea level by the end of this century, and around a quarter of the world’s population is at risk of being exposed to tsunamis and storms. Hurricane Irma, Hurricane Harvey and the fires in Australia have all been linked to climate change. I want things to change, but it is overwhelming. It feels like I can’t possibly make the change to help our home. But, I know that if I, Lauren Egger, from Dallas want to help make change happen, I can’t be the only one.
is paying for
Global
outbreak
frightens citizens, nations need to amp up precautionary measures to keep pandemic contained
As the global population continues to increase, so does the risk of transmitting new diseases. In recent years, outbreaks of diseases have worried doctors and government officials as airlines, cruise ships and other forms of travel have offered a streamlined way for contamination and the rapid spread of diseases. This issue was brought to attention in 2014 when a man from Africa bypassed all airport screening procedures and arrived in Dallas with ebola. The situation in this instance was controlled; however, that is not always the case. The U.S. should update its health screening procedures in all major domestic airports in order to protect the American public from foreign health risks.
In December of 2019, a major health crisis began to develop in Wuhan, China, as a new virus was detected. By press time of this issue, the disease had claimed the lives of over 900 people and infected thousands more, according to the New York Times. The disease spread rapidly throughout Wuhan and now has travelled to 24 other countries. The World Health Organization has already begun to screen passengers arriving from China in 20 major airports in the U.S., but there are still other things that can be done in order to prevent the spread of this virus and other viruses in the future.
China has been known to be secretive about internal problems and struggles in the past due to a large ego that has prevented them from accepting aid from foreign agencies or countries. During the advent of the disease, only a small number of people were infected, and if the Chinese government had been more transparent about the threat that the disease posed and had asked for help or advice from agencies such as the WHO, then this outbreak could have been avoided.
Although the coronavirus has already reached a point where it can not be confined to a small number of people, if other countries had taken more initiative and had forced the Chinese to allow them to assist in the prevention of the spread of the virus, then this whole epidemic could have been prevented. There should be mandated global systems that are put into place
SOCIAL STUDIES | cultural commentary
to prevent the spread of disease because the threat of a contagious disease affects everyone.
Populations in developing nations are growing at an all-time high, according to the U.N., which reports that 49 developing countries have populations that are growing at twice the speed of developed countries. Areas with high populations and poor healthcare are extremely prone to sickness and rapid transmission.
Many new infectious diseases are also being found to be resistant to antibiotics and other traditional treatment methods, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which poses a serious threat even to first-world countries, such as the U.S. One of the reasons for growing resistance to antibiotics is that people are increasingly taking medicine for germs that do not need to be treated with it. Even though we constantly see improvements in the field of medicine, there is also constant evolution in diseases across the globe as they continue to mutate and spread.
As international travel around the globe continues to grow, the governments around the world need to do more to screen passengers and contain the spread of disease. According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, airplanes were the main factor for transporting the 2009 influenza virus into an international crisis. The coronavirus should be a sign for the U.S. government and other countries that we need to boost security and screening measures in airports and other ports of entry into our country.
As the virus continues to reach other countries around the world, some airlines and governments are stepping up and proposing measures to limit the spread of the disease. According to Business Insider, at least 73 flights have been cancelled that have a route to, or through China, in order to protect passengers. In other recent news, according to the Washington Post, a cruise ship was quarantined on the coast of Japan after over 130 passengers were diagnosed. Although extreme, this method stands exemplary of the necessary steps to inhibit further spread.
By Gardiner Vose
apparel sumner wooldridge comic by
The worst to the best of the month, ranked by Grace Knudson
Midday madness
luke mccabe life editor
State registered
The Youth and Government team traveled to Austin for the Texas State Conference on Jan. 31 to Feb. 1 and returned with various awards and achievements.
College counsel
Earlier this month, the sophomore class was let into the servery last for three weeks because of their prior misconduct of entering without permission. 6
The College Deans’ Panel presented deans and directors of admission from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, The University of Texas at Austin and Washington and Lee University. They spoke with the Class of 2021 and offered an additional panel for parents on Jan. 23.
Charged up
5 4 3 2 1
The Gill Library now has FLIbanks, which are portable chargers for smart devices and computers. They can be checked out for two hours, but there will be a $30 fee for unreturned chargers.
Talons out
Junior Jackson Fricke and senior Riley Breaux earned their Eagle Scout ranking after completing a final service project. Breaux created a promotion video for Operation Kindness and Fricke refurbished the outdoor chapel.
Shooting star
Head basketball coach Corey Henderson reached his 300th win after the varsity mens team won their game 58-31 against Fort Worth Country Day on Jan. 14.
Ideally idyllic
Thirteen seniors: John Rochon, Biz Newsom, Sarah Morrow, Abby Brand, Virginia Baker, Lily Jackson, Jordan Aikman, Kerrm Ashan, Catherine Blaylock, Charlotte Podeszwa, Briggs Jones, Jade Donahue and Humza Naseem hosted the first AP Art show of the year on Jan. 30 and presented their AP Art portfolios in the Bray.
Initiation station
Chaplain Tim Kennedy was ordained as an Episcopalian priest on Jan. 16 in All Saints Chapel. Kennedy can now give Eucharist, pronounce God’s blessings and declare God’s forgiveness.
From terrorist groups to corrupt governments and the failure of the Iran Nuclear Deal, tensions have been high between the U.S. and Iran for a long time. On Jan. 3, 2020, the White House launched a ballistic missile attack, killing Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian commander. Threats of war and fear of a potential U.S. draft soon arose all over social media. Whether the social media buzz about this draft was warranted or not, the fact that a draft was mentioned frightened me.
As an almost-18-year-old male, I thought to myself about the possibility and probability of a draft. It seemed to me as though the Government had abolished the draft after the Vietnam War, but after some research, I realized that a draft can still be called today. At 18, every male is required to register for the draft through the government’s Selective Service System. According to its website, its mission is “to register men and maintain a system that, when authorized by the President and Congress, rapidly provides personnel
in a fair and equitable manner while managing an alternative service program for conscientious objectors.”
Although, in order to truly enact this idea, Congress and the Senate would have to approve it, but nevertheless, this contingency plan is unconstitutional, infringes on the right to choose and goes against our volunteer-based military. The 13th Amendment directly states that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the U.S.,” and it seems to me that involuntary military service would be encompassed by this.
Additionally, in the event of World War III, it would seem like the U.S.’s modern military technology would be advanced enough to rely chiefly on unmanned drones and missiles rather than a large reserve of armed
soldiers. Our country must rely on our technology because a human citizen’s or soldier’s life should be valued far more than a drone or other mechanized weapons.
The draft also would send our country into further debt because the average cost to support an active duty soldier, according to a recent Congressional Budget Office report, is around $99,000 per year. Not only would this be a direct hit to the U.S. economy, but it would also entail a large increase in taxes for the average American, who, if they are like me, would not even support the draft in the first place. A draft at this time infringes on our modern rights as free Americans, sends our country further into a cycle of taxes and should not be considered under any circumstances.
Weather conditions intensify globally, climate change responsible
Mallacoota, a small town in Australia, used to be surrounded by emerald-green, eucalyptus trees. Around this time of year, Mallacoota’s population would more than double typically—its residents prided its rich variety of wildlife and surreal beauty that attracted tourists from all around the world. But currently, the town is trapped by destructive fires, which have destroyed its lush forests, wildlife and have caused its remaining residents to ratio their resources. The people from Mallacoota await help from the Australian military. The destructive fires, plowing through 12.35 million acres of Australian land, have assumed a prominent and consistent position in global news, and the majority of the world now knows of the consequential demise of Australian land and wildlife, and yet, these fires pose problems that the world is not prepared to combat.
I personally had not internalized the gravity of this destruction until I traveled to Australia over holiday break. As my family and I flew from an island west of the Australian mainland to Sydney,
I saw several fires scattered across the mainland, white smoke drifting upwards and tampering with the once-immaculate blue sky. When we reached Sydney, my window was completely fogged by gray smoke, barricading the sun from the city.
The fires have killed at least 25 people (by press time), destroyed thousands of homes and decimated unique wildlife.
The conservation group World Wildlife Fund Australia estimated that 1.25 billion animals have been killed while some species face local extinctions. The rare forest landscape of Australia, which served as an important carbon sink, is not burning and assuming an entirely counterproductive role—releasing additional carbon to the atmosphere and further contributing to the greenhouse gas effect.
This disaster did not come at us from left field, for scientists have long warned of the detrimental effects of climate change. Surrounded by two powerful ocean weather patterns, El Niño and the Indian Ocean dipole, Australia has always been vulnerable to extreme weather, but
with the increasing severity of climate change, these extremes have yet to reveal their full potency. After all, this is only what one degree of global warming looks like, and the apocalyptic fires are just a prelude to the coming destruction.
In addition to the naturally occurring fires, Australia faces an arson problem, with 24 people accused of deliberately lighting fires. Despite how the fires are started, once they catch wind, they remain virtually unstoppable because of the intensified conditions of Australia’s climate—the average temperature high recorded at 107.4 degrees Fahrenheit this year. We have tasted climate change’s malignant effects, but we still remain unable to visibly see the degeneration of our atmosphere in our daily lives. Naturally, this makes it more difficult to effectively prioritize the issue, for it seems distant, like some unfortunate, hypothetical occurrence. But the blazes in Australia serve as a wake-up call, and just as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has received scrutiny for a lax reaction—it is no longer business as usual.
As he stops the ball using his left foot, sophomore Grant Jungerman quickly accelerates past an opposing defender. He splits two defenders, curving the ball forward to a teammate and looks for the opportunity to score.
Jungerman has been a pivotal member of the mens varsity soccer team for two years, and he hopes to continue his success on the field for the next two seasons. Jungerman’s family’s connection to the sport inspired him to begin playing at the age of four.
“My dad played a lot [of soccer] in high school, and he put me into it,” Jungerman said. “I realized [my talent] when I started playing club [soccer] in the sixth grade or so.” Club and school soccer take up most of Jungerman’s free time, but
he hopes it will pay off in the future.
“[Soccer] is mostly all I do,” Jungerman said. “It’s everything to me. Club soccer goes all year, and it’s a lot of hours because I’m going to two practices every day. I have to get extensions for work from my teachers [because of the practices]. I had to meet with all my teachers before the year started to figure all of that out.”
college],” Jungerman said. “I’m going overseas this summer to see what it’s like, and if that doesn’t work out, I’ll go to college.”
“HE WAS OUR BEST PLAYER AS A FRESHMAN, AND HE’S OUR BEST PLAYER THIS YEAR. WE HAVEN’T BEEN LOSING WHILE HE’S BEEN ON THE FIELD.”
Brodie Burke, senior
Although Jungerman remains unsure about his plans for the future, he wants to play professionally in Europe.
“I’m not sure [about playing in
Jungerman’s club team was ranked number one in the nation for their age group and won a national championship. It was an “indescribable” experience for him. At the beginning of the season the team was not expected to win the national championship, but they kept getting better.
“When it became a possible reality, we really went all in for it,” Jungerman said.
Sophomore and varsity soccer
player Mac Rodvold has played with Jungerman for two years. In his opinion, their games essentially run through Grant.
“He can do almost everything for us, and he will always give us a chance to win,” Rodvold said.
On the field, Jungerman and Rodvold compliment each other, for they both play center midfield with Rodvold at defense and Jungerman playing offense.
“He’s an insane player, and he always produces,” Rodvold said. “It’s like we give him the music, and he produces it and makes it beautiful.”
Senior captain Brodie Burke knows how important Jungerman is for the team.
“He was our best player as a freshman, and he’s our best player this year,” Burke said. “We haven’t been losing while he’s been on the
field. He’s everywhere all the time; it’s like he never gets tired.”
Burke loves having a sophomore play such a crucial role on the team. He can see Jungerman as a captain.
“He plays at such a high level, and he competes with 18-year-olds on his club team,” Burke said. “He can put the ball anywhere on the field.”
Mens varsity soccer head coach Mark Gardner is impressed with Jungerman’s talent and skills, but he fears that the team is becoming too reliant on his play-making.
“The positive is that [Jungerman] makes the players around him better,” Gardner said. “The negative is a lot of the guys depend on him too much. For example, in the Greenhill game, he gets hurt, and Greenhill pumps in three straight goals…We’ve won every game that he’s played in.”
gina montagna story by
Sophomore Chase Kennedy sits in front of his computer watching footage of his future opponents, noting details and patterns that each team uses. Kennedy, one of the mens basketball captains, is constantly thinking of new ways to lead and unite his team on the way to victory at the Southwest Preparatory Conference tournament. Soccer, wrestling and basketball teams started their season in November and began to establish teams after tryouts. All teams have begun their counterseasons, playing games that will decide their ranking before entering SPC.
“We want to finish with as high of a seed as we can,” head soccer coach Mark Gardner said. “We’ll just have to take one game at a time and see where that puts us.”
The mens varsity soccer team had a rough start to their reason with three losses in a row. Coaches focused the players on perfecting their fundamental skills and also experimented with different formations on the field to polish their defense. Gardner’s final goal of working on scoring goals boosted their confidence on and off the field. The team hopes to continue to adjust and perfect their performance, so they can reach their goal of winning SPC.
“It’s a different feeling when you go out to coach [now],” Gardner said. “You can tell that they believe they can beat anybody now even though they started out rough.”
The womens varsity soccer team consists of a large group of 32 players this year. They have had two counter game wins and one tie. The team is continuing their competitive practices and conditioning to maintain proper fitness. Coaches are working to adjust their formation and defensive lines to present the best strategy during SPC games.
“The coaching staff has been holding each team member accountable for their contribution to the success of the team,” head womens soccer coach Susan Quill said. “Our team goal is first to be in the top two for the North Zone [rankings], so we can have a strong position in SPC to advance to the finals.”
With an influx of new players, the wrestling team can now set their aims at winning SPC. The team has a total of 21 wrestlers with captains Jack Loftus, Ross Chazanow and Caleb Ainsworth. The team finished eighth at the Bishop Lynch Tournament on Jan. 8 and won three matches at the State Prep Duals on Jan. 18. The wrestlers attend two lifts every week to improve their physical shape. Coaches encourage their wrestlers to eat healthy and to continuously work on drills to form muscle memory.
“We have been working a lot on metal toughness to prepare us for both state and SPC,” head wrestling coach Kwinten Brown said. “The team has been preparing by drilling a lot to create muscle memory. We are working hard on the mat and in the weight room.”
The womens basketball team has had a tough season this year with only two wins against the Covenant School and the Trinity Valley School on Nov. 22 and Jan. 28. Head coach Ashley Robinson is focusing on the internal work that needs to be done by enforcing expectations such as focus and attendance during practices.
“This year is a rebuilding year,” Robinson said. “It is a year where the womens basketball community at the school gets a good feel for what the coaches feel and what we have to do to change this basketball program.”
The team’s captains, senior Sofia Gonzalez and freshman Madison McCloud, are motivating the team and doing their best to lead by example at practices and games. Robinson hopes that younger generations watching the games will strive to earn a spot on the varsity team.
“My goal is to plant the seeds for what the future is going to hold for the school,” Robinson said. “We have to build a culture. Building that excitement and that community and building the type of culture where there is going to be a successful team is the challenge.”
The mens varsity basketball team quickly started their season with only a week to get into shape and lift before non-counter games began. This year, the team is sophomore-heavy, with 10 out of the 11 players being sophomores. Head mens basketball coach Corey Henderson implemented the team’s new motto of "Trust. Commitment. Care." as a stabilizer and foundation for the team’s goals and success. The team won their first counter game against Fort Worth Country Day on Jan. 14, which was also Henderson’s 300th win as a head coach at the school. Henderson hopes to continue to build and ultimately sustain the team.
“I like to set high expectations because we have a group that can achieve [things],” Henderson said. “If the ultimate goal is to win SPC, throughout the season, you are going to have a lot of adverse situations that you’re going to have to go through, so why not learn it throughout the way?”
With Jaden Robinson
interview by
ava brennan
Q
How long have you played basketball? Why did you start playing?
A
I have been playing since I was five years old, and I started playing because my dad played in high school, and I wanted to try it out, and [I] have played ever since. I just hope to continue playing in college, as well.
Q
Who has been an inspiration to you?
A
My mom has been an inspiration to me. She was a single mom when I was born and has been my biggest inspiration in everything that I do because she has worked so hard to give me such great opportunities, like ESD and the game of basketball [that] I love. Now, I feel that it is my job to push and succeed to make her proud.
Q
How is the basketball team developing?
A
We are all young, so we have to get to know each other better and develop more as a team. Over the season, we have all seen what each [teammate] can do well and what they cannot do well, and that has allowed us to build a great sense of team chemistry. I also think that everyone has improved skill-wise as well, as both an individual and as a team.
Q
What athlete do you look up to?
A
I look up to Jimmy Butler because he has gone through a lot of terrible things in his childhood that many kids don't have to go through or experience throughout their childhood, and the fact that he still pushed forward and found a way to get to where he wanted to be is just incredibly inspirational.
Using careful hand-eye coordination, freshman
Tom Qiu serves the ball with all of his might across the table to his opponent. The ball swiftly falls off the other end, and he scores one point. His opponent, caught off guard and frustrated, now plays under pressure.
Qiu began his table tennis career back in China around the age of seven. Eight years later here in the U.S., he has stuck to the sport he is passionate about. His skills have allowed him to compete in various local and national tournaments, all of which he has trained for independently outside of school for an average of eight hours a week.
Tom Qiu trains with private coach for several hours a week
“There is a Dallas club team, but I’m not part of it because I have a private coach,” Qiu said. “Recently, I [competed] in the U.S. Open Table Tennis Championships, which was held in Fort Worth this year. I didn’t really do that well, but it was expected because I played participants who were [more experienced] than me.”
“I GET REALLY FRUSTRATED AND I WANT TO GIVE UP, BUT THEN I KEEP GOING, AND I FEEL THAT I WILL BECOME MUCH BETTER.”
Goetsch in a friendly table tennis match during a town hall. Goetsch had won the faculty table tennis tournament for the last couple years, so his colleagues selected him to go up against Qiu. No matter what move he made, Goetsch struggled with returning Qiu’s serve. Qiu walked away an undefeated champion and left the class of 2023 speechless.
Tom Qiu, freshman
During his eighth grade year, he played science teacher Scott
“I found out that Tom was an [amazing] table tennis player when he came to ESD,” Goetsch said. “We used to play [multiple] times after lunch and
during recess for fun.”
According to Goetsch, Head of Middle School Meg Fahrenbrook decided it would be fun to set up a match during flex where the entire middle school could watch in the gym.
“I [thought], ‘Oh man, he’s obviously good,’ and he, of course, destroyed me [after] two out of three matches,” Goetsch said.
As a student-athlete, Qiu intends to continue with his table tennis career in order to maintain his acquired talent and discipline. He has attempted to play other sports, such as regular tennis, but his skills do not come as naturally as they do in table tennis.
“I’ve been trying to play regular
tennis, but I’m not that good,” Qiu said. “The sports are similar, but it’s still kind of different. I am definitely better than the average beginner, so I am medium, but I’m not the best either because I haven’t really played it that much.”
Over the years, Qiu has taught himself that there is a valuable lesson to every game. Although there are losses in life, being an athlete has assisted him in acknowledging failure and overcoming it.
“I’ve definitely lost in games, and that sometimes shuts me back,” Qiu said. “I get really frustrated, and I want to give up, but then, I keep going and feel that I will become much better.”
story by sloane hope
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his fall, the Henderson advisory decided to start their own fantasy football league, creating light-hearted competition between advisees.
Seniors Biz Newsom, Elizabeth Carrie, Ashley Owens, Meg Wilson, Val Mooty, Patrick Kelley, Garrett Seymour, Mason Deyoung and Ned Dockery are all members of the advisory.
While it was ultimately Seymour’s idea for the advisory to create a fantasy league, everyone was excited about it.
“Seymour thought it would be a good way for the advisory to bond and have fun,” advisor and Science Department Head Amy Henderson said. “It ended up making everyone more competitive in the end, but we all had a lot of fun with it.”
The night of Sept. 4, at around 8:30 p.m., the advisory’s draft
pick took place, and the “Chicken Henders” fantasy football league was born.
“Some people chose to handselect their teams,” Newsom said. “Others opted to let the app do it for them.”
Dockery scored the most points in the league, emerging victorious while Wilson came in last place in the draft after scoring the fewest points.
“At the beginning of the season, everyone in the advisory thought Owens was going to win,” Henderson said. “But Wilson and Carrie were pretty low in terms of expected points in the beginning.”
Although the league was created outside of school, there were still restrictions put upon the advisory by Assistant Head of Upper School Jeff Laba.
“According to Mr. Laba, we were
not allowed to have a reward for the winner or a ‘punishment’ for the loser,” Henderson said.
But in the end, the purpose of starting a league was just another way for the advisory to come together and bond. The Henderson advisory is known to participate in several activities throughout the year.
“Our advisory likes to do things together outside of school, as well as in school,” Henderson said.
“This year, we did a Christmas gift exchange, and we volunteered together. We always celebrate everyone’s birthdays and have a tradition where we all have dinner together before we go support Mooty in the musical or play that he is in. I would say that, overall, we are a very close advisory that enjoys doing things like this together.”
Other advisories also participated in a fantasy football league this fall. Advisor Lisa Bottoms said it was a really good way to bring her advisory together.
“In the beginning, the boys had been talking about wanting to do fantasy football,” Bottoms said. “Then, we all said together, ‘Why don’t we do this as an advisory event?”
According to Bottoms, it was a positive activity.
“Bringing our advisory together to do something as a group was a lot of fun,” Bottoms said. “We actually met in one of the dining hall conference rooms, sat around the boardroom table and did our draft together.”
But toward the end of the season, less attention was paid to the league. Nevertheless, it continued to bring the advisory together.
“It started off super strong, and everyone was really invested,” Bottoms said. “But as the season went on, people’s schedules got busier, and people didn’t have as much time to worry about it. The junior year workload can really pile up, so I think we all understood that it wasn’t that big of a deal if people couldn’t devote as much time to it as in the beginning.”
Bottoms also said that her advisory was already close before playing fantasy, which made it a lot more fun.
“Our advisory gets along really well, which is why I think it was an easy decision for everyone to play together,” Bottoms said. “My advisory loves to talk together. And, it's not in little groups. They talk to each other as a whole, which is really nice. It’s nice to see that they enjoy each others’ company.”
Larger playoff lesssens the gap between Power Five and Group of Five teams
alexander konradi story by
The College Football Playoff has quickly become one of my favorite parts of college football. It gives teams that normally wouldn’t be able to compete for a national championship a chance to win it all. Had it not been for the playoff, we would not have seen the historic rise of Tua Tagovailoa or Ohio State’s 2015 national championship. The College Football Playoff adds important games to the college football postseason that seems to increasingly be filled with irrelevant games.
Back in the day, any postseason game was of major importance, but now, aside from a select few bowls, mainly the New Year’s Six Bowls, the postseason seems to become less and less significant. If the CFP was expanded to field six teams, more games would feel like they matter.
The way I would see it being run is that the top five teams as ranked by the CFP would make the playoff. This would encourage strong non-conference scheduling in order to bolster strength of schedule, which adds entertaining regular season games for viewers.
Finally, the last spot would be an automatic bid to the top group of five teams. The Group of Five are the five conferences that are widely agreed upon to be weaker than the Power Five teams. This year, that would have been Memphis.
The structure of the playoff would be a bye for the top two teams with the number six and three teams playing each other and the number four and five teams playing each other in the first round. The number one team would play the winner of the four and five matchup, and the second-ranked team would play the winner of the third and sixth ranked team. You can see this visualized in the attached graphic.
By adding a G5 team to the playoff, it adds relevance to conferences that have not been seen at the highest level of recruiting. If the change was made, the group of five schools would be able to compete for a national title, which would attract higher level recruits to those schools and in turn, further equalize the playing field in college football by spreading talent more evenly.
already working out. Williams shot around for an hour or so, and Bryant was still running and perfecting his game.
In 2017, the University of Central Florida football team that claimed the national title in 2017, after an undefeated season, ended with a marquee win over Auburn. Auburn was the only team to beat the real national champion, the University of Alabama, and because UCF had not been given the opportunity to compete for the national title when they felt they deserved to be in the mix, they claimed that they rightfully won the national championship. This would erase confusion in situations like this and give every team a shot at the title.
My proposed playoff would give a bye to the top two teams, with the number six team playing the number three team, while seeds five and four would play each other. This is the optimal way to run the playoff. Even if the number six team never makes the finals, just providing them with an opportunity is a massive improvement. It makes the G5 games matter all season. Suddenly if you don’t go undefeated as a G5, you probably don’t make the playoff, as opposed to making a bowl game that, while potentially important to school history,
doesn’t matter as much as a playoff would.
Imagine that this year, Memphis, by some miracle, upsets Clemson. I am not saying it is likely but giving them the opportunity to at least try would be amazing to watch. That would have altered the entire playoff. Giving lesser programs a chance to compete at the national title makes college football more fun. It adds importance to every Football Bowl Series game, which is the highest division of college football, something that wasn’t true before.
Expanding the playoff also stops the chances of one conference being kept out of the playoffs. Recently, both the Pac-12 and Big 10 have both missed the playoffs. Expanding the playoff would increase the chances that all of the power five conferences would get a playoff bid. By expanding to include the top five teams, instead of the power five champions, teams like the Washington Huskies who went 9-3 in 2018 would still not have a spot in the playoffs as a three-loss conference champion doesn’t deserve to compete for the national title.
Jay Williams, a former guard for the Chicago Bulls, arrived early to the Staples Center to prepare for his game against the Los Angeles Lakers. Playing against one of the best teams in the NBA, Williams decided to start prepping four hours before tip off.
“I’m going to get there at three p.m., and I’m going to make sure I make 400 shots before I go back into the room,” Williams said. “I sit in the sauna, I get ready for the game.”
As soon as Williams entered the court, Kobe Bryant was
Kobe Bryant scored 40 points that night, and after the game, Williams asked him why he was working for so long before the game. Kobe replied, “Because I saw you come in, and I wanted you to know that it doesn’t matter how hard you work, I’m willing to work harder than you.”
Kobe’s legacy, his trademark, is his worth ethic. Drafted straight out of Lower Merion High School, he became the youngest player to ever play in a NBA game at 18-years-old.
Over his 20-year basketball career, Bryant was a five-time NBA champion, an 18-time all star, a MVP and a two time Olympic gold medalist, along
with other numerous accolades. But this is not what made Kobe Bryant special. While all of his achievements on the court will always be remembered, his life and personality outside of basketball will never die. At a young age, Bryant moved to Italy, and he became fluent in both Italian and Spanish. During his time in the NBA, he began to learn French and Slovenian, and in December of 2019, he spoke to Luka Doncic, Slovenian star player for the Dallas Mavericks, in Doncic’s native tongue, Slovenian. Bryant was accused of sexual assault in 2003, but he was never convicted, and the case was settled in a civil court privately. After this accusation, he was well known for his devotion and appreciation for womens
basketball and the WNBA.
Taking his talents to the screen, Bryant made a farewell animated short, “Dear Basketball,” that follows his love for the game. “Dear Basketball” won a number of honors including an Academy Award for the best short film.
Perhaps his greatest and proudest achievements were his daughters. He and his wife, Vanessa Bryant, had four girls together, and Kobe enthusiastically called himself a “girl dad.” Kobe said one of his daughters, Gianna Bryant, was better at basketball than he was at her age. Gianna died alongside Kobe in the helicopter crash.
Kobe Bryant lives on through every basketball player, all of his daughters and every piece of
Who is your male celebrity crush?
Harry Styles
Do you like Valentine’s Day?
yes no
Favorite rom-com movie? Who is your female celebrity crush?
29%
“To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before”
“10 Things I Hate About You”
“The Proposal”
“How To Loose A Guy In 10 Days”
“All Of Me” by John Legend 61%
“Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran 20% Jennifer Aniston 23%
VOLUNTEERS FILL FOOD BOXES FOR FAMILY LEGACY IN HONOR OF MLK
What is your favorite Valentine’s Day candy?
37% story by luke mccabe Favorite love song?
Margot Robbie
Hershey’s Kisses 58%
On Jan. 20, Upper School students came together on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to help those in need with a day of service. The volunteers partnered with Family Legacy, a non-profit organization that provides food and education to orphaned and poverty stricken children in Zambia, students spent their day organizing, boxing and filling food packs.
“We started this day of service in honor of MLK Day and what he has hopefully inspired everybody to do, like help their community and get involved,” Director of Admissions Cindy Newsom said. “Hopefully, the kids got something out of it and understand the reasons we did it.”
The group filled approximately 19,000 food packs to carry out Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of service.
Students enjoyed the volunteer work they did on the service day.
“I really enjoyed the day,” junior Elle Etcheverry said. “It was also cool to know I was giving back to those in need on a day like MLK Day.”
Many faculty want to continue this day of service as a tradition.
“We hope to build on this next year and have kids and families come work together as a community,” Newsom said.