The Chronicle
B2 Features
Class connections
Feb. 8, 2012
Chemistry students make bonds in, out of laboratory By Nika Madyoon
Jake Schapiro ’12 ripped off his shirt as he became consumed with the excitement of the chemical reaction taking place before him. He grabbed a bottle of distilled water and squirted David Kolin ’12, as was customary. Katy Perry’s vocals blasted from Schapiro’s computer, filling the room with music. It was a typical lab day in Advanced Placement Chemistry. Students performed labs, a central feature of the AP Chemistry course, about two times each week. When Schapiro wasn’t shirtless or drinking from the classroom sink during lab, he was either engaging in a meter-sick swordfight with Mark Swerdlow ’12 or tasting various chemical concoctions. “Anything with liquid nitrogen I would eat,” Swerdlow said. AP Chemistry has become known for its ability to create strong friendships in the classroom. “I think a big part of it is the atmosphere of the class itself, because it’s so small and the schedule is based around labs,” said Maddie Lear ’13, a current chemistry student. Lear explained that while the course is competitive in some ways, the focus is equally on having fun and working together to arrive at conclusions. She cited the students’ familiarity with one another as well as the course material as other sources of relaxed classroom environment. Hannah Schoen ’12, who took the course last year, also noticed the impact of laboratory experiments on the students’ overall learning experience. “Because you’re not really sitting there listening to a teacher, you can talk to people and bond that way,” Schoen said. The difficulty associated with AP Chemistry also contributes significantly to the bonds students form. “It’s such a difficult class,” Patrick Kang ’12, a chemistry student last year, said. “We were up until 1 or 2 a.m. on Facebook chat trying to figure out the answer to lab questions. And we all
loved what we were doing.” “It was hours and hours of work for even a trivial lab,” Swerdlow said. “Labs were the kind of thing where you almost certainly had to ask someone else for help.” Kang explained that, last year, students often came together and planned ways to “mess around” with the prelabs they produced once per quarter before performing experiments. “One time, we all changed the font to Wingdings,” he said. Science teacher Krista McClain played a significant role in the students’ bonding as well. “I have a feeling all of her students love her,” Swerdlow said. “She got me into ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and got me all the DVDs.” “She’s alright, I guess,” Schapiro said. “But her husband is really cool.” “Her husband is the bomb,” Swerdlow added. At the end of last year, McClain’s students were invited to join her at her wedding, an experience they were excited to share with her. “It started as a joke,” Swerdlow said. “And then by the end of the year we were like, ‘we actually want to be there.’” The students got together outside of the classroom on several other occasions as well, whether it was eating lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, playing laser tag as a class with McClain or seeing “Transformers: Dance of the Moon” together. At the end of the year, members of McClain’s class created a large poster collage complete with photos taken of them in chemistry class over the course of the year. Though last year’s students have since moved on to other science courses, they continue to maintain close friendships as a class unit, competing together in the dodgeball tournament under the team name “DJ Paul and the PVnRTs.” “I walked into that class with one friend. I left like I was friends with everyone else,” Swerdlow said. “You start talking about chemistry, but you end up talking about other things and you get close.”
THEY HAVE CHEMISTRY: Jake Schapiro ’12, Mark Swerdlow ’12 and David Kolin ’12 participate in an AP Chemi lab that created ice cream with liquid nitrogen extract top. Some of Krista McClain’s AP Chemistry class attended her wedding last summer, middle. Krista McClain and her students ALL PHOTOS PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF MARISSA LEPOR pose at her wedding, bottom.
‘Nobody gets left behind’ in Photography III By Rebecca Nussbaum
PRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF CHLOE LISTER
PICTURE PERFECT: Photography III students stole a christmas tree from the quad for a prop in their holiday card.
Halfway through fourth period, photography teacher Kevin O’Malley’s silver hair glinted as he rushed into the photography lab. “Mr. O’Malley!” cheered the Photography III students at the sight of their teacher. “You’re late,” Jon Chu ’12 said. O’Malley said he had confused the schedule, and although it was two days before the opening of his students’ showcase, he wasn’t very worried. After all, this photo class is different than his other periods, he said. This is “Ohana.” Most of the 11 seniors in Photography III have been in photo class together since sophomore year, Asha Jordan ’12 said. Junior year they named their class the Hawaiian word for family, “Ohana,” from the Disney movie “Lilo and Stitch.” “Ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind,” Nikki Goren ’12 said, quoting the movie. “I think I just said it one day,” Chloe
Lister ’12 said. “Ohana. And it stuck.” As usual, Reyna Calderon ’12 searched for the right background music on YouTube, settling on Tyga’s “Rack City.” She then joined the rest of Ohana in the back of the classroom where they were taking pictures in front of a white screen. The classmates smoothly alternated between snapping pictures of their friends and posing in the shots. Simone Bookman ’12 danced with Graydon Feinstein ’12 in front of the camera. “’Scuse me, why are you on my husband?” Jordan said. Jordan reclaimed Feinstein and smiled triumphantly at the lens as she pulled on Feinstein’s tie. The intimacy in Ohana is particularly unique because the photography students come from different friend groups, Calderon said. Unlike typical classroom friendships, though, the photographers sit with each other in the quad or talk whenever they see each other, she said. “I’m friends with Emma Gerber
[’12],” Goren said. “That’s really cool to say.” After about 15 minutes, the photographers refocused and made their way toward the computers to write “blurbs,” explanations of their photo projects. However, the playful energy didn’t dissipate. Sophie Turner ’12, dubbed “class model,” twirled in a swivel chair while taking pictures of herself. “The fact that Sophie is over there taking selfies is ridiculous,” Jordan said. Lister reminisced about the early days of Ohana. “That time when Emma’s horse died, and we group hugged,” Lister said. “I felt it.” Goren asked Calderon if she would continue to shave the side of her head, and Josiah Yu ’12 replied for her mockingly, “I don’t know, I do whatever I want with my hair, whatever, whatever,” with a fake sigh. “And this is how almost every class is,” O’Malley said with a half smile at the end of the period. “See you guys Monday.”