The Coat of Arms
Volume 41, Number 2 Menlo School, Atherton, California Thursday, November 6, 2014
Seven year phase-out plan for Japanese program underway By Becky Swig | Editor-in-Chief
At the end of last year, Head of School Than Healy decided to phase out the Japanese program in both the Lower and Upper School. Healy was adamant about giving any student currently enrolled Japanese at Menlo to have the opportunity to finish. The Japanese program has a seven-year phase-out plan, starting next year. “I think it serves the students well [to have a longer phase-out]. It honors their commitment. If you are in the program now, we are not going to pull the rug right out from underneath you,” Healy said. This decision was not made easily. Healy along with other administrators have carefully looked at the enrollment numbers for the past few years, and have noticed a declining trend, leading to the long-term phase-out. The lack of students enrolling in Japanese stems from the popularity of the other five languages. For a school the size of Menlo, it is challenging to sustain five languages. With Spanish having such high enrollment, it is difficult for the other four programs to compare in numbers. “Ultimately we came to the conclusion that a school of this size can’t sustain five languages. We don’t have the bodies to populate five languages,” Upper School Director John Schafer said. For the 2015-2016 school year, sixth grade Japanese as well as Japanese 1 in the high school will no longer be offered. Even though the school will not pay Japanese teacher Kumiko Sakamoto to teach Japanese 1 next year, Sakamoto is hopeful that students still want to take the course. “If I have any students [for Japanese 1] next year, I will teach [that class] voluntarily,” Sakamoto said. “I worry about the students, the students who want to take Japanese. I want to teach [them]; my purpose is to teach.” Students are also upset by this decision. Healy was invited into one of the Japanese classes to speak to the students and to answer any of their questions. “Initially, my peers and I were confused and angry about the phase-out of the Japanese program,” sophomore Lindsay Miller said. “Although we are still sad about the loss of a wonderful opportunity for future [classes at Menlo], meeting with Healy
clarified his reasoning for the phase out.” Junior Elena Gray believes Sakamoto has a strong presence in the Menlo community. “A teacher like [Sakamoto] is extremely rare. I’ve never met a teacher more dedicated to the well-being of her students. […] Cutting the program is saddening but not having [Sakamoto] at Menlo will be the biggest loss of all,” Gray said. In addition to the phase out of Japanese, Mandarin could be added to the Lower School. This is an effort to feed more stu-
but also respect people’s tuition dollars,” Healy said. Tuition is high at Menlo, so funding such a small program with the tuition dollars isn’t a good use of money. Healy does not want the wrong message to be inferred from this decision. “In my view and in talking with other folks, I think that Japanese has been an important program at Menlo for a long time. It has served the students well, and the teaching in the program has been quite strong,” Healy said. Schafer agrees with Healy. “This deci-
For many freshmen, the first year of high school can be extremely daunting as they navigate new social and academic scenes. In previous years, a senior mentorship program for freshmen has existed with varying degrees of committment. This year, Freshman Class Dean Margaret Ramsey seeks to modify the program to make it more structured. A group of five seniors: Sam Rubin, Mackenzie Bressie, Jack Hammond, Rebecca Shoch and Chris Crouch were selected by Ramsey to coordinate the program. These leaders organize the senior mentors and brainstorm topics that the freshmen might find valuable to talk about. “They meet with me and talk about what topics are [relevant] for a freshman in any given month that I as a teacher wouldn’t think about,” Ramsey said. Each month, Ramsey and the leaders meet with the 45 senior mentors. In these meetings, the mentors are briefed on what to talk about in their upcoming discussions with the freshmen. Next, the mentors meet with freshmen in groups to discuss the topics they had brainstormed. About three mentors are paired up with a freshman advocacy group and the meetings generally take place in a casual lunchtime setting on the quad. Since there are so many mentors, Ramsey has created strict guidelines for what they need do. “I hope that the structure both adds more value to the seniors but also creates more accountability, so that the freshmen don’t feel all this excitement at the beginning and then are abandoned,” Ramsey said. Part of this stems from the fact that Ramsey knows that many seniorsalthough genuinely wanting to support freshmen- add the program to their college
News Menlo students are always accomplishing new things. Recently, alumna Kate Park and senior Elaine Wong pursued new adventures in writing. Park wrote a memoir about her travels around the world and published it through iBooks. Wong took a different route, focusing on short stories and published her works in an anthology that will be available in November.
Opinions What effect has slut shaming had on our culture? What do we do in everyday life that encourages bashing virgins or those who have had sex? Senior Yesenia Herrera explores the topic of virginity and sex in Menlo culture and beyond in a compelling article with personal anecdotes from her life.
A&L
Japanese teacher Kumiko Sakamoto teaches the Japanese 3 Honors course . ELIZA CROWDER/COA
dents into Mandarin starting in sixth grade, as opposed to have students switch once they come to the Upper School. “I think educationally it makes sense [to add Mandarin]. All of the literature says the earlier you start learning a language, the better,” Healy said. Currently no decision has been made yet, but the school hopes to have parallel programs in the Lower and Upper Schools. Financial reasons also dictated this decision. As previously mentioned, it is challenging to sustain five languages at such a small school. “[We want to be] respectful of the program that has existed,
sion to phase-out Japanese has nothing to do with the teaching in Japanese. That has been excellent,” Schafer said. He also commented on how students are taking on other academic courses. “This is more of a reality on how students are moving with their feet,” Schafer said. Students select courses in order to look good for colleges as opposed to taking courses they are interested in and want to take. “It is ironic that the short-term gain from what students think colleges want is in opposition of the long-term gain of what is needed to be successful in life,” Healy said.
New structure to senior-freshman mentorship program By Brooke Hammarskjold | Print Editor
Also available online at coa.menloschool.org
ing does not become an issue. “I think that the biggest challenge is just having time to meet up as a group with the seniors and freshmen, but [...] I’m hoping that everyone feels that they don’t have to schedule some huge event, but if they just catch up for ten minutes at lunch, that’s actually worthwhile,” Ramsey said. Looking ahead, both the seniors and freshmen are enthusiastic about the program. “I’m really excited. I have an older brother who’s a senior so I get the boy aspect of the high school experience as a whole but it will be nice to have a girl to relate to,” freshman Grace Hammond said. Hammond and her older brother, senior Jack Hammond, are just one of the many senior-freshman sibling pairings. “There’s an unusual special bond between this year’s senior and freshmen class just by virtue that there’s so many siblings,” Ramsey said. Freshman Gillian Bressie also shares Hammond’s excitement for the discussions with seniors to come. “I think it’s interesting to have seniors and freshmen viewpoints on certain things,” Bressie said. Ramsey hopes that this program will not only be successful for the freshmen, but also for the seniors. “Hopefully, as this program grows, being the leader is more of a thing. We’re hoping to have juniors apply next year and build this program so it will be more lasting,” Ramsey said. In the next year, senior mentors and freshmen advocacies will be meeting monthly to talk over current issues in the Menlo Senior Mentors Sam Rubin and Kamakshi Bharghava have a lunch meet- community and offer advice ing with their freshmen mentees. BROOKE HAMMARSKJOLD/COA about all aspects of high school. applications. “I think a lot of people use this as something for college and that’s great except for it’s something meaningless. If it’s just a line and you didn’t do anything, then I don’t feel comfortable with that and I don’t think our students do either,” Ramsey said. However, the seniors are also joining the program because they genuinely feel that they could make freshmen year easier for their mentees. “I wanted to be a senior mentor because I wish a program like this existed for me. I think freshmen will greatly benefit from it, and want to be a part of creating this program that will hopefully become part of Menlo,” senior mentor and leader Sam Rubin said. Accountability is not the only possible challenge associated with this program. Ramsey and the senior mentors are also working to ensure that communication and schedul-
As cold season rolls around, it is inevitable that many Menlo students will get sick. It is also inevitable that a majority of those students will decide to come to school despite their illness. The demanding academic workload of a typical student fosters a fear that missing even one day of school for health reasons will cause a student to fall far behind in their courses.
Spread Rather than teaching students religious facts and figures, world religions teacher Matthew Nelson focuses on teaching his students about religions: making his pupils educated, dynamic thinkers of the world. Learning about religion has the potential to be a critical thinking exercise that students must practice in order to become active participants in today's society, a potential that Nelson strives to accomplish.
Sports Keith Larsen has been coaching basketball for 14 years and this year joined the Menlo Athletic staff. Larsen’s experience ranges from assistant basketball coach at Stanford to Athletic Director at Menlo College. Menlo Athletic Director Kris Weems and varsity basketball team members are looking forward to this season and are excited about Larsen’s energetic attitude, competitive spirit and fresh perspective.
Picture of the issue
Head of School Than Healy poses with senior Mark Laub during the homecoming parade. BECKY SWIG/COA