theOctagon
Sacramento Country Day School
www.scdsoctagon.com
VOL. XXXVIII, NO. 1
September 16, 2014
Black team celebrates epic win
In celebration of Country Day’s 50th anniversary, a past editor-in-chief of The Octagon will be featured in each issue.
Marcia Djudzman, ‘90, was editor-in-chief twice—from 1987-88 and from 1989-90. Q: What was it like being “the boss”? A: One day I go into the Cave to do yet more Octagon stuff, and no one is there. I’m furious. I go storming out to the quad and scream to the heavens, ¨What the hell do I have to do to get people to work?¨ Punchline: later Liz Gronke, ’92, and Anoosh Jorjorian, ’91, gave me a bullwhip for my 18th birthday.
(Photo by Kyra Petersen)
editor-in-chief, The Octagon A: We were all given our own
College Board splits one big physics course into two small ones By Elena Lipman Page Editor Instead of AP Physics B, students the two courses with which the Col lege Board has replaced AP Physics B. Each of the two new courses, AP Physics 1 and AP Physics 2, runs over two semesters and simulates a col physics course. The courses also cov more depth. Since the classes are each a year long, it will give more time to cov er the material sometimes lost in AP Physics B. “A College Board workshop recom mended that teachers skip a topic of our choosing when teaching AP Phys ics B,” physics teacher Glenn Mangold said. Nonetheless, Mangold was usually College Board. Mangold plans on using the same material he wrote for AP Physics B as a foundation for the new course, sup
According to the College Board’s students develop the critical thinking
The key concepts of AP Physics
principles, theories and processes of physics that cut across traditional con
ical world.” However, Mangold said he will teach the course with the seven ideas in the
See Physics, page 3
Teachers tackle new positions By Sonja Hansen Reporter
A
handful of teachers have taken on new classes or positions. Sue Nellis is teaching Compara tive World History; Ron Bell has taken over AP Art History; Mollie Hawkins has become the yearbook adviser; Joe Tellez teaches Chemistry and AP Chemistry; and Tucker Foehl has become assistant head of strategic programming. After history teacher Daniel Neukom and Sue Nellis, former head of high school, partially retired and yearbook adviser Joel Rickert left, many classes were left open. Ron Bell Bell is now teaching AP Art His tory in place of Rickert.
ject,” Bell said.
Foehl’s position was created after it views for head of high school that BrookeWells and Foehl were the top two choices. missed opportunity to not Stephen Repsher said. “It
“(Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America) are two areas that are not studied enough.” —Sue Nellis, teacher
everyone’s cultural education.” Often using examples of art and architecture in In preparation for teaching the class, Bell took a was designed to teach new or returning AP Art His
the historical context of the art. The class studied exams, visited muse ums in the area and discussed opportunity. “I’m looking forward to sharing another piece of my knowledge of cultural histo ry in general,” Bell said. The course curriculum of AP Art History will mostly
community. “I love my new position!” said Foehl, who was previously the academic department head at the Baltimore School of the Arts.
Foehl is currently work ing with Julie Nelson, di rector of communications, on updating the school’s the school.
Sue Nellis Nellis teaches Comparative World History in stead of Neukom, who has dropped Ancient History to teach only AP European History. “History classes don’t open up very often, so when Mr. Neukom retired, I used that as an opportunity to step down as the head of high school,” Nellis said. ing the open class. “I was thrilled,” Repsher said. “She’s a wonderful teacher and I was
“(Art history) should be part of everyone’s cultural education.” —Ron Bell, teacher
said. Tucker Foehl As assistant head for strategic programming, Foehl is in charge of enrollment management, over seeing the school’s curriculum, marketing, and cre ating opportunities for students to engage with the
that we had two outstanding candidates and that we had
Nellis has made changes to the Ancient History class curriculum,
Saharan Africa and Latin America. “I think those are two areas that are not studied enough,” Nellis said. “Particularly in the U.S., where we have many immigrants from tures is enriching.” “Ms. Nellis is a great teacher and I’m sure she’ll do
rosoft Word, and then copy it onto the hard drive. That got old really fast, so at some point I just started writing all my stories on the hard drive. But, yes, all of a sudden, magic. I could write the thing and print it out in 9-point Times New Roman! A: Absolutely. We didn’t need Aardvark Printing any more for typesetting. If I wrote a thing, and printed it out and cut it into strips and held it up against the layout sheets and it was too long, I could trim it down and print a new version in 10 minutes. Glorious! The opposite happens and a story’s too short? Find a pull quote and throw it in there. And, of course, no more Aardvark meant no more ¨It has to be at Aardvark by Thursday!¨ which meant we all could slip deadlines as much as we needed to and all that would happen was a Fels lecture. I procrastinated as much as everyone else.
A: It was quite something when I visited my then 8-year-old daughter’s classroom and saw a poster of proofreading marks and told all the kids, ¨I actually made money using those.¨ What was that like? A: I’d been mildly intimidated by Fels when she recruited me in eighth grade. She carried this vicious-looking pen thingy, which she used to punctuate sentences. —Manson Tung For more of Djudzman’s interview, visit scdsoctagon.com.
See Positions, page 7