36.15

APRIL 5, 2019

The Milton Paper

VOL. 36 NO. 15

MILTON’S INDEPENDENT WEEKLY STUDENT NEWSPAPER

Dare to be Chic

I ♥ Bacon

INTERVIEWER: EVITA THADHANI '20 INTERVIEWEE: ALISA BRAITHWAITE English Department Personal style shines everywhere on campus; from the clothes we wear to what stickers are on our computers, we make conscious decisions every day about how others view us. We students constantly compliment and make fun of each other’s fashion, but rarely do we take a second glance at what our teachers wear. If you do, perhaps you’ve noticed that without a doubt, Ms. Braithwaite has one of the best fashion styles on campus; from black leather pants and velvet blazers to patterned shirts and colorful dresses, Ms. Braithwaite always shows up with a unique, thoughtfully coordinated outfit. In fact, in 2010 Boston.com listed Braithwaite as being one of the top 25 most fashionable Bostonians. In the picture of her on the website, everything she wore came from J.Crew: a blazer, belt, and pencil skirt. The blazer remains one of Braithwaite's favorite articles; she notes that it feels very masculine and work-related, but often pulls an outfit together. Not into fast fashion, Braithwaite has transitioned from wearing J. Crew to Anthropologie and, more recently, Ralph Lauren.

Braithwaite’s interest in fashion began in middle school. Every morning, her friends would compliment each other on their clothes. Although she had always had an eye for it, this social habit made her even more aware about style. She began to acknowledge the trends around her, but she decided to always choose her clothes based on her likes and dislikes, not society’s. “I didn’t have a lot of money but I was still thinking about colors that I appreciated, what was the style that was in, what did I think of that style. It wasn’t necessary wearing things just because they were in, but if something sparked my interest, I would and if it didn’t, I’d leave it,” Braithwaite remarks.

In fact, Braithwaite prefers to wear articles that others aren’t wearing because they individualize her; “it shows you who I am versus who someone else is.” In her eyes, fashion is an important mode of self-expression. “It’s a way to show the rest of the world your unique personality even when you have to fall within certain restraints,” she says. “I would always try to figure out how to make sure the clothes both expressed who I was and made me feel comfortable, special.”

She respects the personal styles of many, such as

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Asian Who Likes Hip Hop

Image Courtesy of Google Images

BY DAR ANASTAS Performing Arts Department Slow-cooked, maple-flavored bacon with eggs, toast, and fresh-brewed coffee is a perfect way to start a day.

Waking up to the smell of coffee and bacon reminds me of my childhood, when kids were free to run in the streets and play after dark — a time when the games which we played with our friends did not come out of a box. We imagined fantastic worlds, pretended to be knights or villains, and created mud forts, tree forts, and backyard plays.

Growing up in a family of seven was lively, crowded, and wonderful.

We started our day with a good breakfast, including bacon, and then moved on to chores. My older brother did the outside work; my twin sister and I were assigned the domestic jobs of laundry and dishes; my younger brother picked up the household clutter; my little sister simply earned her nickname of trouble. Now, don’t get me wrong. No one messed with the Anastas kids. We stuck together and had each other’s back.

That is the way it has always been.

Faith, loyalty, and family are values by which we have always lived. After we completed our chores (and, no, we did not get paid for them), we were free to read, ride bikes, bring out board games, or just sit at the table and talk. We did

not live in front of a television. TV was a treat.

We watched cartoons on Saturday morning while munching on homemade cinnamon buns (yet another smell that brings me back to a simpler time). Programs featuring Rocky, Bullwinkle, Bugs Bunny, Mighty Mouse, Road Runner, and Spanky and his gang were filled with creative inventions, witty dialogue, wild chases, and, indeed, violence. These characters had us laughing and enthralled for an hour or two, at which time Mom would then send us outside to play.

We enjoyed playing together.

Growing up in a military family, we relied on each other to be best friends, confidantes, and allies. We moved a lot because Dad was in the Army. Before I was in the fourth grade, we had lived in six states and Germany. I will forever be grateful for growing up as an army brat because it laid the foundation for my love of family and country as well as my respect for our flag. Mom and Dad were a team.They kept us grounded during moves, worked long and hard hours in order to provide for us, and always took time to laugh. They taught us how to form opinions, argue a point, and respect different viewpoints while remaining true to our values. For me, family and country are fundamental to

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Inside This Issue pg.3 || Continued Education pg. 6 || Take Art Sophomore Year pg. 9

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The Milton Paper The 36th Editorial Board Editors-in-Chief Opinion Manager Managing Editor News Managers Senior Editors Website Editor Layout Editor A&E Editor Calvin Cheong

Pierce D. Wilson & Rishi Dhir Natasha Roy Lyndsey Mugford Abby Foster & Charlotte Kane Kat Stephan & Serena Fernandopulle Dillon Pang Jenab Diallo & DJ Murrell Opinion Editor Malia Chung

Faculty Sponsor Eric Idsvoog

Humor Editors Sports Editor Associate Editors Janelle Davis Katherine McDonough Sarah Alkhafaji Nate Jean-Baptiste Nathan Smith Financial Manager Evita Thadhani Brian Bowman

News

Brendan Hegarty Susan Urstadt Sarah Palmer Max Litvak Jenn Chen Adiza Alasa Louise Goldenberg Oscar Burnes Aston Chan Annie Wernerfelt Elina Mraz Kendelle Grubbs Ava Scheibler Daniel Siegel Eleanor Raine Neha Modak Shiloh Liu Livia Wood

A&E

Jennifer Lim Grace Li Grace Vainisi Anne Kwok Beck Kendig Gracie Denneen Jasper Burnes Lynn Yuan Dylan Areivan Kenza Chraibi Nara Mohyeddin

Humor

Drew Bartkus Annie Corcoran Andrew Willwerth Seth Gordon

Opinion

Willa DuBois Christian Westphal Ella O'Hanlon Emma Bradley Jana Amin Kathryn Fernandopulle Kayla Mathieu Madeline Fitzgibbon Maya Bokhari Nikhil Pande Elena Viciera Margot Becker Eliza Barrett-Carter Tony Wang Erinma Onyewuchi Karol Querido Leydn McEvoy Miriam Zuo Tapti Sen

Sports

Sophia Li Antoine Wiley Eliot Mialhe Luke Monnich Lily Wright Zacary Omar Gianna Gallagher Sam Barrett Tori Choo Alison Blake George Rose Jehan Boer Riya Singh

Columnist

Olayeni Oladipo

Milton’s Independent Weekly Student Newspaper “A Forum for Discussion and Thought” Founded 1979 • Publishing Weekly Since 1983 Founders David Roth • Mark Denneen The Milton Paper is an independent, student-produced publication. It does not necessarily represent the views of the students, faculty, administration, or Milton Academy itself.

Please do not copy or reproduce without permission.

Letters Policy: The Milton Paper gladly accepts letters from anyone who sends them. We do not promise to publish any or all letters, and we retain the rights to edit letters for content, length, and clarity. We will not publish anonymous letters. If inclined, please take the opportunity to write to us. Send letters by mail (Letters to the Editor, The Milton Paper, Milton Academy, 170 Centre Street, Milton, MA 02186), by email (PaperMilton@gmail.com), or by personal delivery to our office Warren 304.

Editorial

Faculty and Students: A Two Way Street The Milton Paper’s annual Faculty Issue aims to cultivate in us students a deeper appreciation for our teachers. That appreciation can take many forms—maybe, after reading about your teacher’s insecurities in your classroom, you’ll pause before thinking your next snarky thought about them. Maybe you’ll continue to view them the same way you always have, except now you’ll be aware of the internal monologue running through Mr. Robson’s head every time you use “momentarily” the American way.

At Milton, we often discuss how our various backgrounds color the perspectives we bring to the harkness table. In classroom discussions, we make an effort to acknowledge those points of view. Nonetheless, because our teachers serve not as contributors but as moderators of these discussions, we rarely consider their backgrounds. Many of us may not even know much about certain teachers beyond the subject to which they devote themselves and their morning coffee habits. This attitude towards teachers isn’t necessarily an issue; in fact, one could argue that in order to fully support every student’s experiences, a teacher cannot highlight their own experiences in the same way.

Still, Milton fosters a level of unavoidable closeness in student-teacher relationships that cannot possibly be achieved in different, less all-consuming school environments. In many cases, our math teachers are our soccer coaches, and our history teachers are our dorm parents. Most Milton teachers take on many additional roles in this community, and after years of close contact we can form incredibly close relationships with them.

These unique teacher-student relationships can be difficult to navigate. It’s one thing to cry in front of your teacher (we’ve all been there), but is it inappropriate for a teacher to cry in front of you? Getting to know the adults while also carefully maneuvering any blurred lines can be challenging, yet all relationships, even teacher-student ones, require a twoway level of sharing in order to achieve real meaning. TMP’s Faculty Issue might be able to help. Here, teachers can, on their own terms, share aspects of their lives that they ordinarily wouldn’t in class environments. It’s so easy to slip into a mindset where you view your teachers as teachers and not as people, even in a space that encourages close relationships with them. We hope these pieces will help us reconsider.•

SHOUTOUT TOM LOWENSTEIN '87 AND HIS BOOK: THE TRIALS OF WALTER OGROD

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Questions From an Asian Who Loves Hip Hop

BY KEVIN MOY '05 Science Department Think of this as a written mixtape. A handful of short tracks, sharing memories and thoughts.

“Check your Timbs, they probably say made in China” The first Asian American rapper that I ever heard was Jin. While in high school, a friend asked if I had seen his freestyle battles on 106 & Park, BET’s daily top ten countdown of popular music videos, intercut with celebrity interviews, live performances, and other segments. Fridays were “Freestyle Fridays,” where a contestant was invited to battle the defending champion from last week in a short freestyle rap battle.

Jin’s first battle was with a defending rapper who had won six weeks in a row and only needed one more victory to be “retired” from the competition. A daunting debut for Jin, but his punchlines preemptively addressed his Asian identity, leaving little room for his opponent.

After Jin’s savage opening verse that fired up the crowd, even prompting the house DJ, Fatman Scoop, to tell the champion to “get focused...

IMMEDIATELY,” the response was good, but he choked and ended his final allotted time with silence and with Jin dethroning him. Week after week, challengers attacked his height and his eyes and made endless tired Asian references, but Jin always came out on top, rapidly replying with sharp and humorous lines, never hesitating to weaponize Chinese stereotypes, and twisting and turning them to simultaneously weaken the sting of his opponent’s verses and proudly represent his heritage. The studio audience always exploded after every last bar, screaming and pointing to Jin as the clear victor, and the judges of the week, ranging from Birdman and Mannie Fresh from Cash Money Records to Missy Elliott, consistently agreed. On his seventh and final battle before winning and retiring, Jin dropped the final punchline in Cantonese. It was strange but validating to hear words from my parents’ language intertwined into a freestyle battle. Guest judge Wyclef Jean was impressed enough to help get Jin signed onto the Ruff Ryders label, and he soon also produced and was featured on Jin’s first single, entitled “Learn Chinese.” Unfortunately, that was pretty much the extent of Jin’s career at the time, and I never saw any more of his work. Many years later, I found out that he had relocated to China and continued to make music there, often recording albums in Chinese.

It’s no surprise to anyone who listens to rap music that the population of artists, especially those finding mainstream success, remains rather homogeneous, mostly consisting of young black heterosexual cisgender males. I think we can place some blame on major record labels for only supporting certain individuals and preventing diversity in the genre. Music is a strict business for these companies, and image, both visually and auditory, is a major selling point.

It financially makes sense to invest in rappers who are more likely to guarantee some sort of a return, by not departing too far from what consumers expect to see and hear. So what does this suggest about us? With a multitude of streaming and distribution platforms now, artists can dis-

seminate music much more easily and promote themselves to infinite audiences through social media, and this has clearly been a recent path to success for a good number of young rappers through SoundCloud. But even still on this independent route, rappers of the more common phenotype seem more likely to gain in popularity. Is this ultimately a reflection of our biases, conscious and subconscious, and expectations towards rappers? What will it take for there to be greater diversity in the rap game?

“I’ll let you try my Wu-Tang style” One of my favorite aspects of hip hop music is that it is a coded art form, with language and references that can be best understood with prior exposure. Not to say that hip hop isn’t immediately accessible, but I find a sense of shared musical background and experience with the producer or rapper when I catch a line that refers to or interpolates a verse from another song or recognize a familiar sample from a beat. The iconic rap group, Wu-Tang Clan, took this to a different level, when they released their debut album, Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), in 1993. Each member, whether RZA, GZA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon, U-God, Ghostface Killah, or Method Man, rpped about gritty urban living with the usual hip hop swagger but through an Asian-tinted filter. Their homebase of Staten Island was referred to as “the Slums of Shaolin.” Threats of gun violence were accompanied with swordplay and martial arts. Hokey dialogue from dubbed kung fu movies was layered over the grimy drumbeats and ’70s soul and R&B samples. Having grown up with a plethora of martial arts films, I heard things in hip hop that felt close to home and my childhood for the first time.

In recent years I’ve wondered, in all the discussions of the cultural legacy of the group, why hasn’t there ever been much of a dialogue about whether what Wu-Tang, a group consisting of no Asian members, did was cultural appropriation? I personally don’t consider it as such, but I’m unable to confidently explain why I give them a pass. In conversations about cultural appropriation, it always seems more difficult when we start examining people of color as potential perpetrators, since the power dynamics can be more challenging to dissect and unpack.

Is it because this clearly wasn’t a gimmick, for they continued to create music with these Asian themes throughout, even in some of their solo work, such as GZA’s Liquid Swords? Is it because there is a history of influence from the martial arts movie genre on black popular culture, from their impact on blaxploitation films, with main characters that are often experts in karate or kung fu, to recent hip hop music videos, such as Nicki Minaj’s “Your Love” and Migos’s “Stir Fry” (which even includes an outtakes reel during the credits, in the style of Jackie Chan’s movies)? How do these moments of non-white intersections fit into our understanding of cultural appropriation?

“But you’re Asian, you must be so good at dancing” Inspired by my older cousin, I began learning to breakdance, or bboying as I later learned

the proper term, in middle school. This being the days before Youtube, where you can easily find a video of someone teaching you whatever you want, I relied on websites that had created libraries of videos of specific moves. It was not technologically easy to just upload videos of yourself at the time, so every video consisted of a brief clip from a music video that happened to have a dancer doing that move. You want to learn how to do a Superman windmill? Here’s a five second clip of Jason Nevins’ remix of Run DMC’s “It’s Like That.” In addition to these impressively researched archives, I also had to use written text instructions...yes, I actually learned how to glide, the inspiration for Michael Jackson’s moonwalk, by reading. I soon started attending a summer camp geared towards academics—as my Chinese parents thought was the best way to spend my vacation—where I quickly befriended others who also bboyed, popped, or practiced other hip hop dance styles.

For some reason, anyone who enjoyed dancing happened to also be Asian American. Every subsequent summer, I left my group of mostly white and non-dancer friends and reunited with this collective of Asian teenage boys, teaching each other the things we had picked up during the rest of the year, such as different ways to freeze or new steps to add to our toprock.

Though I did initially notice this curious aspect of how many Asians were into hip hop dance, it really struck me as I got older. As it became easier to upload and watch full battles and competitions online, I was surprised by how many talented dancers and elite crews came out of East Asian countries, such as Gamblerz from Korea who had many top finishes at Battle of the Year, the still ongoing annual international bboy event that originated in 1990. In 2008, MTV premiered America’s Best Dance Crew, a dance competition show, on which the now-famous Jabbawockeez won the first season. Including the Jabbawockeez, groups with many Asian American dancers continued to win each year, probably becoming one of the first and only times I can recall that many Asians on a reality competition TV show. So why are there so many Asians into hip hop dance? Through the culture of battling and cocky and confident aesthetic, is it an act of rebellion against the stereotypes placed upon us? Does dancing empower us to break the mold of silence and submission and that we can throw aside the expectations of mathematical achievements and step into a cypher? Or is it all just a coincidence? If so, can we at least make up a new Asian stereotype out of it?

“I just want to be.”

Hip hop culture was born out of house and block parties in the Bronx, its parents the black and brown DJs, MCs, dancers, and graffiti artists. The music of hip hop was never intended to be recorded, as it only existed as a live event, created through spontaneous collaboration of instrumental drum breaks on vinyl records and expertly delivered rhymes on microphone. But its popularity couldn’t be ignored, and it did not take long before “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang was released in 1979 and helped spread hip hop music beyond the boroughs.

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BUMPER STICKERS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

a happy life. I believe in the rule of law. I believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The first amendment gives us the right to free speech which I regularly exercise through my display of bumper stickers.

Collectively, my bumper stickers serve as an oldschool form of Twitter. A brief tweet of eight words or less conveys a cause, feeling, thought, or commentary on important issues. Some stickers are fleeting, soon removed and forgotten, while others remain as a firm statement of my identity. During my commute to and from work, I have followers who literally give me a thumbs up, or down, in the spirit of Twitter.

The 2nd Amendment, self-defense rights, and immigration are all topics about which I am passionate. I feel the need to inspire my followers to read, reflect, and inquire. The prospect of conversation about the topics on my tailgate keeps my stickers on my truck.

Sometimes, someone will find my tweets challenging. Occasionally, someone will find that my tweets make them feel less alone, and, sometimes, someone will silently read my tweets and just move on. I think an opportunity for a connection is lost with the silent readers. However, I remain hopeful that such persons will start a dialogue in the future.

I hope that Milton Academy will find ways in which to have civilized discussions which challenge the Milton norm, allow for disagreement on social issues without judgement, and seek understanding instead of shaming. Meanwhile, I believe that a shared understanding of the importance of a peaceful transition of power after an election is vital for the survival of our great nation. To quote one of my stickers: “Resistance is Futile” (feel free to ask me why that sticker is on my truck). I encourage the conservative voices at Milton Academy to speak out.

I know you are here. The Conservative Club meets on Thursdays at 3:00 pm in the basement of Wigg. If you are a conservative, join the Club. If you are not a conservative, stop by and join the conversation.

And so every day, having left all of my tailgate followers behind, I arrive home to the latest copy of NRA Freedom magazine, to my freezer which is stocked with the goodness of bacon, and to a telephone call from my sister with information about our annual Labor Day family reunion.•

FEEL FREE TO JOIN THE WALL OF SHAME @ THE MILTON PAPER OFFICE. EVEN IF COLLEGES DON'T ACCEPT YOU, WE STILL DO <3

Am I Getting Soft?

BY CAROLINE SABIN '86 English Department

On NPR last year, I heard a hilarious story revealing the secret behind lasting marriages. I expected to hear the usual virtues: patience, compromise, common interests. Turns out that it’s none of those; it’s delusion. The story summarized a study of long-married couples; when asked to describe each other physically, the subjects described their spouses as they must have looked when they were 25, with luxurious hair, radiant skin, and tight, lean bodies. The married couples just didn’t see what the interviewers saw; their imaginations edited out the bald spots, sagging jowls, and paunchy stomachs.

I’ll celebrate my 24th wedding anniversary in June, but I’ve been married to Class IV English for even longer. I often ask myself why my love for that course has lasted; is it just that perfect, or am I just that deluded?

If you took Class IV English, you’d probably describe it the same way I do: It was hard. Until very recently, the January exam required students—just one semester into their Upper School tenure—to have developed very grown-up skills: reading complex literature independently, organizing and supporting an argument, and recognizing subtle grammar errors. I have never been surprised when students struggled with such a difficult exam. On the contrary, I have always been amazed at how much our Class IV English students learn in just one semester. And those students have always seemed aware of their progress; they said the course was hard, but they also said that they were learning a lot.

We’ve made some changes to Class IV English, though, and some of you, perhaps sensing my ambivalence, have asked me about them. The January exam is still serious, but it’s gentler: one essay, instead of two; and grammar basics, saving the megablunders for May. Moving megablunders to May meant eliminating one of the spring units. As you know—I’ve written about it before—we no longer read East of Eden. Also, a committee is currently considering changes to the Class IV Talk. One could summarize

these changes by saying that we’re making the course easier. Why, when much of the its power emerged from its difficulty?

I’d describe these changes differently: We haven’t made the course easier—the January exam still demands perceptive reading, as well as clear, concise, logical argumentation, and students still learn the megablunders—but we’ve spread it out. I think we had to, in order to accommodate changes in our students’ lives. Today’s ninth-graders read less in elementary school than their predecessors did; as a result, they read their high-school texts more slowly and absorb fewer details.

In addition, our students devote much more time to out-of-school commitments, particularly club sports teams, than previous Milton students did.

Finally, perhaps because of this combination of more challenge and less time, and certainly because of the increasing competition for college admission, my students express more anxiety about their school work than earlier generations did. Teachers talk a lot about “productive struggle,” that ideal condition where students have to stretch themselves—and thus grow—but are aiming for a spot that they really can reach. For many years, I thought Class IV English epitomized productive struggle. Recently, though, I admitted that the course may have shifted; it might now be simply a struggle.

Or maybe I’m just getting soft. Maybe, beaten down by the whining, I’m giving up a course that has worked so well for so long.

I don’t know what’s right, but I’m trying to think rationally. I’m trying to let my eyes be my guide, not my memory; I’m trying to see Class IV English clearly, unobstructed by seductive but outdated visions. I promised to stick with my husband until death do us part; if a little delusion helps us out, I’ll welcome it. But my relationship with Class IV English is optional; if it’s time to move on, then I should move on. As I think about what’s best for today’s Milton ninth-grader, I need to see that course accurately, not with any delusion about its perfection.•

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Cricket: What’s it all about?

Image Courtesy of Google Images

BY PHIL ROBSON

Mathematics Department

One of my favorite things in the world is cricket—yes, that game invented in England hundreds of years ago that very few people understand. And yet, I’ve spent an inordinate amount of time playing, watching, listening to, and talking about the game that really is like no other. What’s it all about? Here’s a little game of true or false (all of these questions stem from inquiries I have heard in the past 7 years, mostly from bemused Americans): T/F: A game lasts 5 days T/F: The players stop for a cup of tea and sandwiches in the afternoon T/F: No matter how long it takes, a game can end in a draw T/F: A draw is different from a tie T/F: There are no substitutes/replacements if a player gets injured T/F: The cricket World Cup (which exclusively contains countries with strong links to British colonial history—India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the West Indies) has fewer teams than the Kabaddi World Cup Spoiler alert: all of those questions are in fact true.

Cricket sounds like an odd game. Because it is. But it is also fascinating in a way that few appreciate, because a lot of hard work has to go into learning what it is before the enjoyment comes—if it ever does.

In fact, most sports require patience to learn before anyone can really appreciate the nuances. For example, I’ve never understood why football (in America) is a ball game in which less than half the players touch the ball and why each team has three teams.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not a great sport; I just need to learn more about what makes it great (beyond the pieces I find confusing).

I’ve found that the best way to describe cricket to folks who know nothing about cricket is by comparing it to baseball.

But there is one huge difference: nothing can happen. There are batters and there are pitchers (bowlers). Teams take turns to bat, trying to score runs while the opposing team tries to get them out. The team

with the most runs at the end wins. But in baseball, each pitch—except, perhaps, for a foul ball when the strike count is already at two—has huge meaning. In cricket, there is no three-strike rule. You don’t have to hit it.

If you hit it, you don’t have to run. Each delivery (pitch) can be a non-event, and that’s fine. It all builds and ebbs and flows, and it adds to the whole story, if not to the immediate drama. It’s what purists love most about the game; you just never know when something magic might happen.

It also occurred to me that, while baseball can be viewed as a world of statistics and initializations (RBI, OPS, ERA, WHIP), cricket almost has its own language that sounds utterly ludicrous to casual viewers. It’s also probably the most quintessentially English of all games (except, perhaps, for croquet, which is entirely different and will be saved for another time). I thought that, to give a little window into the weird and wonderful world of cricket, I’d define a few of its oddest terms. Just try to hear these words in the Queen’s accent!

[Thought: perhaps pick a top 10 of these?]

Googly: A delivery (pitch) that bounces and then spins in the opposite way to that which was expected.

Cow corner: An area of the field into which the strong, but not the technically best, players hit the ball (think shallow left field).

Diddly-Doddlers: Bowling (pitching) that is slow to medium pace and unthreatening.

Howzat: An appeal to the umpire by the fielding team. “How is that?” to which it is hoped the umpire will respond, “Out!” Baggy green: A term to describe the cap that the Australian team wears during play, but has taken on extra significance regarding the culture of the game in Australia.

Flat-track bully: A batter (hitter) who tends to do well when conditions (and the score) are in their favor but who is found wanting in the clutch moments.

Jaffer: A delivery that is so good that it is unplayable.

Golden duck: A term used when a batter is out for zero after facing just one delivery.

Chin music: A tactic designed to intimidate batters, where the bowler repeatedly bounces the ball up at the batter’s head and past their chin.

Popping crease: One of two lines at the end of the playing strip (the area where a batter stands to hit the ball).

Daddy hundred: Batters sometimes score as many as 100 runs on their own, and a “daddy hundred” is one where the batter scores a lot more than 100, usually contributing to a win for their team by doing so.

Nurdle: A way of glancing the ball into a vacant area (a bit like a bunt).

Heavy roller: The playing strip is flattened by rollers each day—sometimes by the light roller, and sometimes by the heavier one.

Toe crusher: A type of delivery, often called a yorker, that is designed to bounce under the bat, and can sometimes hit the batter flush on the foot.

Shelled a dolly: A dolly is an easy catch; shelling means dropping. In essence, an unfortunate and comical fielding error.

Shoulder arms: Choosing not to play at a delivery (like striking out looking).

Snickometer: A piece of TV technology to determine whether or not the ball touched the edge of the bat (such a light touch is referred to as a ‘nick’ or ‘snick’ in some countries).

So, do you feel well informed? Anyone for a game?

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Continued Education

BY OLIVIA J. ROBBINS English Department I promise you this: it’s quite humbling to stare at a grape for two hours. You’ll start noticing.

You’ll notice the contrast in texture between stem and fruit, the fine indentation and discoloration at the connection to the pedicel, the odd finish of the skin—skin that is both dusty and shiny at once.

Charcoal in hand, I tried my very best (which, at that point, was fruitless) to capture the precise mottling of this oblong and the diffuse shadow it cast upon the linoleum table. Here I was, day one of Beginner’s Botanical Drawing, a class I took on Wednesday evenings last fall at the Boston Center for Adult Education.

Why did I sign up for this class? There are a few answers. I wanted to meet new people (being new-ish to Boston at the time); I very much needed to remove myself from my couch in the dark-ish attic of Upton House (the yellow house overlooking Upton Field); I love(ish?) flowers. Mostly, though, I knew I needed to learn something new.

My paternal grandmother, my idol, took continuing education classes at her senior care facility until the week that she passed away last month.

When she retired from her law practice, she had the will—and the tremendous privilege—to enroll in the University of Chicago’s Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults, a liberal arts program that replicates, in part, the core curriculum for which the University is known. When my grandmother went to college and law school in the late forties and early fifties at commuter schools in Chicago, she worked part-time to support her family. She wanted to be a journalist but pursued law instead because she thought it was more practical.

She didn’t take a lot of the courses that she wanted to take. She was mighty persistent in her old age to continue to expand her mind and learn, through reading, writing, and classes, the skills and the texts she hungered for. I now have her annotated poetry books, and from her marginal notes, I know she wondered about some of the same lines in Seamus Heaney’s Field Work that puzzle me.

My grandmother’s voice in my head pushed me to sign up for the class—to pursue something I was interested in, but not yet good at, for the sake of potential growth. It can be hard to put ourselves out there when we live in a society that most often rewards us for pursuing what we’re already good at. It can be risky to devote time (and, sometimes, money) to learning a new skill. And doing so certainly challenges the ego. But what got me to stay in the class was my experience with that darn grape.

As I sat there, trying to shade the slightly irregular tip of the berry, staring until I had trippy thoughts (This thing that resembles glass grows from the ground? And can turn into wine? and a raisin? I snarf handfuls of these bad boys without even looking at them…) I was struck by one of those realizations that knock the wind right out of you. Something so small contains multitudes.

There’s so much I don’t yet know.

I’ve definitely had this thought before, such as when I was first learning ballet and Ms. Lilette would rotate my leg a centimeter to turn-out and then smile at the fix. Or when my dad tries to discern amongst the six ochre shade varieties to identify a particular stamp he has just added to his collection. Or when my mom swears by the difference between kosher and sea salt. Or when my sister lists the tiny bones in the ear. There’s pleasure and purpose to be found in the continual re-discovery of all that you don’t yet know, particularly when triggered by something so very small.•

An Interview With Ms. Cacho

BY ABBY FOSTER ‘19 Ms. Cacho is a current Penn Fellow teaching in the English Department at Milton.

Tell me a little how you came to work at Milton.

So last year I went to Kent School [a prep school in Kent, Connecticut]. I felt as though while Kent gave me so much autonomy—honestly, too much autonomy for a first year teacher right out of undergrad—I really wanted some more guidance and mentorship in those early years of teaching before I became fixed in any one way of teaching. And so I've been drawn to the Penn program since I was a senior in high school because we at Deerfield had our first year of Penn fellows back in 2012, and they just seemed relatable, young, personable, and like they wanted to do something different from other teachers were doing. And so when I finally graduated, I was considering the Penn program, but just didn't know where I wanted to teach. And then last year at Kent, I was thinking about go back to day schools, hopefully in New York City, and I was Gung-Ho set on going to day schools and then my referral agency—Educators Ally— send out a resume to Milton and I was like, I'll give it a shot and my interview with Ms. Singh just completely changed the game and I was like, okay, Milton is on the list. And once here, the day that I visited, there were two facilitators from the Glasgow group that day in February and I thought it was really cool that a school is so committed to just talking about difference and I wanted to be at a place where I could see myself being a part of that work as well.

That relates to something I saw on your LinkedIn; you are really dedicated to providing education to everyone in different groups, especially in like marginalized communities.

How do you see that play out here at Milton and what it's been like for you working here?

At Milton, I tend to focus more on the comfort of my students rather than solely the academic, athletic, or artistic abilities. I feel as though one of the ways to make kids in general more comfortable is to see them for something other than who they are in the classroom or on the field or in the studio. And I want kids to be comfortable being themselves all the time rather than always having to be ‘on.’ There’s enough pressure, enough stress happening around where to go to college, working over the summer, and making varsity teams, that I feel as though in my classroom and in my interactions with students who aren't in my classes I just want them to be people, and the first step for me in creating competent happiness is asking about the things that make us happy, which for me is TV, movies, and food, and so I tend to start off there and see where that leads before getting into the, ‘what's wrong with the paper.’ Making students comfortable is a matter of seeing them for who they really are beyond any one given asset. nd I think that that's a beautiful thing to have an adult body that cares. Honestly, not a lot of people care about the work that they do every day and it's really nice to be surrounded by colleagues who have a genuine interest in the kids and their subject matter. The one thing that I miss from my own high school experience and would love to see more at Milton is traditions: the ways in which our community

is built by bringing everyone together in order to talk about, who are we as a community? What do we care for? What do we do? But also, how do we just get together and have fun? Where's the bonfire? Where are the s’mores? Where is the day at the river? —and, again, that plays into geography; there things that just can’t be done in a more condensed suburb. Yeah, yeah, You teach class IV English and Seeing Literature. How are those classes different from each other? How is the experience of teaching them different?

I feel as though seeing just has more freedom.

My students are more creative in that course. A lot of them come with some artistic background in terms of being able to produce a variety of things, from comic books to drawings to paintings they can really bring their creativity into the classroom to show me how they see what they read. With freshmen, I feel as though there's so much to throw at them between the grammar workshop and mega blenders and a critical essay when they're also getting the lay of the land and trying to understand how to be 14 and how to be at a new school. Sophomores are more settled in themselves and who they are here for the most part, and are looking to grow in different fields like in English and Science, and they have a more concrete understanding of how to do that.

Whereas for freshman everything's new, and everything feels like a lot all at once.

Are there any English courses at Milton you’d want to teach?

Perspectives, simply because I observed Ms. Dukuly, who's my mentor in the Penn program, and the way in which those texts— ‘Drown’ by Junot Diaz, or ‘The Thing Around Your Neck’ by Chimamanda Adichie—are seen, there’s something else to be taught there, something else to be learned from reading a wider variety of texts that also pushes the Sophomore brain because as much critical thinking as a Sophomore does, it’s nothing like being pushed to the limits about how you think.

You mentioned at the beginning that some things that make you happy are TV, movies, and food. Any recommendations?

Yes! I'm currently bingeing ‘Grace and Frankie’ on Netflix, and I think that it's just a hoot to think about what life will be like a 75 or 80 and whether or not I'll still be kicking and strong enough in body and mind to do things like open my own business or drive—the difficult and the easy. As for movies: I saw this movie called ‘Life Itself’ on amazon prime, and that one I highly recommend simply because it's a story told from five different perspectives. And I don't want to give any spoilers away, but it's so good. I highly recommend ‘Life Itself .’ Food—I love chocolate chip cookies, and Oreos. And sometimes I'll bake my Oreo into the chocolate chip cookies.

So those are delicious.

Is there anything else that you want to say?

I would just add that I'm also really inspired by the spirit of Milton students here. I feel as though this is a place where students at the high school level are aware of the power of their voices and are able to ask for what they want, despite whether it gets done or not, are willing to ask. And if you ask, the worst they can say is no.•

PAGE 7

Faith and Science

BY GABRIELLE HUNT Science Department This article is dedicated to my many amazing teachers in science and faith. Especially Sr. Mary Janice Bartolo, whose witness to a life spent in pursuit of faith and truth emboldened my own desire to pursue the same.

In the 1955 play Inherit the Wind, Henry Drummond, the demure defense lawyer addresses the jury, “Darwin moved us forward to a hilltop, where we could look back and see the way from which we came. But for this view, this insight, this knowledge, we must abandon our faith in the pleasant poetry of Genesis.” This play is a reenactment of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial of 1925 that struck down a law in Tennessee which outlawed the teaching of evolution in high school biology classrooms. I am a lover of dramatic theater and was completely enthralled with this text when I was introduced to this compelling play in middle school. To speak truthfully, before reading that script, I hadn’t been aware that there were Christians who found evolution science to be in direct conflict with their faith. The most surprising thing to me was that, when it came time for class discussion, my peers who knew me as a practicing Christian assumed that I was an evolution denier as well.

My peers’ perception of what it meant to be “religious” did not have space for me to also be a lover and supporter of science. It was after this experience that I realized, if I shared my faith tradition, I was most likely going to get thrown into the category of science denier before I ever had the opportunity to explain. I even wondered if, in fact, I was fooling myself and if it was true that I was attempting to reconcile two incompatible convictions when it came to my identity as a science lover and an active Catholic Christian.

I was raised in a very science-focused home.

My mother worked for a scientific supply company, and I learned how to read by sounding out the words on the boxes that filled my mother’s office. There were so many interesting and magical sounding words, like polycarbonate rodent micro-isolation irradiator. Try saying that five times fast! My father is a mechanical engineer who makes microscopes, so there were prototypes and magnifying glasses within easy reach to me. My siblings and I had many opportunities to investigate curious things that we found in and around our backyard. We also attended our Catholic Parish every Sunday, and I loved my worship community where I had cultivated a personal relationship and devotion to God. I entered high school with a sense of unease around the area of faith and science. I attended a Catholic school and was unsure about what that would mean for my academics. Would my religion classes and science classes be at odds with each other? My answer came in the form of my favorite teacher, Sister Mary Janice Bartolo. Sr. Mary Janice was a religious sister and graduate of Emmanuel College with a master’s degree in Chemistry who taught social justice and bioethics. She was notorious for two things: being a demanding teacher and having an overwhelming enthusiasm for science and ethics. She made it her prerogative to instill into all of her students that there were many different kinds of ways to approach knowledge. If you engaged your own imagination and were willing to work hard, you could excel. When asked, she clearly

articulated that faith was the source of all her passion for science. Science and faith were not immiscible like oil and water but complementary components of a lifelong quest for knowledge. Science offered her just another way to engage in the intricacy and beauty of creation.

Sister Mary Janice’s example and encouragement emboldened me to follow my passion for science, and it is her example as an educator that continues to bolster my own enthusiasm in the classroom. In fact, the closer I looked, the more examples I found of people with a commitment to both science and faith. I love sharing with friends and colleagues that the idea of the Big Bang was originally theorized by a Belgian priest, that the work of modern genetics has been greatly influenced by the work of Monk Gregor Mendel, and that the first woman to ever earn a Ph.D. in computer science in the United States was a Catholic religious sister, Sr. Mary Kenneth Keller. While these are the examples I know, Catholics certainly don’t corner the market on being people committed to both faith and science. There are practicing members of every faith tradition to whom we owe much of our scientific knowledge.

I would like to suggest that at the center of trustworthy faith and science lies a kindred virtue: humility. The ability to admit that you don’t know everything that there is to know.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t continue to pursue knowledge, even if it is almost certainly impossible to know everything. In fact, my faith tradition informs me that it is my privilege as a human to pursue the mysteries of the world. In the book of Proverbs, a book that comes originally from the Jewish tradition, the text states “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out.” There are individuals who, within themselves, can’t find the ability to hold both faith and science. Their personal experience of faith and religion is one that rejects observable truth about our natural world, and therefore is completely the antithesis of the pursuit of science. I think that sometimes there is a misunderstanding that faith requires someone to be “childish,” clinging to beliefs just because someone in authority claimed it as truth. My faith requires me to be “child-like,” which is absolutely not the same as childish. To be child-like means to stand in awe of what you don’t yet understand, to continually ask “why?”

If you have ever had the privilege to speak with a curious three year old, you will quickly learn that asking “why?” is one of their favorite pastimes. My experience as a person of both faith and science is incredibly child-like. There are moments—just ask my students—when I get so excited that I can’t quite keep myself from jumping up and down, and I am most certainly not alone! Just recently Marcelo Gleiser, a Brazil-born theoretical physicist at Dartmouth College, and the most recent winner of the prestigious Templeton prize, had the following to say: “Scientists, in a sense, are people who keep curiosity burning, trying to find answers to some of the questions they asked as children.”

Scientists take that child-like enthusiasm and then investigate, gather observations, make predictions—just to lead to more of those pesky “why?” questions.

This sentiment is closely mirrored in my own experience of faith, particularly in my Catholic tradition. My Catholic faith informs

my conscience- the way I read my scripture is not the same way I read a science textbook. I look to a science text to explain to me the hows, to explore the mechanics and best theories humanity has uncovered to explain the scientific means by which the natural world functions. I read and discussed the stories of my scripture to better inform my conscience, which lead me to consider my moral obligation to people and creation beyond myself. Reading my Bible leads me to ask questions about morality, the human experience, and what it means to live in right relationship with God, self, others, and creation. Most importantly, my faith informs me that while it is darn near impossible to like everyone all the time, it is absolutely essential to love everyone- to truly will their good. I feel that Pope John Paul II, the leader of the Catholic faith in the 20th century, summed it up best when he stated, “Science can purify religion from error and superstition; religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes. Each can draw the other to a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.”

I would like to refer to the well considered words of chemist Werner Heisenberg, the creator of that famed “Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle,” who reflected on his own identity as a Lutheran and Scientist as follows: “In the history of science, ever since the famous trial of Galileo, it has repeatedly been claimed that scientific truth cannot be reconciled with the religious interpretation of the world. Although I am now convinced that scientific truth is unassailable in its own field, I have never found it possible to dismiss the content of religious thinking as simply part of an outmoded phase in the consciousness of mankind, a part we shall have to give up from now on. Thus in the course of my life I have repeatedly been compelled to ponder on the relationship of these two regions of thought, for I have never been able to doubt the reality of that to which they point” (from “Scientific and Religious Truth,” 1974). I would be remiss not to note the many ways in which people of faith have suppressed the work of sincere scientists in an attempt to consolidate their own position of authority. But similarly, there have been individuals who have placed a commitment to “science” over acknowledging the worth and dignity of their fellow humans. In my experience, when people of science and people of faith lose their humility, that is where conflict immediately arises.

In the final act of Inherit the Wind, Henry Drummond, that pesky evolution attorney, has a conversation with Rachel, the daughter of the local pastor. It is her father who has brought the suit against her biology teacher, and vocally claims a greater knowledge of the mechanisms of creation than Darwin. In the midst of their earnest conversation, as Rachel seeks to process this conflict between her family, faith, and education, Henry shares, “The man who has everything figured out is probably a fool. College examinations notwithstanding, it takes a very smart fella to say ‘I don't know the answer!’”

So, I want to encourage anyone reading to be child-like in all of your academic pursuits. Sit in wonder, stoke your curiosity, and allow yourself and the classmate next to you the grace to explain and explore your own beliefs.•

PAGE 8

Biggest Fear

Image Courtesy of Google Images

BY JOSHUA JORDAN '11 The razor sounded more like nails on a chalkboard than the peaceful humming sound I’ve come to enjoy. If you were to ask my seven year old self what my biggest fears were, I would have said the usual: thunderstorms, loud noises, bugs and spinach.

But the barbershop topped them all. I couldn’t be the only one who was afraid of some random stranger touching my hair, right?

I mean, I hated the place—the laughter, the spicy smell of the bay rum that the barber lathers on your lineup, and this consistent buzzing sound that never seemed to end. It was as if a thousand bees were vigorously bouncing around to the shop’s chatter.

I remember holding my father’s hand and trudging along to the seat furthest from the barber. My heart was pounding. Once it was my turn, I turned to my dad and started to cry. I wanted to go home. I could not imagine a worse punishment. I ducked and dodged, wiggled and squirmed. I was determined to not to get my haircut.

Finally, the barber had had enough. “Excuse me Mr. Jordan,” he called. “I think it will be best for little Josh to come back when he’s ready.” I had done it. I was outta there. I could not help but give a cheeky little smile walking out of the shop as my dad shook his head—no more haircuts at the barbershop for me. Or so I thought.

For the next two-plus years every other Saturday or so, my father would give me a haircut in the comforts of our own home. At first, I loved it. No more loud buzzing sounds of other people’s getting haircuts. No more loud laughter. The stench of the bay rum was gone as well. And I could get haircuts in my pajamas while watching cartoons. Done. I was more than content. However, the exuberance of the home barbershop wore off after a while. I noticed something.

Look, my father was talented at a lot of things.

Cutting hair was not his best one. Sorry Pops. I was startled when I gazed at my picture from 4th grade picture day. My goodness. The geometry of my lineup was not on point to say the least. I pondered.

There was only one resolution to this problem. It was time to go back to the barbershop.

I was going to face my fears head-on. My dad brought me to Chatees Barbershop in Stoughton, MA. I was extremely nervous, but upon walking into the shop, I felt at ease. The buzzing of the razors sounded more like music than nails on a chalkboard.

The aroma of the shop smelled like sweet smelling perfume. The laughter of the men and women in the shop invited me. Maybe my imagination had gotten in the way of what the barbershop was about. The barbers looked more like peaceful, skilled artists than the amateur butchers I had imagined them to be when a child.

Once my haircut was finished I felt like a king who was more important than the president. It was a feeling I had never experienced before. I was hooked. Just like that, my biggest fear transformed into one of my favorite hobbies. I’ve been going to the same barbershop ever since.•

Deconstructing the Myth of Meritocracy of Physics

BY RACHEL PEDERSEN Science Department With the alluring description as the effort to uncover the most fundamental theoretical substructure of the universe, physics as an endeavor possesses a beauty and an intrigue that renders it totally unique from other academic pursuits.

Its origins are mere philosophical assumptions, and then through our subjective observation of reality, we utilize mathematical tools to work toward a theory of everything. This practice of model-making and our desire for the truth is fundamentally human. Thus, the practice of physics is akin to the practice of religion; though each employs a set of strikingly divergent methodologies, both are deeply spiritual endeavors.

How did our universe come to exist? What is the true nature of causality? Why is there something rather than nothing? To ask these fundamental questions defines the human experience.

It would seem that if we accept that questions of this nature emerge across virtually all human civilization, in the form of mythology, philosophy, science, or as in most cases, a beautiful hybrid, then we ought to see fairly uniform representation within the field of physics.

A glimpse into nearly any American graduate physics department, however, will reveal that the population of 20-something physicists is overwhelmingly male and White or Asian. Discourse around the experiences of those claiming marginalized identities in other elite educational spaces has emerged over the recent decades, yet this discourse remains curiously sparse within physics departments. At each juncture along the undergrad-grad-postdoc-professor trajectory, the relative proportion of women and gender minorities decreases. The literature refers to this phenomenon as “the leaky pipeline.” Perhaps as a result of the relatively homogeneous population that studies physics, the myth of meritocracy runs rampant. The overall assumption of the meritocracy is that those who persevere and successfully proceed through the physics pipeline do so purely because of their own ardor and talent.

Over the course of two years, I pursued a master’s degree in physics at an Ivy League university. In an incoming class of 26 men and 4 women, I was the only student to have attended a small liberal arts college and the only college athlete. These demographics did not strike me as particularly odd; they matched those of my undergraduate department fairly well. At this point in my academic career, I had some awareness of how privilege can impact life trajectory, but I admit I had not yet pondered this deeply.

The advisor assigned to work with the masters students began each of his emails with “Dear Student.” Consider an email most of us received immediately following our first Quantum Mechanics 1 exam: Dear Student, Please drop by my office during 2-3 this afternoon (10/23) for a brief meeting regarding your progress in this semester.

Best regards, Professor X. Each meeting lasted under five minutes.

Those of us summoned determined quickly that the content of our meetings was virtually identical: You have scored in the bottom half of your class. You must stop with all the distractions, and you must work day and night. These words remain etched in my mind. In the moment, I recall challenging Professor X to acknowledge our diversity of prior experience, and that my mo-

tivation for attending graduate school was not to assemble a transcript filled with As but to instead become a stronger physicist. He reminded me that no reputable PhD program would want a student who had earned Bs. I buried myself in my work and eventually found myself in the graduation processional, baking in my brown robes under the late spring sun. Immediately following our master’s graduation, one of my closest friends embraced me and exclaimed tearfully “I could not have done this without you!” Her words reverberated through my mind as I began processing the various obstacles through which we had supported one another.

My romantic rejection of a male classmate of mine ultimately led him to begin stalking me at the end of my first year. His behaviors included slander, perpetual leering and lurking, a death threat via text, among others. No longer safe at the University, I would only set foot in the physics and engineering building during my lectures, and I completed my work from home, largely independently. My reports of the behavior to both the Department and the University’s Title IX office had zero result, and so when forced to take a course with my stalker, I arrived five minutes late and departed five minutes early to minimize risk. My male classmates, with a handful of exceptions, deemed me responsible for this outcome. Alone, my stalker’s behavior was abhorrent. My classmates’ indifference and the blame they placed on me was incredibly isolating, and abruptly, the root of the leaky pipeline became readily apparent to me.

My experience is hardly unique, and though this particular string of events was by far the worst that I endured, reminders that female department members did not belong abounded. To my surprise, two of my female classmates did not react with shock when I recounted this all to them, but instead furrowed brows and a heavy, defeated melancholy. Each had her own parallel narratives. To us, the only viable path ahead was to put our heads down, barrel through, and hope for the best.

Let us return once more to my conversation with my advisor in October of my first year.

Our exchange in his office left me feeling that, to him, my value as a human had everything to do with my academic performance. To the physicist, the attempt to construct a theoretical model of the substructure of our Universe is the noblest pursuit; in the mind of the physicist, the greats of the history of science are nothing short of genius. Here is where -isms become especially harmful: negative stereotypes around the intelligence of women lead women to disproportionately experience identity threat, and once they gain access to elite physics spaces, the hostility is palpable. Refusing to acknowledge a student’s whole experience in these moments simply amplifies the harm.

Affirmation comes not to the physicist who exhibits kindness and empathy but rather to the strongest academic with the greatest number of citations. Antisocial behaviors are excused, and even celebrated. Consider cinematic depictions of physicists; the misogyny of Sheldon Cooper is portrayed as endearing and serves as a reliable punchline. Diversifying the recognized collection of identities held by physicists is only the beginning of the journey toward equity. This work has begun, and networks of support among those claiming underrepresented identities are under construction. Still, our progress is hardly quick enough. The entire code of social ethics in the realm of physics requires a paradigm shift.•

PAGE 9

In Defense of The Arts

Image Courtesy of Google Images

BY IAN TORNEY Visual Arts Department Milton Paper Editor and former advisee Yik To “Calvin” Cheong requested that I—the Visual Arts Chair—write an opinion piece about the Arts at Milton Academy. I’ve chosen to respond with an open letter to him, repeating everything I had said to him in his Class IV course planning process, but now as guidance and a lesson to all.

Dear Calvin—congratulations on a great junior year. I am so particularly proud and pleased to see your current work in the Drawing|Painting + Design class; it is of high achievement—congratulations!

Now you have to admit that I was right, and that you shoulda listened to your freshman year advisor: You should have taken your Arts Program class in your sophomore year because now you are in the very dilemma that I predicted— how will you fit in Advanced Electives in the Visual Arts in your senior year, and specifically how will you get into the Advanced Portfolio class in Drawing and Painting to best prepare a portfolio for applying to college.

You deferred your Arts class to take US History sophomore year—you “just wanted to get it done,” and you succumbed to the BS myth of junior year workload. These were all the wrong reasons. You’ve since said, “I knew that I would enjoy art so much more” and “looking back, I regret my decision to postpone my pursuit of art, as oftentimes my most enjoyable times this year have been going to the studio to work on a piece of art, where I can forget the stress of my other classes.” (I can’t tell you how many times students tell me that…).

The Arts are important precisely because they are so different from the rest of your academic classes. As an artist, you immerse yourself in an entirely distinct learning process, developing crucial creative and critical thinking skills through the iterative process and elemental modes of expression.

Taking US History sophomore year is a good path for those students who have a passion for the discipline and want to take electives in History and Social Science every year—great for those students who love history, but that wasn’t you, and you admitted as much.

You took a Visual Arts class with me way back during the Transitions Program, and I said to you then “this is a talent that you should pursue!” Your work only improved in the Class IV Visual Arts class—you were very good, and your teachers were telling you as much, but maybe you still weren’t so sure yourself? Despite the best efforts of your advisor, you punted on the Arts sophomore year, and it is only now in your junior year that you’ve confirmed that ability for yourself. You shoulda listened to me! Your artwork is excellent, you’ve realized your talents, you’ve enjoyed a depth of study in the discipline, and your portfolio will be a distinctive element of your college applications, but now not without an extra

summer course commitment.

I told you way back in your first year of course planning that we strongly encourage all students to take their Arts Program graduation requirement in their sophomore year for these very reasons—to allow for this discovery as a sophomore, and for the opportunity to take Arts Advanced Electives junior year and an Advanced Portfolio class senior year. You can be an art student who already knows his passion for making and creating, or you can be a kid who hasn’t yet had the means to discover his innate artistic ability, or be somewhere in between—either way, leave yourself opportunities. Don’t defer your one year in the Arts until junior year, and you shouldn’t defer that requirement until your senior year unless you have good reason (e.g. exchange programs etc…). We’ve had so many seniors who have taken advantage every year of one of the most comprehensive Arts programs available at any independent school, have discovered why the Arts are integral, and have used the Arts as a path forward to college and beyond. The Arts are one of the great reasons to be a Milton Academy student—don’t ignore the opportunity!

I shoulda impressed on you then—and so much more emphatically—that our college office actively seeks to promote our students’ individuality in the application process, and that the Arts are one of the unique ways that MA students make themselves distinct. You maybe couldn’t see it then—the college stuff was years away.

Yeah, one art class maybe gets “red-lined” on a transcript, it is just dabbling (you still have to do it); however, many MA students take arts classes every year and demonstrate a distinct depth of academic study, and those students are able to present a comprehensive portfolio with their applications. (By the way, only 20-25% of applicants submit portfolios, so an artist immediately distinguishes themself from 75% of all other applicants in that achievement.) For many of our very best students, it is their portfolio that gets them into college again and again, from art and design schools (which are the new, fantastic places to go to college—creativity is the 21st-century currency!) to the Ivies (and the vast majority of our Art students end up at elite schools, so don’t believe that taking Arts classes is a detriment— their portfolios get them in!).

With a 5.5 credit limit each year, you wondered, how to fit in the Arts? I told you to take your Arts Program course in Class III by deferring your US History course (as was the case for almost all sophomores before they were allowed to take that class), or science. Students who discover their passions and abilities in the Arts typically then defer taking science or history in Class II to take Advanced Arts Electives. Then, by your Class I year, you’ll have likely finished your language requirement, so you can take the Advanced Portfolio elective your senior fall semester, then have some great fun bringing it all together in the

Advanced Independent Art Seminar spring semester of your senior year!

In the words of Henri Matisse: “Creativity takes courage.” In the words of Pablo Picasso: “Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” In the words of Robert Henri: “The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state that makes art inevitable.” In the words of Oscar Wilde: “Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.”

You’re gonna get there anyway, Calvin, by studying art at a pre-college summer program— it’s a wonderful way to spend the summer. That will serve as the equivalent prerequisite Advanced Elective for the Advanced Portfolio class, and we will waive you in. I am so looking forward to teaching you in the Advanced Portfolio course this fall. You are going to take all of that technical ability and that creative, critical quality of thought you’ve so assiduously developed and focus it on creating a thematically related series of artworks around one big idea. The experience is an open-ended, ongoing iteration of exploration focused on you, the immediacy of your process, and the “here and now” around you. It will continue to be a journey and an escape. Your ideas will evolve and mature with the work as you read about the contemporary art world and others who have pursued those same ideas. As you delve ever deeper into your own concepts, you will continue to discover what is personal and unique to you both as an individual and as an artist. You’ll in fact be making college level work, and enjoying an educational experience that most don’t realize until their senior year in college! It will prepare you so well….

And guess what—students at Milton can do the same, not only in Drawing and Painting, but in Sculpture and Ceramics, Photography, Filmmaking, or Technology and Design; or they can find the same path in Performing Arts or Music too!

What an advisee group we had — you all took such different directions as freshmen. Having never studied Art, one took my advice and discovered his passion. Look what he’s doing now with photo—his pictures in the Stu of St. Baldrick’s portraits are just awesome, and he’s gonna have a killer portfolio for college! Another has been Arts all the way and still can’t get enough—Music, Performing Arts and auditing photo now as well. Another knew he was going to do a semester away and that governed his course planning.

The other two were both a lost cause for me and my academic bias, but I hope they will have an epiphany/regrets when they finally discover the Arts too late by their senior year—they’re both having fun in programming and playing video games…. “If only” with you, Calvin; but we will get you there! Now, go tell the freshmen what the right thing is to do—take your Arts Program graduation-requirement course sophomore year!•

PAGE 10

What is this language we speak?

BY PHIL ROBSON Mathematics Department Though I found myself leaning towards sciences and mathematics as opposed to languages and the arts from a very young age, I have developed an appreciation for linguistic nuance. Whether that fondness comes from my father - a retired English professor - or a rational thought process, when I moved to the US seven years ago, I found some of the language in this country hard to decipher.

There are obvious differences between American English and British English that are somewhat well known at this point. For example: American English Pants Trousers Restroom Toilet Trash Rubbish Truck Lorry Sneakers Trainers Arugula Rocket Chips Crisps French fries Chips Cookie Biscuit Biscuit Scone Scone What is that?

And there are subtle but obvious differences in spelling and pronunciation: American (English) Color (colour) Flavor (flavour) Center (centre) Realize (realise) Math (which I, incidentally, agree with, because Mathematics isn’t a plural, so why pluralize math to maths?)

Aluminum (which I’ve never understood; why change the suffix of one element? Sodium is not sodium!)

ASIANS AND HIP HOP CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

Now removed from its New York surroundings and packaged into easily distributed audio form, hip hop found new audiences in young people around the country, some identifying with the perspectives and experiences, some discovering something completely new, but all just wanting to move and dance to it. As hip hop grew in popularity and evolved, as any art form does, its industry continued to expand alongside it. MCs became rappers. DJs became producers. Rap music became big business.

Hip hop is now a ubiquitous part of popular culture for young people, but because of its roots, origins, and themes, it is especially ingrained into aspects of identity for many black and Latinx individuals. So what does it mean for those who identify differently? Pretty much since its beginnings, hip hop has always had the support from white kids, but I don’t think it’s controversial to say that hip hop is often still seen as distinct from white culture. There seems to always be some sort of reaction to a white person who loves hip hop. The response could be negative, jeers of perceived cultural disingenuity, as I think about growing up with a variation of the n-word that was used to mock white teenagers who dressed in Rocawear and Phat Farm. The response could also be positive, a respect towards indicators of eclectic taste, as I think about my white friends at my tiny liberal arts college who were seen as cool because they listened to A Tribe Called Quest and Lil Wayne. So how do I, an Asian who loves hip hop, fit into these racial and cultural politics? Though I’m not black or brown, is it seen as more acceptable for me to do so, because I don’t have white privilege but am still a person of color? But do I benefit in my own way, free from stereotypes or anxiety of feeling forced to be into hip hop because of a darker skin color?

Born and living in a country where few individuals in its popular culture look like me, I ask these questions.•

FASHION

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Lupita Nyong'o and Tracy Ellis Ross, but Braithwaite strives to create her own look. Often, she purchases clothes from many different catalogues in order to pull together something new and unique to herself. Although she does not take inspiration directly from another person’s wardrobe, she does, however, find great inspiration in the way people wear their clothes, particularly a person’s confidence in wearing something out of the ordinary. Much like its correlation But it is the much more subtle use of words that caught me out, to self expression, her fashion has always been linked to confidence. Since and continues to do so at times. Here are some examples—Quite. In England, ‘quite’ lives between soso and somewhat positive in the middle school, choosing her own clothes and having a say in her style has hierarchy. As an example, ‘quite good’ lies between ‘OK’ and ‘good’. helped build both her confidence and identity.

She appreciates the challenge of working under dress code parameters But in America, at least in many places, ‘quite’ is much stronger than to find outfits that still define herself. The position of a teacher gives just the that, and is almost synonymous with ‘very’. I’ve been caught out saying something is ‘quite good’ and the satisfied look on the other right amount of freedom; she does not need to wear a uniform every day like person’s face made me realize I had given them a far bigger compliin some other professions, but she still must dress professionally. For instance, ment than I intended! at graduation last year, she ditched the common dress and wore a suit to “push Momentarily. In England, ‘momentarily’ means ‘for a moment’. the envelope” and help everyone rethink gender stereotypes. In finding a way Example: I momentarily forgot what I was doing. In America, it more to both follow the rules and be true to herself, Braithwaite is innovative and often means ‘in a moment’. Example: we will momentarily be boardprogressive with her fashion. ing the ‘plane.

Of course, Braithwaite does not judge students on their style choices, but First floor. In England, the first floor is the one above the ground she is very aware of student fashion trends. She likes seeing all the cool sneakfloor. The first floor up. In America, there is no ground floor. It’s the ers students have been wearing and is interested in the college gear craze, but first floor you enter, and going up a flight of stairs leads you to the second floor. Very confusing, especially when a friend tells you they she despises one common article: leggings. “Leggings are not pants! There are live on the third floor of a building. I didn’t want to meet the guy who so many cute jeans out there!... Thats my one thing. There’s so much cool stuff lives above my friend. out there—why would you just wear leggings everyday!”

Practise. In England, practice and practise are different. Practice An interest in fashion may seem shallow; after all, should we really care (like advice) is a noun, and practise (like advise) is a verb. As far as about appearances? But whether we like it or not, one of the very first things I can tell, both the noun and the verb in America are practice, and we notice about others is what they’re wearing. Braithwaite responds to the practise is mostly unused. correlation between shallowness and fashion: “ I can see the ways in which, Fortnight. Before it was the world’s most popular game (minus the silent g), the word fortnight has been used in England for centuries yes, it is frivolous. And there are times, too, that I open Vogue and I’m like to mean ‘two weeks’. A very useful word. In America, the word is sel- ‘this is garbage’. But there is still a way in which using what we wear—even dom used or known, so in the absence of a synonym, people say ‘two if you don’t have access to a lot—you can still create your style. And in that weeks’. And given that Americans are so keen to shorten spellings and sense, I feel like it’s less frivolous. It's really more about self expression, and words (so much so that they omit a letter and therefore a syllable from self expression is never frivolous. If you look at it as this attempt to chase a well-known element (see above)), it’s hard to believe the idea of us- what is in Vogue, what is in any of those magazines, then it becomes frivolous ing a single word to sort-of mean biweekly hasn’t caught on. Oh well. because those magazines change every month… if your chasing that, you’re So, next time you want to practise the language I know best, losing yourself in that, because who cares if yellow nail polish is in if yellow come and meet me on the sixth floor of Ware and we’ll momentarily chew the fat (explanation another time). We could meet fortnightly; it is your least favorite color in the world? I think it is really about striking a balance and having fun.”• would be quite fun.•

PAGE 11

"A Love Letter"

BY MATTHEW BLANTON History And Social Sciences Department The quiet was conspicuous. Street vendors were nowhere to be found. Joyful sounds of children ceased. The statue of poet Dante Alighieri towered above thousands who silently stood in the Piazza di Santa Croce. Adorned in the iconic purple of ACF Fiorentina, many waved flags in a mournful arc. Others held banners overhead with “Per Sempre Nostro Capitano” inscribed in broad letters. On Sunday, March 4, 2018, Florence, Italy lost a hero. That morning, thirty-one year old Davide Astori, the captain of the Italian Serie A football club, Fiorentina, died of cardiac arrest hours before a fixture against league side, Udinese. Four days later, much of the city gathered in the main square to offer a final, lasting tribute.

For those able to pay their respects at the funeral itself, numb legs carried tear-streaked faces into the centuries old Basilica di Santa Croce—the world’s largest Franciscan church, and the resting place for Michelangelo, Galileo, Machiavelli, and many other exalted Italians. Both former and current football dignitaries populated this crowd.

Storied defender Javier Zanetti led a delegation of Inter Milan figures, AC Roma legend Francesco Totti, mercurial Nice forward Mario Balotelli, and former AC Milan attacker Marco van Basten were also present. The entire Fiorentina squad was in attendance. Perhaps, most notable, was the sight of legendary keeper Gianluigi Buffon and defender Giorgio Chiellini. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, their team defeated Tottenham in Wembley Stadium, London to reach the Champions League quarter-finals. It was not, however, the distance traveled in the time elapsed that was most striking. Nay, Buffon, and Chiellini compete for Fiorentina’s archrival, Turin-based Juventus.

It is little stretch to suggest that in this Renaissance city, soccer is a religion, Fiorentina its denomination. Stadio Artemio Franchi is their cathedral and Davide Astori their Pope. I barely exaggerate. In Europe (and other non-North American locales) football fervor runs high. Sometimes this devotion turns violent. On August 30, 2012, while in Prague, Czech Republic, I was nearly caught between Het Legioen Ultras—football fanatics—and a seemingly equal number of police officers. The hooligans were in town to support their Dutch club, Feyenoord Rotterdam, which was slated to play AC Sparta Praha in a fourth round Europa Cup showdown. Emboldened with local libations and armed with fists, firecrackers, and curse words of their native tongue, hundreds charged, Braveheart-style, a phalanx of stormtroopers clad in armor, some astride horses, others on foot who struggled to corral muscular, but muzzled German Shepherds. This clash of humanity unfolded just steps beyond the main entrance of Stadion Letná. It was a sight to behold.

I cannot claim to be consumed by such all-encompassing (unhealthy?) passion for sport. But I unequivocally love soccer. This fever only intensified as I shifted from player to coach. As a newly minted Milton Academy faculty member and assistant soccer coach, one of the first times I met the boys’ varsity head coach, Chris Kane, we discussed the efficacy of a three-back system.

Spying us at a lunch table, you might have seen us grab salt shakers and slide them about to mimic formations, to map out possibilities. We draw arrows on napkins, rely on coded symbols that mark players or movement, and make chicken scratches as we envision new drills. Every year presents new challenges: Should we adopt a 4-23-1 with our returning personnel to solidify our spine? What if we played a 4-3-3 on offense but dropped into a more traditional 4-4-2 on defense?

What if last year’s winger becomes an outside back? Who’s going to be our six? Should our fullbacks be active or stay home, invert or overlap?

These are the questions that keep us up at night.

They are also part of the joy. They keep us awake because they are “joy.”

As educators, this excitement should come as no surprise. At their best, sports are the perfect incubator for learning. The game is complex. But the conditions are spartan, equipment is light, and the soccer pitch is a spatial classroom. Phones are left in locker rooms. Distractions are kept at bay.

There are no parents, no homework, no siblings, no video games, no deadlines. The escape is as real as it is fleeting. For two hours every day, it’s just us. So, each afternoon, we lay down cones and introduce a drill, and players try to perform what is expected. Every exercise provides instant data. In physical, intellectual, social, and verbal terms, the interplay of studying and testing, assessment and feedback is near constant. Though Allen Iverson famously and disdainfully called it “practice?!?!” these sessions serve as some of schools’ best educational cauldrons. They are some of the few places where the students are as invested in the process—often ethereal and hard to measure—as they are the result. Further, players recognize and (largely) accept that the game rarely guarantees anything. Painfully intense effort and excruciatingly hard work does not assure reward. Expectation? Yes. Entitlement?

No. Indeed, on most Wednesdays and Saturdays, half the muddied footballers leave the pitch disappointed, perhaps comforted only by “moral” victories. But growth is perceptible in loss. Gain is legible even when the team does not earn the result. Gradations of performance and outcome are acceptable in ways that are hardly tolerated in the typically two-color, “A” or something less than an “A,” grading palette of the classroom. As such, our players hunger for information. And when the coaches offer guidance— occasionally sharp, even biting input—it is understood that we are critiquing an action (or lack of one), we are not criticizing the person. The goal is to improve for the squad—to improve the squad.

That said, fatigue is a constant companion; players become comfortable with discomfort, pain even. Under these conditions, players regularly express appreciation for the work their peers devote to the team; pick one another up when no one’s looking; and regularly offer teammates unsolicited affirmations. Success demands tapered egos. It requires players to sustain one another.

Nash Field provides a near-sanctuary where these boys can hug and emote and express genuine pathos that they rarely replicate elsewhere in their lives. In three seasons, more Milton students shed tears on soccer fields than anywhere else in my four years of teaching. Paradoxically, this is part of the winning formula. Each individual player and the team, as a whole, must welcome and embrace vulnerability in order to fulfill potential.

Into this space flows trust, dependence, sacrifice, compassion, support, empathy, and pride in the triumph of others.

Can I appreciate a golazo? Of course. But, perhaps surprisingly, as a now former coach, I have few memories of specific goals. What I do remember most is the sight of the ball moving seamlessly, effortlessly, and with dangerous efficiency; of defending ferociously and weathering the storms of our opposition’s best; of players hustling when they didn’t have to. Technical execution, work rate, and pride in play—the essence of our soccer. At its best, Milton is fluid and unselfish, emblematic of childhood doctrine. We share the ball; we share the wins; we share the losses. Our achievements are communal. Team sports, at their best, are a perfect counterbalance to the legitimizing myths of individualism.

Have I romanticized the game? Certainly. Surely it doesn’t always work out. And yet, sometimes it does. A few years ago, we had a senior who rarely played in tight matches. When teammates came off the field though, he was the first to get them water. It wasn’t obsequious; it was necessary.

Teams depend on players who fulfill roles that celebratory distinction neglects. In his last regular season game, this senior strapped on his Mil-

ton blue and orange—as he did for two straight years—for his first start of the season and final home game of his career against arch-rival Noble & Greenough. Two minutes after the ref’s whistle signalled the start, he darted a left-to-right diagonal to the far post to meet a potential cross from the opposite wing. In front of hat-and-coat-bundled parents, family, friends, and his twenty-five teammates, he got a step on his defender, soared above nearby Bulldogs, and connected head with ball that fizzed passed the keeper. Minutes later, he lashed another shot beyond the outstretched hands of the goalie to earn a brace and double our lead. The team could not have been happier. The sweetness of this memory of individual triumph is based on the number of sprints this player logged, knocks he took, times he was surpassed by younger players, and minutes he watched from the sideline in service to his Mustangs. If he hadn’t scored those goals, would he contend that the sacrifice was still worth it? I’m certain his response would be a resounding, “yes.”

A few weeks ago, fans of Real Betis, a La Liga club based in Sevilla, filled the night air with Lionel Messi’s name after the Argentinian genius scored a sublime wondergoal—his third of the night—against their hometown heroes. When Juventus met Fiorentina last December, their first clash since the Tuscan club’s tragic loss nine months prior, Juventus fans chanted in support of their league’s adversary. With drums beating and choreographed hands clapping, frozen breath punctuated the air; the stadium reverberated with “Davide Astori” for more than a minute. Despite the fire that exists in rivalry, begrudging respect for opponents and unabiding love for teammates, ourselves, and the game itself fuel this intensity. Sublime movements of ball and body that fuse like art are benefits but not rewards. Alone, they’re too fleeting and superficial. The work the game demands is too hard to inspire such compromise and commitment by itself. The “magic” lies in the quotidian and mundane, the goofy and the unpredictable, the personalities, shared culture, and camaraderie—central ingredients of this concoction that are so hard to put into words. Players know it; coaches try to cultivate it; even fans are aware of this intangible, near-ghostly, chemistry.

Explanation lies beyond the goals and the shutouts, the exhaustion and the nausea. Moreover, each iteration of BVS is a cell in a much larger organism. As is true of every team, a singular Milton roster is one generation of dozens that preceded it and an even greater number of squads that will follow. The best know this too. Less than forty-eight hours after Astori’s passing, Fiorentina club owners decided to retire the #13 shirt, his jersey. Astori chose that number because his idol Alessandro Nesta wore it. Even idols have idols.

In 2015, the boys’ soccer team won a lot— convincingly—and garnered nearly every award available. To this day, the coaches remain as moved to have won the ISL Team Sportsmanship Award that year as any other accolade. Decided by the votes of our opponents, it confirmed the character of our players who were as committed to the virtues of principled play as they were to the more obvious metrics of “success.” It is bigger than ourselves. So, when we are all old and telling tall tales enhanced by fuzzy memories about scoring goals we did not score and notching victories we cannot actually remember, we can enjoy the solace of knowing we tried to do it righteously. We loved the game and the game loved us because we honored the hallmarks of sport: citizenship, integrity, honesty, and the frailty of humanity. Long after I hang up my boots, I will have plenty to recall and much to savor. In particular, with the sun setting over Brook Road and the team gathered together in concentric circles, hands on shoulders, a newcomer will break us down. The final words of the day: our team call, “Stangs on three, family on six."•

PAGE 12

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