The ReMarker | October 2023

ReMarker Volume 70, Issue 2

S t . M a r k ’ s S c h o o l o f T e x as

Friday, October 27, 2023

LOST IN TRANSLATION A deep dive into slang genealogy, dictionary adaptions and what these new words mean for the future of the English language as the dialect divide between generations continues to grow.

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LANGUAGE BARRIER Students like senior Sebastian Kiehn often shout terms so foreign, it’s as if they are speaking a different language.

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On the Web Learning Leadership A conversation between Clark Hunt ‘83, Kansas City Chiefs CEO and founder of Major League Soccer, and Sports Editor Lawrence Gardner.

Check out other Web Exclusive stories including: Biology club works with E. coli strain Venenzuelan immigrant visit seniors Mrs. Davis’ in-house LEGO city Scan to visit the ReMarker website

Inside

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ReMarker Cathey’s Column

All Eyes on Me

Friday, October 27, 2023

04

Design Director

I have been in many rooms where I am one of few, if not the only, African-Americans. While those I sit with enjoy are of able to freely express what they think and why they think it, my mind send each comment through some filters. Are there any words that could refer to Black lifestyle such as urban, struggle, etc.? Will those present have a new outlook on Black people after I say this? Would President Obama be mocked if he said it at the State of the Union? If any of the answers are yes, I keep it to myself.

That’s a lot for a teenager to have to balance while engaging in intellectual conversations. Even harder than thinking for the culture, is responding for it. In the situation above, I was called upon to remark on a situation that I didn’t create. They looked to me to say something that would make them feel better, as if being Black qualified me to remedy an non-issue stemming from a diction choice made centuries ago. Simply, they are asking for something I can’t give them.

This idea of representing the entire Black experience extends far beyond literary analysis. It happens with political ideology, college applications and music taste. I am a mix of my individual choices and cultural facets I felt obliged to represent. For most of my life I believed that this conglomerate of ideas was a burden that I was forced to carry. But after years of wearing this responsibility half-heartedly, I now realize that it is a badge of honor.

In Tupac’s 2017 biopic, “All Eyez on Me,” Tupac’s stepfather Mutulu Shakur tells him, “Sometimes people need to step outside of who they are to realize what they can really be.” I was too concerned that I would lose myself while trying to represent my culture, and didn’t understand that embracing it would enable me to become my best self.

The next time I wear a Morehouse or Howard hoodie, it won’t be because I feel duty-bound to represent my people, but because I am proud to represent the heritage of HBCUs. When someone comments “Where is that?” or “You’re applying there?” instead of dismissing it, I will enlighten them. Black lyrics, allusions and colloquialisms will be spoken from my chest and heart, as I do my best to honor the legacy I represent. I won’t hide my joy when people like Deion Sanders, Amanda Gorman and Kendrick Lamar experience triumph on national stages. As for the times I am looked at to comment on a matter because of my blackness, I will do so with the respect my race deserves.

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Bulletin

Noah Cathey Monday, March 28, 2022. 9:17 a.m.

While reading Macbeth, my English class came across a word very similar to the n-word.

The reader stopped himself, and within seconds, I felt all the eyes staring at me.

Mr. Brown was quick to explain the context and definition of the word, but his attempt to rectify the awkwardness did not remove the elephant from the room.

I was the only Black boy present in the room. I remember the piercing pupils of my classmates, waiting for me comment.

I felt vulnerable, left alone to defend my Blackness. I had to make a choice: jokingly dismiss the subject to appease my classmates or explore the depth of the situation.

This ultimatum has no right answer. And despite its impossibilities, it is one that African-Americans are faced with every day.

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Over our shoulders

Is parental tracking and snooping good for kids?

14 IDentity Crisis

The impacts of Fake IDs on the high school experience

17

A Fast and Furious affair A recap of last Saturday’s Homecoming festivities

03 Standardized discrimination

08 Re-assessing their methods

guy in the 11 The Greenhouse

How socioeconomic status effects SAT and ACT performance.

Humanities teachers are turning to in-class essays to mitigate impact of AI.

Northcut and Upper School students begin environmental projects.

conflict, 22 Global local impact

in 25 Swimming his own lane

19 Cafeteria chaos A deep dive into the culture that has developed in the lunchroom.

Senior Jordan Feldman breaks down the complexity of the conflict in Gaza.

Freshman Ilan Gunawardena’s journey to swimming on a global stage.

IN BRIEF DIGITAL PSAT For the first time in school history, the PSAT was administered to students digitally on Oct. 11. According to the College Board, digtially proctoring it creates a more secure testing environment. Spread between the Great Hall, Graduate Hall and classrooms across campus, students took the exams over two hours. To help prepare for the switch, the college counselors had a meeting with the juniors on Sept. 26 explain the new format and help them register.

and 2 - 4 p.m. every week.

This adjustment aims to be more accomodating for students compared to the confusing previous schedule of alternating mornings and afternoons on every other Thursday. This permanent organization allows Marksmen and their families to have easier access to the resale store and is easier for administrators to manage.

AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Examination). The first set of tests will take place on Nov. 8, and the second ones will take place on Nov. 14. Those who advance to the AIME will have the opportunity to participate in the USA Mathematical Olympiad. For more information, please contact Mr. May.

COLLEGE ADMISSIONS VISITS Between Sept. 22 and Nov. 2, AMERICAN MATHEMATICS COM- 133 colleges will visit camPETITON Upper School stu- pus to talk with juniors and dents taking honors-level seniors. College counselors math courses will have the have invited several schools THE LION’S CLOSET The Lion’s opportunity to take the to give students a picture of Closet is now open every AMC 10 and AMC 12 for a all their options. Sessions Wednesday from 8 - 10 a.m. chance to qualify for the will occur at various times

in the day. The visit schedule is available in the College Counseling office.

ALUMNI SPORTS UPDATE Nico Gomez ‘22, a swimmer at the University of Washington, was named an CSCAA Scholar All-American. Gomez was on two relays that placed top 12 at the NCAA Championships. Albert Luo ‘19, a volleyball player at MIT, made the UVC All-Academic List for the third time and finished second on the team with 243 assists. After redshirting his freshman year, Leo Ohannessian ‘21 has seen consistent pool time, playing 21 games and scoring 7 goals this season.

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TUTORING AT SCHOOL Marksmen can often be found getting tutored in the Green LIbrary.

PHOTO / ZACHARY BASHOUR

Closing the opportunity gap

Research shows that SAT and ACT scores directly correlate with one’s socioeconomic status. Jenn Cohen, CEO of tutoring company Launchpad Education, and junior Deven Pietrzak, founder of a SAT/ACT tutoring nonprofit organization give their thoughts and discuss what can be done about the issue.

By Arjun Poi and Kevin Ho

A

$ 150 calcuator. A $60 registration fee for every attempt. $200 for a basic HP computer to take the SAT online.

In a world where scores from standardized tests like the SAT or ACT are one of the few common metrics college admissions officers can use to distinguish student applications, one key score disparity stands out — a student’s economic background.

The numbers agree. Based on a study published in Forbes, students with a family income of at least $100,000 are more than twice as likely to score in the top five percent of test-takers than students with a family income under $50,000. According to the Wharton Budget Model, lower test scores correlate with lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

Across the country, students living in low-income communities face testing challenges that others do not. And when those students are compared to students who have access to a myriad of educational resources, such disparities in education call into question the validity of the two most popular standardized tests: the SAT and ACT. After his freshman year, junior Deven Pietr-

zak decided to take a shot at the ACT. And with the help of a tutor, he achieved a 36 on the test, the highest score possible.

“I was happy, of course, but I wondered if my success was attributable to the tutoring I received and if I would have gotten the same score if I didn’t have access to resources I had and a high-level education at St. Mark’s,” Pietrzak said.

Motivated by his own ACT experience, Pietrzak reached out to his former tutor, Mark Hastings, and asked him if he would be willing to team up to offer free tutoring to those lacking resources. Hastings agreed.

Soon, Pietrzak established a nonprofit, Aspire to Elevate, and began working with KIPP, the largest network of public charter schools in the U.S. with over 280 schools in low-income communities.

When they started in February of this year, he and Hastings tutored six juniors and seniors online at KIPP Oak Cliff Academy with the goal of improving their ACT scores.

They saw immediate results.

After just four 60-minute sessions over two weeks before the upcoming ACT, the students’ scores increased by three-and-a-half points.

“By the end of the sessions, the students actually skipped lunch so that they could have

Five Minutes With PHOTO / ARJUN POI SOUND STORYTELLING Interim Head of Lower School Marion Glorioso-Kirby reads to a group in the Lower School library; she has adapted to her new role quickly.

Interim Head of Lower School Marion Glorioso-Kirby

longer sessions with us and learn more for the test prep because they enjoyed it,” Pietrzak said.

After just 15 more sessions, the students’ scores had risen by a total of 6 points. Additionally, one of Pietrzak’s students broke the school record for the highest ACT score with a score of 31.

Pietrzak believes that their success was driven by focusing on the tips and tricks of the ACT rather than focusing on concepts taught in school.

“Learning math in school will help you some on the math section and learning grammar in school will help you some on the grammar section, but at the same time, there’s a very different approach you can take to the ACT,” Pietrzak said. “The tutor I work with, Mark, has said, ‘Look, we’re not going to make you any smarter, but we’re going to improve your score a lot.’”

Junior Owen Ackerman, who currently uses an ACT tutor, sides with Pietrzak, though he still recognizes the value of learning the material on the ACT.

SEE A QUEST PAGE 7

“The biggest adaptation is just how you’re communicating thoughts and ideas. I’m lucky that I am a mother of three small children, so I’m used to having to switch that on and off throughout the day.”

“Each of our boys has a different set of needs and a different set of talents, and getting to know them personally is something that I really value and want to do to the best of my ability. So that’s an added responsibility that I take very seriously — really getting to know the boys and their families.”

“The Lower School boys are so kind and so warm and sweet, and they want to do the right thing every day.”

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Navigating parenting

PHOTO / NOAH CATHEY WATCHING FROM BEHIND With the aid of technology, parents across the country have the ability to looker closer into their children’s lives than ever before.

The advent of smartphones has brought about GPS tracking, parental controls and a myriad of digital tools, throwing today’s parents into uncharted territories when it comes to safeguarding and guiding their children in an ever-evolving technological landscape.

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By Hilton Sampson and Arjun Poi

he onset of the digital age has brought about sweeping changes to how industries function, employees work and individuals communicate.

Following this trend, parenting has significantly evolved over the last several decades, specifically as a result of the new ability to manage a child’s presence online.

Tracking apps such as Find My and Life360, parental controls and parents reading through their child’s social media posts and messages have opened a window into teenagers’ lives never before seen by parents.

These new capabilities have not only changed parenting, but also have the ability to alter the dynamics of a parent to child relationship and affect a child’s development and mental health.

Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies of Psychology at SMU Chrystyna Kouros, PhD, believes that communication is crucial between a parent and child to ensure a family is on the same page.

“Any time there is a rule, there should be a discussion to understand, ‘Why do we have this rule?’” Kouros said.

“But, having conversations around rules doesn’t mean that, as a parent, you have to change the rules.”

Kouros believes that even though technology has changed and there are different ways to track children, the same rules on communication apply.

“You wouldn’t read your child’s diary, right?” Kouros said. “That could be an invasion of privacy. So you might have an understanding of whether you are allowed to monitor text messages or DMs

(direct messages) and have some sort of agreement that makes sense for that particular child.”

At the same time, Upper School Counselor Dr. Mary Bonsu notes it can be difficult for parents to decide not to look deep into a child’s phone, given the vast array of content on the internet, “I wouldn’t tell a parent not to go through their child’s phone,” Bonsu said, “but I would tell a parent to be aware of what all of that information is going to do for them. If you tend to be a parent who is a little bit more on the anxious side, having too much information could prompt you to act in ways with your child that communicates distrust, over-management or over-control, just high restrictions on freedom that every adolescent needs to experience.”

While intervening in trivial teen development online may cause problems, Bonsu thinks it is important to keep an eye out for larger problems.

“Some of the information you see coming in online, you’re going to have to sit on and not say anything,” Bonsu said.” But (as a parent) if I see red flags, a child communicating in ways that are harmful, disrespectful, aggressive or just inappropriate, then I’m going to intervene on that and have a conversation.”

Bonsu acknowledges that it can be difficult to find the right balance of restriction and freedom with technology that parents provide to their kids.

“In the online world, it is hard to establish norms right now because technology is moving faster than many parents can cope with,” Bonsu said.

“And so, in terms of saying what’s nor-

mal teenage development online, the research is still cutting edge.”

But one aspect of parental involvement Bonsu finds useful is parental controls, allowing parents to restrict screen time, app access and disable certain features.

Bonsu has found these restrictions work particularly well for kids in grades five through nine.

“I WOULDN’T TELL A PARENT NOT TO GO THROUGH THEIR CHILD’S PHONE. BUT I WOULD TELL A PARENT TO BE AWARE OF WHAT ALL OF THAT INFORMATION IS GOING TO DO FOR THEM. ” - Dr. Mary Bonsu For these reasons, the school holds sessions for parents where they provide resources on how to stay up to date with the technology their children are using.

“The prefrontal cortex development before age 16 just looks different,” Bonsu said. “In terms of what the parental controls do, they act like a prefrontal cortex.

They restrict your time, they force you to have time management, prioritization, limited distractions and that sort of thing.”

Kouros agrees.

“It’s appropriate to make sure that kids aren’t just on their phones from the minute they get home until the minute they go to bed,” Kouros said. “It’s not healthy for anyone, and adults are guilty of that as well. But I think if children are navigating how to use social media, I think some parental involvement is critical. I don’t find that to be in the same realm of over involvement or micromanaging as in

other areas of a kid’s life.”

This micromanaging in parenting is often referred to as “helicopter parenting” or overparenting. A term that has grown in popularity over the past decade, helicopter parenting is unique because even though such parents are psychologically and behaviorally controlling, they act in warm and caring ways and truly care about their kids.

“You’re starting to do things for your child that developmentally they should be learning to do for themselves,” Kouros said.

When Kouros and her colleague decided to research the effects of this style of parenting, their results were consistent with other findings on the topic.

“When a college student perceives their parents as engaging in more of these helicopter parenting behaviors – doing things for them instead of coaching them, intervening and micromanaging their lives – that is related to worse mental health outcomes,” Kouros said. “In general, the literature tends to find that helicopter parenting has negative consequences on those emerging adult’s mental health, well being, academic motivation, academic performance, self esteem and just a host of other outcomes.”

Being a college professor, Kouros has seen real life examples of the effects of helicopter parenting.

“If someone wants an extension and they’re not feeling well, they’ll have a parent email you instead of them,” Kouros said. “That would be an example of doing something developmentally inappropriate because, as a 20-year old, you should be able to email your professor and ask for an

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in the digital world Tholkings’ Technology: A father/son perspective

By Hilton Sampson and Arjun Poi

TRACKING THE DOT Using apps like Life360, parents can see their TRACKING THE DOT children actively move Using apps like Life360, across town, often parents canask see their prompting them to children actively move their children questions across as to where andtown, why often they are prompting moving. them to ask their children questions as to where and why they are moving.

GRAHPIC / JOSH GOFORTH

extension.”

While over-involved parents disrupt their child’s growth, other parents who let their children have free reign, also inhibit development.

“That actually backfires,” Kouros said.

“It’s not actually teaching your child to be independent or autonomous. As a parent, part of your job is to teach those skills and serve as an emotional coach.”

Kouros stresses the importance of autonomy in parenting, believing it to be crucial for successful adulthood and fulfillment.

“Autonomy starts from adolescence and has to be fostered and developed,” Kouros said. “That’s one of the reasons why they hypothesized why helicopter parenting can be detrimental — because it’s thwarting emerging adults from attaining that level of autonomy.”

In order to foster a child’s autonomy, Kouros looks to a balance of control and independence.

“You want to find that happy medium where you’re still the parent, and you’re still disciplining and coaching the child,” Kouros said “But do it in a way where you explain the rules, there’s discussion and you take the child’s needs into account.”

Nathalie Reagins, a mother of two boys, including junior Alden Reagins, uses the app Life360 to ensure her children’s safety while still giving her sons enough freedom and autonomy to be himself.

She says she does not use the app to micromanage her kids; she only checks the app at night, when her boys are out of town for their soccer games or when Alden is approaching his curfew.

Mrs. Reagins, believes that even though tracking technology wasn’t a thing in her generation, using apps like Life360, an app that can track a person’s location, is justifiable because the world is more dangerous as well.

“Leaving a child completely alone with no supervision is like dropping him off at a public park and just leaving him and then coming back three hours later to pick him up,” Mrs. Reagins said. “If you’re a parent, you’ve watched movies and read stories about predators contacting children on social media.”

She considers Life360 an efficient tool, especially when there is a lack of communication between her and her son.

“In general, he is not really good at telling me if he’s going to a different place, so I might drop him off in one place, but I don’t really know where he is,” Mrs. Reagins said.

Similar to Mrs.Reagins, junior Luke Laczkowski’s parents use Life360 to keep track of his location, but they primarily make use of the app’s ability to monitor an individual’s driving speeds.

“Whenever I go above a certain speed,” Laczkowski said, “it notifies my parents and they can look at my speed while I’m driving. My mom tells me multiple times that I’m going too fast and I need to slow down or I will lose my car.”

Yet Laczkowski doesn’t think tracking his driving speed is a step too far – he is glad his parents always have an eye out for his safety.

And because he receives a reminder each time he speeds, Laczkowski feels as if he is only continuing to learn how to be a better driver.

“When I have more independence later on,” Laczkowski said, “I think having Life360 will have made me a better driver because I will be used to driving at the safe speeds my parents enforced.”

Moving forward, as technology continues to change, parents and their children will have to continue working toward a balance of restrictions and responsibilty in their everyday lives, continuing to adapt to the ever-changing digital age.

As technology continues to develop at an exponential rate, the line between a child’s autonomy and a parent’s duty to ensure the safety of their kid gets blurred.

At the same time, with exposure to technology addiction, cyberbullying and inappropriate content, younger generations are constantly at risk of danger.

Despite these issues, father and son duo Computer Science Department Chair Kurt Tholking and junior Jack Tholking believe they have found a healthy balance between safety and independence.

Mr. Tholking believes to effectively manage a child’s online activity, parents should be fully informed about the apps and technology their kids are using.

“If they don’t understand the capabilities or consequences of a certain app,” Mr. Tholking said, “that’s where we [the Computer Science Department] try to educate the parents, and there are plenty of tools online for parents as well to look at these things and get up to speed.”

Mr. Tholking believes he is aptly preparing his two sons for the digital world, communicating risks along the way as they earn additional online privileges.

“We’ve had conversations as parents, regardless of working here and being a computer science teacher, my wife and I have had conversations,” Mr. Tholking said. “This is part of the process of having a phone, so we absolutely had conversations about what’s right and wrong. And then, knowing what we teach here with digital citizenship in Middle School, so kind of a combination of both.”

Like many families, the Tholkings use keep track of family members’ locations with the aid of technology, specifically the FindMy app.

While children are not always happy with being tracked, Jack is comfortable having his location occasionally checked.

“Most of the time, I’ll just let them know where I’m going beforehand, and because they trust me, I’ll just go where I tell them I’m going, and they know that I’m going there,” Jack said. “So there hasn’t been a real need for tracking apps that much.”

While Jack has FindMy, he has heard his friends’ experiences of Life360, which tracks a car’s speed when driving. He believes that this form of tracking is unnecessary.

“In order for the child to drive, they have to have passed not only their driver’s permit, but also their driver’s license test, so the child should know how to drive,” Jack said.

“Essentially it’s not up to the parent to micromanage; it’s up to the police to watch the roads.”

Jack believes that apps like Life360 can hinder a child’s development.

“There’s no real sense of being independent,” Jack said. “You know that your parents are always watching you or they have the option to just click a button, and they can see exactly where you are and know exactly what you’re doing.”

Jack believes in learning through experience and real-life consequences as opposed to being punished by parents.

“Don’t put Life360 on your child’s phones,” Jack said. “Don’t set a bunch of screen limits or block a bunch of websites. Eventually, they’re gonna have to learn the hard way.”

While Mr. Tholking agrees, he believes that the decision to install tracking apps is a case-by-case decision.

“Let the boys explore and find what works for them that falls within the parents expectations,” Mr. Tholking said. “And again, it’s different for every family.

PHOTO / NOAH CATHEY Grades come into factor for some families, other activities, sports and other PHONE USAGE Jack Tholking things. There are a lot of different vari- and his dad have come to an ables for each family. So I think the boys agreement on technology rules. should have freedom to make some choices, which includes freedom to fail, but there should be some oversight by the parents.”

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A rivalry between brothers Applying to colleges through the Early Decision process creates tension between seniors competing for the same schools.

Rishab Siddamshetty ‘23, and senior John Ma among others discuss the journey of students who grapple with the competition and difficult decisions that come with the pursuit of their dream schools.

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TUG OF WAR Applying Early Decision to the same college can develop a sense of competition between seniors and put a damper on their friendship.

By Hilton Sampson and Doan Nguyen

enior year is known to be the most memorable and exciting time for high schoolers, especially after students successfully navigate the stressful college admission process.

And for thousands of seniors, this anxiety-ridden application season comes to end far sooner than the rest, thanks to the Early Decision application (ED). By the early deadline of Nov. 1, colleges or universities with the ED option require students to commit to their institution, should they be accepted, preventing students from applying to any other school.

For higher level colleges and universities, this binding process often narrows the application pool to a smaller, more qualified group, allowing schools to choose between best applicatnts. But with multiple students from one high school applying ED to the same prestigious institution, Rishab Siddamshetty ‘23 believes students contending for the same highly coveted letters of acceptance is bound to create competition.

Last December, along with a couple of his classmates, Siddamshetty applied ED to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), and in mid-December he heard back that his application had been rejected.

Neither Siddamshetty nor his classmates earned acceptance into the school, but even after the competition for a spot UPenn was over, it wasn’t initially easy to make up and move on.

“Obviously, we all had the same goals of going to [UPenn], getting that education and having that college experience,” Siddamshetty said. “It was definitely weird to go up against them whereas in the past we would work together; it created a toxic environment between us.”

Siddamshetty is now pursuing a career in business at the University of Michigan, where he applied through regular decision. And while he had his sights set on UPenn’s Wharton School of Business, Siddamshetty is satisfied to have ended up at one of the highest ranked

business programs in the country.

“It is a good consolation,” Siddamshetty said. “Still to this day I wish I’d gotten into UPenn, obviously, but I moved on and am really happy at Michigan. But it was definitely uncomfortable speaking to classmates [who had also applied early decision to UPenn] during that time.”

Senior John Ma is in the thick of the college application process. With deadlines approaching, Ma is weighing his options, considering applying to schools through ED while also taking into account the uncomfortable competition it brings.

“We haven’t talked about it, but everyone knows about it,” Ma said. “From my perspective, everyone has their own application. Spend the energy writing your essays and keeping your grades up rather than finding what someone else is doing.”

Because a student can only apply ED to one college, improving the odds of admission, some struggle to decide whether it’s worth using ED to apply to a school that may seem out of reach.

Stories of indecisive students wasting their one use of early decision seems daunting to seniors, but Ma encourages everyone to consider it.

“I wouldn’t just shut it off,” Ma said. “Early on, over the summer, do your research, visit schools and see what you really connect with.”

College counselor Josh Shandera believes the early decision process benefits students in that it does boost their chances of acceptance into the institution of their choice, but he does understand that it may cause anxiety within a group of students applying to the same college or university.

“We can give a little bit of information [to students applying early decision] as far as if we have several other ED applicants to the same school or, as of right now, no one’s told us that they’re applying to this school,” Shandera said. “In general, we try to work with applicants to have their own best unique application.

Schools don’t have set quotas or limits as far as how many students they can and cannot take from a certain

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION / TIGER YANG

school, but obviously, they can’t admit an entire class of students from the same school.”

But besides the benefits in chances of acceptance, Shandera cautions students to be sure in their commitment to a school, and that financial aid and scholarships may be less available to those to apply early decision as colleges and universities don’t need to pose any incentive to lure ED students to attend their school.

“You need to know that it’s your top choice school that you absolutely want to go to and that realistically, it’s a financial option for you that makes sense,” Shandera said. “So early decision can be great. But for students that are looking to compare financial aid or scholarship packages, early decision may not be the right pathway.”

Besides applying with early decision, Shandera encourages students to be open to other forms of application to colleges and universities. Early action allows students to apply early without the attendance requirement of ED, and it allows students to apply to any number of schools that offer early action. Restrictive Early Action (REA), on the other hand, allows students to apply to one private institution and any public institution.

Shandera notes that students should be prepared to see various application methods across the various schools they look at.

“It’s case by case,” Shandera said, “and not every college does it the same way. Some colleges don’t really admit more heavily from the early deadline. Every school is different.”

For Siddamshetty, though the mental competition between his classmates was unexpected in his last year of high school, he doesn’t regret chasing his dream school.

“Don’t be afraid to go somewhere because someone who seems smarter and more talented than you is applying there too,” Siddamshetty said. “Because at the end of the day, you should pick the place where you feel like you feel the most at home.”

Admissions office prepares for open house on Nov. 11

By Andrew Ye This year’s Open House, scheduled for Nov. 11, is projected to draw over 1,300 attendees. Several members of the Lion and Sword Society, the student ambassadorship arm of the admissions office will serve as tour guides.

For the first time in 20 years, Open House is planned to occur on a weekend because of the large number of attendees, and with more and more families showing up to open houses every year, the organization of these events will be a lot tougher.

The Admissions Board has worked around the issues of limited parking and traffic, dividing Open House into two sessions: a morning session, dedicated

to the Lower School and an afternoon session, reserved for the Middle and Upper School.

The morning session runs from 10-11:30 a.m. and features a tour through Lower School and a discovery tour where the planetarium will be opened to visitors for the first time. Visitors will attend various interactive activities hosted by members of the Science Department. Along with planetarium shows available all day, the activities offered by Lion and Sword range from a teacher Q&A panel to a club fair in the Great Hall. “[Lower School Science Specialist] Matt Dillon will host demonstrations in the Lower School Science Room in the Winn Science Center,” Director of Admission and Financial Aid David Baker said. “There

will also be opportunities for guests to participate in discussions during programs in the Humanities, English and Fine Arts.”

The Middle and Upper School tours begin in the afternoon from 1-3:30 p.m and will feature an alumni panel including both alumni and teachers who will answer questions from students or parents. There will be a variety of programs from several academic disciplines.

“Our Open House is a unique opportunity for candidates and their families to explore our campus, sample some of our programs and, more importantly, meet members of our faculty, staff, administration and parent community,” Baker said. “We are excited to welcome our guests on Nov. 11.”

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Parents facilitate, encourage voting registration Volunteer parents came to campus weekly before the voter registration deadline of Oct. 10 to give students easy access to register to vote. The parents’ efforts are apart of a nationwide push to get eligible voters registered.

Kevin Ho: How do people know if they’re eligible to vote?

Amy Peck, current co-chair for Marksmen voter registration: So first of all, you have to be 18 either before or on election day, in this case, Nov. 7. Then, one of the first things that we do for the St. Mark’s voter registration process is ask students to scan a QR code so we can tell whether or not they have already registered to vote because I’m pretty sure that when you apply for your driver’s license in Texas, you can check a box that registers you.

PHOTO / ZACHARY BASHOUR ONLINE TUTORING Deven Pietrzak tutors a student online using Zoom during a free period, making use of a study room in the library to carry out his session in quiet.

A quest for equity in standardized testing CONTINUED FROM PAGE 03 “St. Mark’s has prepared me a lot in terms of knowledge and through all the practice I’ve done by doing a bunch of work at St. Mark’s,” junior Owen Ackerman said. “So that’s helped me way more than my tutor could ever help me. But in the same way, St. Mark’s didn’t prepare me for the tips and tricks that my tutor teaches me.”

Unlike Ackerman’s tutor, SAT and ACT tutor and CEO of Launchpad Education Jennifer Cohen believes in focusing on the curriculum covered on the test rather than tricks.

“Content comes first,” Cohen said. “If you don’t know your facts, strategies are much less effective. And if you know your facts, strategies aren’t always necessary.”

Because of her curriculum-centered tutoring style, Cohen thinks tutoring isn’t a must-have resource for people to score well on the SAT or ACT. “If you come to me and say you know what, I really can’t pay you, but I want to work with you and I want to do the work and everything, I will gladly see you for free,” Cohen said. “I want to work with kids like that. That’s when you feel like you’re really making a difference. And I bet most tutors would say the same thing.”

In fact, Cohen considers herself to be more of a shortcut for scoring well on the standardized tests rather than an essential part of the process.

“In theory, if you have taken your schooling seriously, done the work that your teachers have asked you to, and retained the information you have learned in the past, you shouldn’t need someone like me,” Cohen said.

Cohen believes that while it is very possible to do well on the SAT or ACT without tutoring, tutoring can streamline the process.

“As someone who can identify what needs to change, for families that can pay for a tutor like me, it allows their students to benefit quickly and efficiently,” Cohen said. “If you’re studying on your own, and you’re not very disciplined about it, then you don’t make the same progress. So having resources absolutely can make this process easier, but it’s also not a necessity.”

Having witnessed how a lack of resources can affect academics firsthand through his tutoring sessions, junior Deven Pietrzak believes that standardized testing isn’t an equitable way to measure student achievement.

He has come to the conclusion that just because a student gets a lower score on a standardized test because of their background, it doesn’t make them any less smart than others who achieve higher scores.

“I remember that in only our second session, we went through some practice problems with the students,” Pietrzak said. “After we taught a certain topic, they were getting answers before I was, and I had got a 36 on the ACT. The students are very smart, and they’re very talented.”

While the success of Pietrzak’s tutoring reveals the academic capabilities of students at KIPP, financial limitations at such schools prevail. For starters, KIPP Oak Cliff Academy only provides the funding for the Class of 2024 to take the ACT a total of three times given the $93 registration fee.

But the financial problem got worse when KIPP Oak Cliff Academy was forced to cut almost the entirety of its test prep budget for the year.

“They no longer had the resources to afford test prep, so we were then their only option,” Pietrzak said.

Due to this ever-growing problem, Pietrzak went from teaching six students to 60 this year.

But for him, the increase of students reaching out for these resources can be seen as a testament to their work ethic and educational commitment.

Looking ahead, Pietrzak hopes he can expand his reach, continuing to help students improve their test scores.

KH: Who are the prominent people running for this election?

AP: In the case of Nov. 7, there are no people on the ballot up for vote. I think some people, especially first-time voters, will associate elections with only candidates. So you’re going to show up to vote, and then you get there and see that there’s a ton of other people on the ballot besides the person you’re supporting. There are a lot of judges that come up for vote all the time. It can be a little overwhelming because you’re ready to vote and realize that you’re casting a vote for someone or something that you don’t know too much about. So we always encourage people to do their research ahead of time. You can get a sample ballot so that you can see what you’re voting on, and there are all kinds of great resources for doing a little bit of research so that you can go in as an educated voter.

KH: What’s on the ballot for Nov. 7?

AP: There are 14 constitutional amendments called propositions that will amend the Texas Constitution. Once you’re eligible to vote for the first time, you might feel like it’s not super exciting because there’s not a personality to support, but the propositions are actually really impactful. Once an amendment is ratified into the Texas Constitution, it’ll be put into action until something else comes along.

KH: Why should people take time out of their day to consider the items on the ballot?

AP: As voters who live in Texas, we should pay a lot of attention to what some of these amendments are proposing.

And there are some really good things that can happen from the passage of constitutional amendments. That’s why I would encourage our entire Marksman community to get informed and show up to vote. If you read the Secretary of State language, you may say, “I don’t understand,” or “Why should I care?” But you can check out websites that have simpler explanations of what some propositions mean and how we might and might not want to vote for some of them, so just be informed. Definitely vote if you can vote — it’s a huge privilege.

“AS SOMEONE CAN IDENTIFY WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE, FOR FAMILIES THAT CAN PAY FOR A TUTOR LIKE ME, IT ALLOWS THEIR STUDENTS TO BENEFIT QUICKLY AND EFFICIENTLY. IF YOU’RE STUDYING ON YOUR OWN, AND YOU’RE NOT VERY DISCIPLINED ABOUT IT, THEN YOU DON’T MAKE THE SAME PROGRESS.” - Jennifer Cohen “Over the year, the number of students adds up to well over 200 people from their senior class and two junior classes as we continue,” Pietrzak said. “These sessions are going very well, and we’re excited for the students to take the October ACT. In the end, our ultimate goal is to reach as many students as possible and give them equitable access to tutoring and strategies on taking the ACT.”

PHOTO / ZACHARY BASHOUR SIGNING UP Senior Baker Lipscomb writes his name down on the voting registration form at the sign-up table in the Commons.

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Navigating the new writing curriculum Due to the advent of AI writing software like Chat-GPT last year, the plan for a shift in the writing curriculum was propelled to focus more on in-class writings.

The Gallery Senior photographer Daniel Weinstein showcases his art in a vibrant display of various stories. The top three photographs are a part of Weinstein’s photography cohesive, “After Hours,” showcasing themes of despair, anxiety and insecurity.

“Photography has become my preferred means of personal expression, primarily through the creation of visual narratives,” Weinstein said. “I am intrigued by human emotions, untold stories, and the juxtaposition of person and place.”

A solitary wanderer, adrift from his path.

PRESSURE As classmates work leisurely on their computers, a student works under timed pressure to finish his in-class writing.

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By Oliver Peck and Rohan Kakkar

his year, English departments across the country are changing their approach to essay writing due to newly introduced factors like artificial intelligence. For students here, the shift in the curriculum has led to an increase in in-class essays.

This transformation, led by English Department Chair Michael Morris, aims to not only mitigate the use of AI writing but also better prepare students for their final exams.

“For many years now, we’ve been trying to focus on in-class writing partly because we know the final exams at the end of the year and AP examinations are done in class,” Morris said. “So, the push to do a lot of in-class writing has been around for as long as I’ve been here, and this is my 10th year.”

With the dawn of Chat-GPT and other AI software last year, there was additional justification for the use of in-class essays.

“We realized that if we really wanted to be sure we were seeing what students could write on their own, the best strategy would be to have the writing in class,” Morris said.

Although the change drastically decreases the chance that a student could use AI or plagiarize an essay, the shift also comes with some possible downsides, such as the increased stress associated with timed writings. Nonetheless, the benefits of in-class writings outweigh these negatives and help shape students into better writers.

“I think the benefit is students obtain feedback on their own writing,” Mor-

ris said. “It’s a student’s own writing because they sat there at the Harkness table and wrote it. Another advantage is that students avoid the longer-term burden of a paper outside of class.”

However, some students may be better prepared for these types of assessments than others. The limited amount of time proves challenging for some students, but changes have been made to help bridge the gap between students who are disadvantaged by this.

“Some teachers give prompts in advance to allow students more time to think about the essay, some teachers allow students to bring a card with notes, and I allow students to bring in their annotated books with their class notes,” Morris said.

English 10 Instructor Dr. GayMarie

“WE REALIZED THAT IF WE REALLY WANTED TO BE SURE WE WERE SEEING WHAT THE STUDENTS COULD WRITE ON THEIR OWN, THE BEST STRATEGY WOULD BE TO HAVE THE WRITING IN CLASS. ” - Michael Morris Vaughan uses these types of essays frequently as she believes that they help prepare students quickly craft coherent arguments in the real world.

“We don’t want students to outsource their thinking,” Vaughan said. “Doing essays in class is the best way to ensure teachers know that it’s a student’s own work at that specific moment.”

Even with the many benefits of inclass essays, teachers are forced to deal

PHOTO / TIGER YANG

with their downsides like the loss of class time to account for the essays.

“There needs to be a day to allow for outlines, thesis statements and evidence,” Vaughan said. “The day that students write the essay is another day lost, and if I allow students to type it up, that’s a third day, which is a huge portion of time. However, I was talking to department chair [Michael Morris] earlier and I think all teachers agree that this is something we have to do because of AI.” For students, possibly the biggest challenge of in-class essays is the time aspect. Opposed to a take-home essay where students have ample time to focus on proper grammar and forming a more cohesive paper, in-class essays make it more difficult for students to finish in the allotted time.

“In-class essays definitely stress me out more,” sophomore Alex Hochman said. “It’s more of a test than a leisurely assignment where I’m able to express my creativity. I feel that when I’m in class, I’m a lot more rushed, and it doesn’t produce as good of an essay overall. But I understand that it’s harder to check if essays outside of class are plagiarized or completed by some AI.” In-class essays provide students with immediate feedback and real-world writing preparation to better mold their writing skills while upholding academic standards. In the evolving educational landscape, the English department’s curriculum shift demonstrates its dedication to providing a fair, modern, and effective learning experience for all students, ultimately shaping them into more proficient writers.

A man’s world that has unwraveled similar to Willy Loman from Death of a Salesman.

A resilient worker who feels contained within the boundaries of his labor.

A memorable rapid within Glacier National Park.

A desolate beach on the northern part of the Washington coast, hundreds of miles from any known cities.

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Seniors lead the way to revitalize robotics Seniors Vivek Patel and Arav Rawat spent several years competing in robotics outside school. Now, they hope to bring the more competitive nature of FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) to the school as captains from various backgrounds.

PHOTO / COURTESY VIVEK PATEL FRIENDS AROUND THE WORLD Competing at the international level, Senior Vivek Patel, bottom left, stands with fellow competitors.

PHOTO / COURTESY ARAV RAWAT COMMANDING THE FIELD Senior Arav Rawat, middle, controls his robot with speed and precision during the State championship finals.

By Andrew Ye and Christopher Guffey

By Kayden Zhong

I

n front of him stand 14 people, and four robots. Behind him sit 20,000 people, from all over the world, watching in anticipation.

No mistakes. Mistakes would kill their chance of making it to the finals.

The intense spotlight beams down on him, blocking out everything from his vision except the robot field.

It’s time.

In two minutes and 30 seconds, he’ll know if he has what it takes to win.

Beginning in 10th grade, Senior Vivek Patel fell in love with robotics. “I joined as part of the hardware team and scouting,” Patel said. “Because I was a rookie, I had to get a feel for the game and learn the competition mechanics.”

Competing has been a huge commitment for Patel, and trying to balance robotics and school is a challenge. Even more so, after a few rounds at his very first competition, his team’s robot completely failed as the gearing on their robot shredded itself to pieces.

“Although we performed very poorly that day, it was mainly due to a lack of proper testing beforehand,” Patel said. “It was easily preventable and yet it was overlooked.”

Patel spent the rest of the year competing in the Boosting Science, Engineering, and Technology (B.E.S.T) competition, but it eventually began feeling monotonous. After competing on a national level for two years, he transition to First Tech Challenge (FTC).

But preparing for a competition on an international scale isn’t the same as preparing for one on the national level.

However, the hardship paid off, and he was able to get his team the finalist alliance captain at the four-day World’s FTC competition in Houston.

“We had a great run and won the Innovative Award for our unique robot,” Patel said. “The other robots on the field are very impressive and the experience of competing against them was amazing.”

Patel hopes to spread robotics to his community, and after already competing in a private team for one year, he has decided to create an FTC team at the school.

“This is a year-long competition with several variables, so it’s hard to tell where we’re gonna go,” Patel said. “It’s especially hard to predict for a rookie team. But we know what our goals are—we are going to worlds.”

W

ith several taekwando championships under his belt, Arav Rawat does not seem like a robotics enthusiast at first glance.

Leave him in the Maker Space for a few hours, however, and before long his teammates will find him completely immersed in a world of plywood, wires and blinking numbers. Pulling him away from the computers and mechanical parts surrounding him feels almost sacrilegious.

But when Rawat was younger, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to do robotics.

“My very first look into robotics was in fifth grade when my school had a FIRST LEGO League (FLL) team, but unfortunately, I didn’t even apply,” he said. “I didn’t think I was good enough at that time.”

For the next few years of middle school, Rawat regretted his decision. So when the signup opportunity for FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) came, Rawat pounced.

“I was the only middle schooler on that team. Everybody else was in high school,” Rawat said. “I was just younger. I had less experience, and it was hard for me to have a major impact.”

Rawat didn’t end up having much of a say design-wise, hardwarewise or programming-wise. Still, he persisted.

“The one thing I made sure to do was show up to almost every meeting,” he said. “During the late nights, it would be me and the other captain and just us two working on the robot.”

His dedication caught the attention of the leaders, and before long Rawat found himself with a controller in his hands during trainings and competitions. Even then, there were setbacks. No matter how well Rawat or his teammates performed, there would always be some unaccounted for scenario, such as a loose screw or a worn down gear.

But Rawat has faced these challenges head-on, and has come out better because of it. He has continued to participate in robotics competitions, and this year, he and Senior Vivek Patel started a new robotic team to participate in FTC. Rawat attributes part of his success to the dedication of Stewart Mayer, the Makerspace Director. On his first day of school, Rawat met Mayer while asking about the school’s robotics program.

“He’s always been there for me,” Rawat said. “Nowadays, I’m in the Makerspace every day after school just working on robots, and he’s been helping me with everything.”

New digital PSAT presents new and unfamiliar difficulties for current Juniors

By William Kozoman This year, juniors are taking a new kind of test to measure their academic growth —the digital PSAT. While the test itself is familiar, the format isn’t. The College Board, which runs the exam, the SAT, and AP exams, made the decision to make the PSAT all-digital, suddenly adjusting the school’s method of testing.

Alongside the obvious difference between digital and physical exams, there come ramifications for the new style of testing.

“Every computer has to have a certain program,” Director of College Counseling Veronica Pulido said.

“We also asked students to come prepared with a laptop with three hours worth of battery, but we had to purchase some extension cords and plugs and just in case things do

go awry.”

The new digital PSAT also offers some more flexibility in terms of the time of testing. Before, it was only administered on one day — not leaving much room for those unable to attend.

“Now the PSAT can be given in a range of days,” Pulido said. “If a student potentially is not able to take an exam on one day, they could do it on a different day. There is some more flexibility to help a student out if they weren’t able to take the test.”

Though there are some concerns about cheating, especially in light of modern technology to help students, Pulido believes that the new form of testing is just as safe to use.

The testing will also take place across multiple spots on campus to ensure adequate space between the test takers.

“A hundred juniors don’t necessarily fit into one space with the amount of space it’s needed between students,” Pulido said. “There will be a couple of different locations that we’re going to have to test.”

With the PSAT also comes stress. Though the school dissuades students from worrying about the test, inevitably, students do. A particular cause is the PSAT’s role in determining a student’s eligibility for National Merit consideration, which plays an important role in earning a scholarship.

Though the PSAT change most directly affects juniors, who took the test on Oct. 11, it will also affect sophomores, who will take the PSAT later in the year to evaluate their academic ability. The new changes in the format offer some changes in the way the test is run, but the school is ready.

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ABSOLUTE DOMINATION The Academics team faced off against faculty in the annual Quiz Bowl assembly on Friday, October 13, beating them by over three hundred points.

PHOTOS / WINSTON LIN

Back to back champions hope to repeat The Academics team lead by a group of seven seniors hope to cement their already strong legacy by winning all three national champions they compete in.

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By Joseph Sun and Doan Nguyen

hese Marksmen are on a role.

An unprecedented team of seven seniors, each strong in their own individual aspects, are spearheading the school’s Academics team to the top.

In the 2022-23 season, seniors Vardhan Agnihotri ‘24, Ethan Bosita ‘24, Arnav Lahoti ‘24, Aditya Shivaswamy ‘24, and Sohum Sukhatankar ‘24 placed eighth at High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT), one of the three national competitions the Academics team competes in every year.

At the Small School National Championship Tournament (SSNCT), seniors comprising two teams placed third and 11th, and at National Scholastic Championship (NSC), fifth, the highest any team has placed in school history.

With an unparalleled performance, this year, the team hopes to take first at all three competitions.

While this is no easy task, former captain Shivaswamy is hopeful and almost expectant of winning all three national championships.

Shivaswamy came across Quiz Bowl in fifth grade and has competed ever since.

“I’ve been doing Quiz Bowl Aditya Shivaswamy since I first came to St. Mark’s,” Senior Shivaswamy said. “One of the first things I did was join the quiz bowl team, and at the start, I was really bad. I went into high school not really expecting to be on any team, but I made the A team. I suppose it’s just because they needed Fine Arts, which I just studied a lot of.”

Filling the Fine Arts gap the team needed, the A team, with then seniors Ned Tagtmeier ’21, Aayush Goodapaty ’21 at the helm, Miki Ghosh ‘22, and Shivaswamy, competed at SSNCT. “At the Small School Nationals, we won for the first time in four years,” Shivaswamy said. “That was a huge surprise for us.”

With Tagtemeier and Goodapaty’s guidance, Shivaswamy was able to lead the team after they left.

“They would constantly answer the question within the first two lines,” Shivaswamy said. “Seeing that really helped me because it was thinking, ‘oh, that’s sort of the level that I need to be competing at.’ They told me, for example, these are the areas which you should focus on, or this is what you should do. They always went to the Wednesday practices. And I wanted to do the same thing.”

Just the following year, Ghosh, Shivaswamy, Bosi-

ta and then senior, Tomek Marczewski ‘22, won once again at SSNCT in 2022. However, after some of the best seniors the school had ever seen before graduated, the remaining team was unsure if they were able to recover.

“My sophomore year, many of the seniors had left and there was a huge hole to be filled,” Shivaswamy said. “But that summer there were a lot of people who really kind of like jumped up and we’re ready to like, grind it out in quizbowl. And now we have seven really good seniors.”

Director of Academic Information Systems and academics team coach Paul Mlakar has coached and prepared countless brilliant minds for several years, but this year is different. He’s not just confident of his team’s prowess; he’s excited.

“They work well together: really well,” Mlakar said.

“I think the most fun aspect of this year’s team is watching them push each other.”

Since middle school, this core group of seniors have competed together, complementing each other’s strengths and weaknesses in an array of subjects. Lahoti, used to usually seeing one person shine individually on a team, recognizes the unparalleled synergy he has with his teammates.

“It really gives the team aspect of Quiz Bowl a new meaning,” Lahoti said. “Even if you don’t do well yourself at a tournament, but your team does extremely

“EVEN IF YOU DON’T DO WELL YOURSELF AT A TOURNAMENT, BUT YOUR TEAM DOES EXTREMELY WELL, YOU’LL STILL FEEL HYPED UP. THERE’S SOMETHING TO IT THAT CAN’T BE REPLACED.” - ARNAV LAHOTI well, you’ll still feel hyped up. There’s something to it that just can’t be replaced.”

The year just started but some members can’t help but think about having just one more year with this team. Mlakar has been leading the program for over 15 years, but he’s never gotten used to it.

“That’s always the hard part of coaching Quiz Bowl,” Mlakar said. “This is our last run together, and I’ve got to say goodbye to these guys after working with him for four years. And that can be tough.”

With a team full of upperclassmen, the level of experience and skill on the team is nearly at its maximum potential. But after these seven seniors graduate, there may be a void, with shoes too large for underclassmen to fill. Mlakar isn’t worried, though.

“We’ve got some really talented guys coming up,” Mlakar said. “I think when it’s their time to step up, they’ll really buckle down. They certainly have the

PHOTO / ARNAV LAHOTI

PHOTO / DAVE CARDEN STATE CHAMPIONS The Academics team, with coach Paul Mlakar, seniors Ethan Bosita, Adithya Shivaswamy, Sohum Sukhantankar, Arnav Lahoti, Vardhan Agnihotri, and history instructor Bruce Westraate, left to right respectively, after placing 8th at HSNCT (top). The 2022 Academics team led

by Tomek Marczewski ‘22, Isaac Song ‘22, and Miki Ghosh ‘22 after winning SSNCT (bottom).

ability; they just have to put in the time.”

The seniors know that the current freshmen and sophomores are going to have to put in a lot of effort to just catch up. They want to show the underclassmen the level they should strive to be at.

“A huge part of graduating is trying to leave a strong legacy,” Shivaswamy said. “We can help out the upcoming middle-schoolers and ninth-graders, and I hope to inspire them through our results.”

But right now, the team doesn’t want to worry about these potential problems; they’re all just distractions.

With the ambitions of this team, they understand that they have to be focused, with eyes on the prize. They are projected to take first at nationals. They will take first at nationals.

“We put in a lot of work in the last four years,” Lahoti said. “And this year, it’s really going to show because we’re at the top of the bracket now. We don’t have any excuses to not be the best.”

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PHOTO / WINSTON LIN GREENHOUSE GUARDIAN Northcut sits amongst the various plants in the desert room of the Greenhouse. Certified as a Texas Master Naturalist, he has the task of maintaining the Greenhouse on a daily basis.

Breathing life into Dallas

From the Greenhouse to the Prairie, science instructor Dan Northcut and Junior Max Yan are working to combat pollution and to preserve biodiversity in the area.

By Joseph Sun and Christian Warner

B

elow the Dallas skyscrapers lies a dark haze.

Unbeknownst to the citizens of the city, this haze slowly consumes, decreasing lifespan while causing various lung cancers.

Science instructor Dan Northcut ‘81, a leading projects in the Arthur Douglas greenhouse, to take the first step in the fight against pollution.

The school has had a greenhouse for decades. Before Northcut and the Winn Science Center, Arthur Douglas managed the greenhouse, which is no easy task.

“It was built along with the new science building.

We had a greenhouse, but it was with the old building from the 1960s,” Northcut said.

The current greenhouse contains a variety of different plant species, coming from several ecosystems and climates. There are two rooms — the tropical and desert — that show the alterations for their environments.

“What we want is to look at certain plants and the features that the plant has to show it has adapted to being in this type of environment,” Northcut said. “It’s not exactly stages of evolution. It’s just the end product of evolution that brought the plant to be the way it is now.”

Furthermore, the greenhouse serves as the home for several environment based clubs. Sophomore Max Yan, president of the Blackland Prairie Restoration Crew, often uses the greenhouse. Ever since the club’s

creation four years ago, its focus has been to restore the prairies of Dallas with native plants.

“The goal is that people will be able to see more birdlife and biodiversity all around,” Yan said. “Once you start bringing the native plants back, you get all the native biodiversity of insects; you get all the frogs, the lizards and the birds that eat the insects.”

Foreign plants harm the ecosystem of these prairies through a variety of ways. Invasive species can take over the native environment, restrict growth and cause extinction.

“Those guys have been collecting native seeds from different sites around the Dallas-Fort Worth area, germinating, growing and planting them,” Northcut said. “It’s a long-term project for the restoration of the Blackland Prairie.”

Restoration not only helps the wildlife through clearing out invasive species but also with repairing the current environment and avoiding other natural disasters.

“If you have the ecosystem running like the prairies, or if you get the prairies in place, they hold the soil,” Yan said. “They hold the soil down, so you don’t get as much soil loss in those rapid rains that we get nowadays. The roots also store a lot of carbon.”

In fact, these roots from Blackland Prairies store much more carbon compared to forests. Without tillage or other disruptions, the prairies can significantly

reduce air pollution.

To Dallas citizens, this is not as noticable day to day compared to the many other benefits of restoring the prairies.

“The bird populations in North America in the last 30 to 40 years have dropped by over 30 percent. The insect density is way down. When I was a kid driving through roads at night, insects would hit your windshield constantly. But now, that never happens,” Northcut said.

However, with the digging, renourishing and replanting of native species done by the restoration club, the Blackland prairie may have a chance at re-emerging.

“You get all these native prairie plants and they bloom all throughout the year which means that there’s a consistent food source for there your bees, butterflies, insects of different kinds, all throughout most of the year,” Yan said. “But if you only have one plant, or a monoculture, like at our school, our native insects and birds won’t have food throughout the whole year. That is what we call a biological desert.”

The club benefits the school and Dallas community in numerous ways. These students, led by Yan, are working hard to make a difference in the world.

“It’s a lot of work so that it definitely provides guys a chance to get outside and get those community service hours in a really environmentally productive way,” Northcut said.

Exploring the biology field through the guidance of other Marksmen

By Ronit Kongara Biology as a field helps humanity better understand the living world and the many ways its species function, evolve, and interact. Studying biology is an important course for all highschoolers to better understand the world they live in and all of the species that live in it as well.

At the school, every student has to take biology in their freshman or sophomore year before continuing on to the other science courses, such as chemistry and physics. But, some students develop a passion for biology during the course and can decide to join the Biology Club.

Led by co-presidents seniors Alex Pan and Sohum Sukhatankar, the club aims to explore further into the field of biology for students who are willing to spend

the extra time. This includes doing lab experiments, studying for the Biology Olympiad, and improving lab skills.

The experiments that the club usually focus on include chromatography, gel electrophoresis, PCR testing, bacteria gram scanning, growing bacteria samples, as well as more advanced experiments. An example of the more advanced experiment done last year is modifying bacteria.

“We transformed bacteria,” said Pan, “by putting green fluorescent proteins in the bacteria.”

In order to improve their lab skills, the members work on pipetting and following lab safety protocols, both essential to working in a lab environment and conducting biology experiments. Pipetting is used in almost all experiments and is the way to pick up and deposit specific amounts of liquid samples. Lab safety

is key, so all of the members must learn lab protocol before doing their own experiments.

The Biology Olympiad is a national competition where students compete using all of the knowledge they have learned about biology. Using what they have learned from studying with Mark Adame, biology teacher and club sponsor, Biology Club members will go on to compete in the Olympiad, taking exams to prove their proficiency.

Moving forward, Pan and Sukhatankar are trying to increase the number of experiments conducted this year in order to give the members more experience.

They also aim to have more fun while learning more in depth about biology.

“We are going to try and do more lab activities that we didn’t do last year,” said Pan. “Activities like gram staining, PCR and gel.”

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WORD STREET on the

Primarily due to the continued increase in popularity of various social media platforms, new language and slang has spread like a wildfire, catching on even to the extent of adding these words to the dictionary.

I

By Zack Goforth, Grayson Redmond and Eric Yi

t is now possible to construct an English sentence that would leave someone a few years ago wondering if you were speaking Russian or Chinese.

Or perhaps it was Japanese? Ancient Greek?

In 2023, Merriam-Webster added 690 words to its collection of over 470,000 — many of which had not been uttered by a single soul five, 10, or 15 years ago — words like rizz, jawn and goated.

While each word has its own origin story, whether that be social media, video games or some other facet of internet culture, one thing is for certain: they’ve left many faculty and parents scratching their heads during classroom discussion or at the dinner table.

In February, the “New York Times” even published a guide detailing the proper usage and practical applications of a handful of these terms.

The ability to effortlessly gather information and consume media coupled with the influx of new-age slang has led some to believe students are becoming more casual in learning environments, which has a multitude of effects, good and bad.

Today, even Marksmen themselves may question their sanity at the lunch table or in passing conversation.

As a result, some believe this phenomenon to be a natural side effect associated with the rise and fall of generations. Others view the shift as inappropriate to the English language. And others still might see this as yet another case of “kids these days.”

For better or worse.

For English Instructor Scott Gonzalez, the nature of casual vernacular has certainly changed in the past few decades, recently developing a more temporary lifespan than in the past.

“Slang was fairly limited back then,” Gonzalez said. “That’s because it would catch on and usually stay for longer, compared to today. I don’t think it spread like it does now on social media.”

Indeed, much of the slang popularized in recent years has originated from entertainment platforms.

One of the most well-known instances of this is the word “rizz,” a shortened form of “charisma” which was conceived by Twitch streamer Kai Cenat and further popularized on other social media platforms.

However, this was by no means the first instance of a term suddenly skyrocketing in popularity due to social media.

“Five years ago students would say, ‘this Chipotle burrito is gas,’ but you don’t Cameron Hillier ‘13 English instructor really hear that much anymore,” English instructor Cameron Hillier ‘13 said.

“One of my favorites some years ago was when something ‘hits different.’ I think that’s hilarious, but I don’t really hear that one much anymore.”

Senior Adam Kappelman has also experienced this phenomenon throughout high school.

“Words like these have always been there, they’ve just been different,” Kappelman said. “You have the ‘poggers’ era. People would say ‘That’s so pogchamp!’ all the time. Then you had the ‘OK, boomer’ era,

among others. There’s numerous terms like these.

Everything evolved from Twitch streams, and then platforms like TikTok and YouTube caught on to them too.”

While it is natural for new words to periodically appear in vernacular English, they are typically expected to be excluded from use in a formal context.

However, what makes this most recent surge in popular language so impactful is how entrenched in its users’ vocabularies it has become. According to Dr. Danny Law, an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin, this usage of unfamiliar vocabulary can cause a disconnect between different groups of people.

“If I want to use my language to have a particular effect on you, I have to understand how you’re understanding my language and how my language is affecting you,” Law said. “So part of the skill people need is learning to adapt their language use to different audiences to have different effects.”

However, a common grievance in recent years is that this skill of language filtration is rapidly deteriorating among us as a society, Marksmen included.

“Inappropriate words like cuss words are becoming more normalized to the point where they’re just another word,” Hillier said. “I would say that [cursing] has shifted to younger years and is generally more accepted as okay speech. Students will say things in the classroom that make me think, ‘Man, I would have never said that when I was in school.’”

Albeit, there’s a proper time and place for everything. According to Victor F. White Master Teaching Chair in English David Brown, these words have a place in an academic context; their merit lies in their shock value, in their inappropriateness itself.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN? With new words seeming to appear all the time, it can be hard to stay up to date with the newest slang. Here are some definitions of the most common terms used by Marksmen.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION / JOSHUA GOFORTH

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“We have become much more lenient with what used to be called obscenities, profanity, and vulgarities,” Brown said. “But I’m not as much of a stickler for that. I think that profanity has its place, even in polite society. There are times when a forceful word that carries more impact because of its shock value is sometimes warranted.”

“LINGUISTIC EVOLUTION SHOULD BE HAPPENING BECAUSE WE HAVE A NEED FOR A NEW WORD, NOT BECAUSE WE

DON’T KNOW ANY BETTER THAN TO USE A WORD INCORRECTLY.” -David Brown This debate about the nature of the English language really is nothing new, though. Generations upon generations of individuals have worried about their children losing the language’s complexities, yet it remains resilient over and over again despite the smaller evolutions associated with the passage of time.

“People in the 1800s also complained about how the rising generation was losing the formality of language and the nuance of expression,” Law said. “That’s not really what was happening. What was actually happening was that younger people weren’t using the same nuances of expression and meaning that Adam Kappelman the older people were using.

Senior They were using other kinds of nuances that those older people were missing.”

The increasing informality of language in society is one thing, but many draw the line at adding these words to the dictionary, which serves as a representation of the current state of the English language and an indication that these terms are here to stay. Indeed, according to Law, it is rare for words used almost exclusively in spoken English to even be considered for publication.

“Most dictionaries base [adding words] off of things that get published in print,” Law said. “That’s different from just thinking about a word that’s part of the spoken language in a community because, even though there might be a lot of people using a particular word, nobody has actually written it down in a traditional publication, like a newspaper or a book.”

Friday, October 27, 2023

Gonzalez has witnessed this heated debate firsthand, when a word still held in contention today was first included.

“Maybe 50 years ago, they added ‘ain’t’ to the dictionary, and there was a big uproar about it,” Gonzalez said. “At first I thought maybe it shouldn’t be there, but it was used so much that it became common language.”

But according to Kappelman, Merriam-Webster made the right decision. The addition of new words to the dictionary carries is more than a surface-level decision.

“I think adding these words to the dictionary is a step in the proper direction, and I think that Merriam-Webster should continue incorporating more words,” Kappelman said. “Words like ‘skibidi’ are used just as much and have become a movement of their own. The Grimace Shake isn’t just a milkshake, it’s an idea. It represents the concept of illness in a society that people really fear.”

On the contrary, Brown posits the addition of strange new words, as well as new definitions to old words, represents something far more troubling: humanity’s unwillingness to use language as it is intended to be used.

“The dictionary writers are caving to those who have not bothered to consider what they’re saying,” Brown said, “And they’re changing words that shouldn’t be changed because we already have a fine word meaning the same thing. Linguistic evolution should be happening because we have a need for a new word, not because we don’t know any better than to use a word incorrectly.”

Yet, according to Kappelman, this evolution is not driven by simple ignorance. Instead, it is simply the dialect of a new generation of English speakers.

“The reason older people think these words are wrong is because of the generational gap,” Kappelman said. “I respect people from these generations greatly, but they just do not understand the lingo. They’re not as invested in short-form content — in the Twitch streams, the YouTube shorts or the Instagram Reels.”

And even though this short-form content may seem far removed from academia, Kappelman believes dictionaries should take casual media into consideration, doing their part in expressing the attitude of any given era.

“Dictionaries initially were an academic tool, but every time they’re edited, it reflects the culture of America and even the culture of the world,” Kappelman said. “And I feel that terms like ‘Baby Gronk rizz Grimace Shake in Ohio level three max prestige’ are where the world is going.”

For better or worse.

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AROUND THE

QUAD What “new-age” words do Marksmen use the most?

56%

rizz Baby Gronk

19%

skibidi

7%

GOATED

5%

sigma

4%

we go gym

4%

Ice Spice

2%

Data comes from a sample of 97 students

PHOTOS / NOAH CATHEY HIP TO IT Slang has been used so much at 10600, it is now integrated into the culture on campus. Students such as sophomores in the fish tank lounge (top left), seventh graders in the commons (bottom left) and juniors the Centennial lounge (above) speak with words that likely didn’t exist five years ago.

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A butterfly effect with dire consequences Fake IDs have been a problem for decades. With increased technology and accesibility, they are as rampant as ever. The consequences for using one are heavy and should be taken into consideration.

By Dawson Yao, Linyang Lee and Nolan Marcus He brought the six-pack to the counter.

It wasn’t particularly busy in that 7-11. Handing the cashier his faintly blue and red ID, he looked for his credit card while the cashier turned the ID over to run it through the scanner.

He had bought beer before. A few Zyns every now and then. His friends had been doing the same for years. The feeling of nervousness they used to get when using their fake IDs was gone.

It’s a part of their lives now. His life ever since he first got his fake ID as a self-described “devious 14-year-old”. It’s the norm.

Outside the 7-11, people were setting up fireworks and cracking open beers to start their Fourth of July. He wanted a part of it too. That independence vibe. Being free from the shackles of age.

He got his card ready to pay.

He handed over his fake ID, completed the transaction and walked out of the store, beer in hand.

Just like him, so many other teenagers have walked out of convenience stores with a fresh case of beer. So many set their real IDs along with their fake ones right next to each other in their wallets and purses. So many take their fakes out and pretend they’re older than they are.

And according to IDscan.net, an age identification service, in Aug. 2022, more than 12 percent of high school students possess a fake ID. Fake IDs aren’t new. Teenagers have been using them for decades, and it’s a problem plaguing gas stations, bars and clubs.

But years ago, teens just bought IDs from someone that looked like them.

Now, IDs can create whole new personas. Someone with the same name, gender, height, eye color and address — just a few years older.

A FALSE IDENTITY In addition to using false IDs to fake an age, some have used the technology to create a whole new identity.

One such case occurred in a Pennsylvania airport just a month ago.

For less than $100, anyone under 21 can get two of them — one to use and the other in the case that their first is taken away. If they want, they can skip the middleman and buy them straight off of one of thousands of websites that recreate IDs from the bottom up — all with holograms and the magnetic strips. For kids, it’s all too easy to get — and for businesses selling alcohol, all too hard to spot.

According to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC), a government agency created specifically to regulate the use of alcohol, minors who try to purchase alcohol face a fine up to $500. Additionally, the adults who sell the alcohol to minors also face fines up to $4,000, as well as up to a year in prison.

Stephanie Curs, who owns two bars in College Station, is extremely conscious of the consequences for serving minors. One of their countermeasures for serving underage minors is making the minimum age to enter her bars 21.

“We made the minimum age 21 because we saw a lot of 18-year-olds come in with their friends and get alcohol from them,” Curs said.

Organizations like the TABC have implemented strict protocols, designed specifically to catch violators of law. For example, in order to check if an ID is real or not, many retailers have electronic scanning machines that can scan cards and match them against a national database.

“Most bartenders and alcohol retailers from Texas also take training through TABC,” Director of Communications at the TABC Chris Porter said. “We train them to recognize some of the most common warning signs in a fake ID. If they see something that doesn’t look right, then they’re obviously empowered to decline that sale.”

These signs can be anything from the major differences, like vertical or horizontal orientation, to the minor differences, like the different varieties of an identification card based on a holder's age.

Any sort of difference is a red flag in most cases — Curs even asks for her staff to examine the

stability of a card, or looking for the presence of a hologram.

And in addition to complying with these regulations set forth by the TABC, Curs has also implemented her own set of precautions to make sure of her customers’ ages.

“We tell our staff to ask creative questions,” Curs said. “We ask for everything from your middle name, your birthday, your eye color and how tall you are.”

Curs uses these precautions because throughout her time in bar-ownership and management, she has found that students using someone else’s ID overlook at least one of these data points.

In addition, the TABC also engages in a plethora of their own, in-thefield investigations. Especially on busier nights, the commission will step in and work with local security staff to ensure Chris Porter total safety.

Director of Communica“In particularly busy tions, TABC nightlife-type areas, we’ll help scan the IDs of folks who are trying to get in,” Porter said. “If we do identify somebody with a fake ID, we can hold them accountable, and ultimately prevent a business from making the mistake that they may not have intended to.”

The TABC has also begun initiatives to identify the businesses which do not comply with the law.

Their operations include having minors working with the TABC attempt to buy alcohol to expose violators. Potential ramifications for accidentally serving a minor are severe — including a strike against the business, along with major punishments for the bartender.

“The bottom line is to keep alcohol out of the hands of someone who’s younger than 21,” Porter

F o cu s |

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Friday, October 27, 2023

consequences of alcohol

613 1,573

thousand underage people reported heavy alcohol use

>200 million

people aged <21 died from motor vehicle crashes with alcohol

13.4

people aged 12 to 20 reported having at least one drink

diseases and injury-related health conditions caused by alcohol

31% 21.0% 62.3%

of all major driving fatalities are caused by alcohol

of all suicide decedents have blood alcohol concentrations of >0.1%

said. “A person’s brain really doesn’t fully develop until they’re about 20 to 23 years old, and we want to make sure that people are avoiding making mistakes that may simply be a result of being young.”

The entire effort is to ultimately boost the safety of the community, and everybody in it. With their potent abilities to buy illegal substances, fake IDs can cause massive butterfly effects. With just one use, serious accidents, from car accidents to assault, can occur.

“Say someone that drinks alcohol you provided gets really drunk, and then that person gets in an accident and gets really hurt,” Director of Marksmen Wellness Dr. Gabby Reed said. “You, having been the person that gave the alcohol, would be in trouble. And on top of that, you’ve now just doubled your crime by having purchased the alcohol with a fake ID. The potential for danger is massive.”

But regardless, the top priority for Porter and the TABC is still to protect and guarantee the safety of all people.

“A number of years ago, the TABC, working with the University of Texas at Austin, was able to make a bust on a person who was manufacturing fake IDs in their apartment, with a bunch of professional equipment,” Porter said. “When you catch someone like that, it’s really hard to get a record as to how many fake IDs they’ve made before they’ve gotten caught. Who knows how many different public safety incidents either happened, or nearly happened? This individual was making fake IDs, and empowering his customers to make poor decisions to put themselves at risk.”

But most of the time, Fake ID dealers aren’t manufacturing their own fake IDs. Most of them

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just get batches shipped inconspicuously to their mailboxes, delivering the goods.

For the majority of people with fakes, their dealers aren’t random people they meet off the Internet: they’re friends. They’re friends, who know people that know people.

And for one fake ID seller the situation is the same — she is a friend of a friend. She gets all

“WE TELL OUR STAFF TO ASK

CREATIVE QUESTIONS. WE ASK FOR EVERYTHING FROM YOUR MIDDLE NAME, YOUR BIRTHDAY, YOUR EYE COLOR AND HOW TALL YOU ARE." - Bar Owner Stephanie Curs her customers all through word of mouth. And instead of looking for customers, her customers find her. Every single week.

But it didn’t always start like that. In the beginning, as a freshman, she had no interest in making or manufacturing fakes — she just wanted to buy something for himself. Something new, now that she was out of middle school. Something to feel like high school. Just to feel a new sense of freedom.

“I got my first fake ID when I was a freshman from one of my older friends,” the seller said, who opted to remain anonymous. “I just felt so adventurous when I first got it.”

Over time, her classmates began to feel the same way, craving the same exhilaration. And knowing that she had one herself, it didn’t take long for

of the population uses alcohol

SOURCE / National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

them to start asking her how to get one.

The dealer was just as clueless. She had gotten her ID from an older friend, who had just gone off to college. But when her friends came up with no ideas altogether, her curiosity and willingness to try got the better of her.

“I was like, ‘Okay, maybe I’ll look into it,” the dealer said. “I just got on a couple of Reddit threads and figured out how to make them. It was going to be a small thing for my close friends.”

The whole process starts with collecting data: signatures, pictures and the rest of the necessary information for a classic ID card. She then inputs the info into a website, which gives her a discount for bulk orders, and sends the money through Western Union.

“It’s not hard to make these Fake IDs,” the dealer said.

And from there, it’s just a matter of distributing the product. She meets her clients like a Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace seller would: meeting in shopping plazas and supermarket parking lots.

She treats the process as if she isn’t committing a crime that could land her 10 years in prison. It’s just a business for her — a side hustle for some extra cash and savings. Just like any other teen.

And just like many other teens who use them, she feels there is no harm in having a fake ID. There’s a certain indifference they feel. An indifference many have tried to solve. Yet the problem still remains. So many keep their fake IDs with them at all times, tucked with their real ID in their wallet or purse.

They carry the problem around everywhere.

And every time they use it — it’s in their hands.

GAS STATIONS Many gas stations have signs warning people against using fake IDs to purchase alcohol or nicotine under the age of 21. Yet many still purchase those items under 21.

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Overheard at 10600

“My masculinity is not overwhelming.”

Roman Childress Junior

GUIDING HAND Senior Jordan Feldman leads a Telos discussion with a group of seventh-graders.

PHOTO / DILAN KOGANTI

For Marksmen, by Marksmen Led by Dr. Martin Stegemoeller, the school’s student-driven Telos program promotes leadership, character growth and a sense of community.

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By Akash Manickam and Kevin Ho

ourage and honor. Two words central to the school’s identity. To focus on building these attributes vital to character growth, each student undergoes various lessons on leadership and manhood.

And as Marksmen grow and mature, each generation teaches younger boys the lessons of life at and beyond the school. As a result, the school’s community is distinctly close-knit: it’s a family — a brotherhood.

But it was not always this way. Years ago, the school’s ideals were threatened by disciplinary issues, bullying and inadequate relationships between older and younger students.

Teachers and students alike wanted to solve this problem and change the community for the better, but they needed a way to make a real impact on younger students first.

That’s when Dr. Martin Stegemoeller, Malcolm K. and Minda Brachman Master Teaching Chair, stepped in and created the Telos program with a group of seniors. The program offered a solution to the problem regarding the unhealthy interactions between boys.

“When we started Telos about 16 years ago, one of the goals was to unite the Middle School and Upper School,” Stegemoeller said. “At the time all there was was the little buddy program that met only twice a year. Middle schoolers were taunting upper schoolers as they walked past them in the hallways, then kids started talking back to the little kids and it was a disaster. It’s hard to imagine now, but upper schoolers and middle schoolers would not have any interactions at all.”

Stegemoeller recognized the problems in the community, but he also saw students who were distraught about the issues and saw the changes that needed to be made. Most students at the time were not exposed to the intensive leadership training that current students have, so Stegemoeller had a much larger role in Telos in its infancy.

“Telos was started before English 10 existed, which is a core place where leadership is taught,” Stegemoeller said. “We hadn’t done anything with Middle School Humanities either, and there weren’t any leadership loops.”

Telos [job title] Jordan Feldman believes that the student leadership has ramped up over the years, and he is grateful for the blueprint for leadership laid out for him by the previous senior leaders.

“George Genender ’23, Arjun Khatti ’23 and Win-

ston Lee ’23 did such a great job revamping the program,” Feldman said. “The people have changed, though, and with new people comes new experiences and new lessons to teach kids.”

When Telos initially started, Stegemoeller was the primary force behind the group’s leadership, providing guidance for the students involved. He decided to root out the problem at its origin: Middle School.

“It was pretty clear to me that kids listened to other kids on stuff like this more than they would listen to an adult,” Stegemoeller said. “And so we started Telos Four, which began as mostly seniors going down and talking to the fourth grade. That worked really well and everybody really liked it, so then more and more kids wanted to be involved.”

Telos aims to instill younger Marksmen with values that Stegemoeller believes will help them throughout their time at the school and into their adult lives.

“Our goal here was that we should all be leaders,” Stegemoeller said. “Everybody should be a leader. To me, to get every kid here as early as possible with the idea of building yourself up by learning how to take care of your people — the ultimate goal of our whole program isn’t an ‘I lose, you win.’ It’s more so ‘I need to be a leader in my life as a man, so I need to learn how to do it now.’”

Stegemoeller says that the program aims to strengthen healthy connections between students across every walk of life at the school.

“We try to facilitate not just communication but actual bonds of care,” he said. “When you think of ‘head, heart and hands,’ you’re trying to get all three of those accomplished through Telos. So you’re gonna learn what to say, you’re gonna go care for these kids and you’re gonna need to coordinate — you’re gonna have to talk with lower school and middle school teachers, you’re gonna have to plan things and you’re gonna have to work with each other.”

Looking ahead to the long-term impacts of Telos, Stegemoeller envisions that the skills that the program helps Marksmen to develop aren’t relevant to only the school. These qualities go beyond high school, as they serve as a solid foundation for future success.

“The goal is that when you are, for example, a 35-year-old man, are you a good dad?” Stegemoeller said. “Are you a good husband? Are you a good friend?

Are you a good boss? Are you a good worker? It’s not like you randomly decide at age 34 to snap your fingers and suddenly become a big leader, so the earlier you learn these skills, the better.”

“I just love Venn diagrams, man.”

Daniel Weinstein Senior

“What if the cheerleaders did Fortnite dances instead?”

Joseph Day Senior

“Zack, don't touch the workers.”

Bryan Boucher History and Economics instructor

“Mr. Martin, you have a W hairline.”

Charlie Hill Senior

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JUMP AROUND Upper School students and their dates jump in a mosh pit as the DJ blasts "Mo Bamba" by Sheck Wes.

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PHOTO / WINSTON LIN

New venue, same tradition

With numerous changes to the venue and video scenes needing to be reshot, Homecoming 2023 had its challenges. Despite these minor setbacks, students were still able to enjoy these longstanding traditions.

S

By Matthew Hofmann and Vikram Singh

tudents walked down the long hallway, the blue strobe lights lining the floor pulsing. The bass of the music inside filtered through the warm October air. Energy and expectations are high. After a blowout 51-9 win versus Greenhill, it was finally time for the Homecoming dance.

A time-honored tradition at the school, Homecoming serves as an opportunity for alums to return home znd gives students a welcomed exhale at the first quarter of the school year. Consisting of Upper School students and their dates, the dance culminates a week of festivities and is often a core memory of each school year.

But for many students at other local schools who are invited by St. Mark’s students, the venue is something that sets the school’s dance into an entirely different category. According to Senior Audrey Hestwood, a student at Trinity Christian Academy, the dance was heightened by taking place in a concert venue.

“I personally felt the venue had the perfect size and atmosphere for the occasion, sometimes venues can feel too crowded and uncomfortable, whereas others can sometimes feel too large, making it difficult for others to truly come together as one on the dance floor,” Hestwood said. “Additionally, out of all of the dances I have been to including my own school’s dance and Lake Highland’s dance, this date was by far the one where the students were most into the dance as opposed to a more individual or date-focused homecoming, which I think in part has to do with the venue.”

As expressed by Hestwood, the venue is a very important component of what sets the school’s Homecoming dance experience out from those of other schools.

"THE ROOM WAS SMALLER SO THAT FORCES PEOPLE TOGETHER AND DRIVES THE ENERGY UP. ” Mateu Parker This significance is why many students began to worry when rumors of venue issue began to circulate over the summer. Unbeknownst to them, the student council and the Homecoming moms were working extremely hard to solve the problem of having to switch venues.

Originally booked at the usual venue The House of Blues, the date of the Homecoming football game was changed. When the Homecoming moms – junior moms JoJo Fleiss, Karin Hoverman and Caroline Ackerman – checked to see if The House of Blues was available for the new date, the venue already was booked. The scramble to find a new venue began.

Student Council Sponsor Michele Santosuosso was a large part in this process.

“Finding a new location was probably the top of the top of the most difficult situation we met,” Santosuosso said. “There's a lot of great places in Dallas. But for a high school event, there are a lot of logistical pieces.

And so the three moms and myself, them mostly, spent countless hours visiting and calling potential venues.”

Emerging at the top of the list was Gilley’s, a popular multifaceted venue located in Downtown Dallas.

However, another local school had the venue needed already booked for the same night. With this in mind, the parents and the Student Council chose another venue.

But luck would fall the school’s way. Santosuosso received a text from one of the Homecoming moms that the school planning on using Gilley’s Southside Ballroom – the space the school wanted – had cancelled. From that moment, things unfolded rapidly as the plan pivoted to hosting the event at Gilley’s.

“We had an opportunity to pivot, but we needed to make sure the school was on board,” Santosuosso said. “Luckily, everyone was on board, and it worked out beautifully in the end. The video guys had already filmed the video, so they had to do some re-filming, but they were super excited.”

With the green light from the school, the dance venue was successfully shifted to Gilley’s Southside Ballroom. With high expectations following a successful Homecoming in 2022, worries about the venue living up to The House of Blues were common.

However, following the event, students didn’t notice any negatives. In fact, Gilley’s smaller size was actually received positively by the students.

It was an amazing time with my friends,” Parker said. “The venue was really nice and was smaller than last year and I think that is part of why I enjoyed it.

The room was bigger last year so it was more spreadout. For my freshman year and now this year, the room was smaller and so that forces people together and drives the energy up.”

The freshmen, who had no experience at an event like this before, had an similar reaction to Homecoming this year. According to Freshman Sam Merryman, the event was "awesome."

“For my first time at HOCO, I had a great time,” Merryman said. “The games in the back were really fun and the dance floor was always packed so that was good.”

And for the seniors, there was an added poignancy to the air. For many, the Homecoming dance is a highlight of each of their school years. What had seemed years away at their first Homecoming now has passed with their final Homecoming dance. Student Council President Alex Soliz reflects on this feeling of sadness as the year slowly moves closer to graduation.

“As a senior, it felt a little different than the other ones I’ve been at,” Soliz said. “Maybe it is because I helped plan it, but this will definitely be something that I remember from my final year.”

PHOTO / NOAH CATHEY ROYALTY Seniors Mason Briscoe and Margaret Thompson of Hockaday were announced as Homecoming King and Queen at the end of the dance.

PHOTO / NOAH CATHEY ALL IN Students like freshman Luke Rogers enjoyed casino and roulette style games at Gilley's.

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Life

George and Pool step up to lead junior class Math instructors Sherry George and Amy Pool adjust to the added responsibilities and challenges of their new roles while helping juniors coordinate major events like McDonald’s Week.

M

By Akash Manickam

any Marksmen have had to assume positions of leadership, whether by replacing an injured starter on a sports team, leading a club when its former president graduates or creating a Quizlet study set for other members in his class.

Marksmen, however, are not the only members of the school’s community who are called on to accept additional responsibility at a time of need.

When Interim Head of Lower School, Fine Arts Department Chair and drama instructor Marion Glorioso-Kirby and Chinese instructor Janet Lin stepped down from their roles as junior class sponsors, two faculty members were needed to fill their positions.

Math instructors Amy Pool and Sherry George rose to the occasion, combining their knowledge and experience to lead the Class of 2025.

As a former class sponsor, Pool says she felt obligated to support her fellow faculty members who stepped down as sponsors.

“It’s hard to step down,” Pool said. “You build such close relationships to the class in a unique way, maybe with exceptions to your advisees or the students you teach.”

Pool admits that she and George have different personalities, but she believes that their individual approaches to issues help them solve problems and come up with innovative ways to move the class forward.

“Sometimes I’ll just react,” Pool said. “[George] is even-tempered. She’s very thoughtful. She likes to step away and pause and consider. And that’s a good balance to my energy. I also think that ultimately, even though we don’t necessarily come with the same idea to begin with, we’re both also open enough to hear the other one’s position and consider it and reach a consensus.”

Pool believes the work required to lead a class as a sponsor has affected the mental health of many former sponsors, including herself.

“In the 13 years I’ve been here, turnover happens,” Pool said. “People do it for a while, and it’s a lot of hard work and people enjoy it. And then after a while, they say, ‘Okay, I need a break from this.’

We’ve had former teachers who did it for a while, stepped away for quite a few years and then came back and did it again. I think change is natural, but I do have to say I didn’t expect I would be back here.”

George believes Pool’s experience is a valuable tool for leadership.

“I can ask her, ‘What have you done in the past?’

She’s actually taking a lot of the lead and doing a lot of logistics for stuff because she’s done it for years,” George said. “It’s easy for me because I’m working with Mrs. Pool.”

Despite dealing with the added workload, Pool believes the school community has supported her strongly and consistently throughout her teaching

TAKING THE MANTLE In their new role, the math duo leads a class meeting.

career.

“Someone just walked by the window–I was having a rough morning this morning–and just gave me a thumbs up as if to ask, ‘Are you doing okay?’”

Pool said. “We all have a different kind of cycle to our emotional rhythm and emotional fortitude.

I’m someone with a great deal of resilience, but I just feel overwhelmed right now. But people have been incredibly supportive, not just this year, but other years as well. They’ve been supportive of me through a lot of different challenges. And it’s not just the faculty, the students have been supportive as well. They’ve pitched in when I needed help.”

Despite hearing mixed reports from other teachers regarding the Class of 2025, George feels strong-

PHOTO / MATTHEW FREEMAN

ly that the grade’s reputation in the past does not affect their current actions.

“I dislike the idea that there’s a reputation,” George said, “because people are building it up to be more than what it is. I’ve heard it from students in ninth and 10th grade. There’s some mistakes, obviously, that some students have made in the past, but the class is not that. The class is a bunch of talented, smart and awesome guys. When you talk about reputation, I think it’s selling people short. Everyone grows.”

George says she never questions or second-guesses her decision to become a class sponsor.

“I love the class,” George said, “and if there’s a need I can help, why wouldn’t I?”

Elevated Cooking becomes first co-ed club in decades

By Ronit Kongara Having co-ed or sister clubs is something uncommon in the schools community. Usually, clubs founded by schools students only work within their own community and not with clubs at any other schools.

However, over the summer, the Elevated Cooking Club’s co-presidents­ — junior Asher Babilla and senior Daniel Weinstein—reached out to Hockaday students in order to start an Elevated Cooking Club at their school. Babilla and Weinstein believed a sister cooking club would be popular at Hockaday, and Hockaday seniors Katherine Shoup and Meredith Burkhart agreed.

Babilla believes creating a sister club would assist in involving more people in both the two schools communities and to bring in more new members.

“I think some people will join the club, especially freshmen, because they see it as a way to meet new people,” Babilla said. “Which outside of sports, games and maybe dances is not an easy thing to do.”

Outside of more people getting involved with the club, expanding to a sister club also connects to communities and opens up more events for the Elevated Cooking Club to cook for.

“It lets us do more events, like the Hockaday coffee houses,” Babilla said.

“We wouldn’t necessarily cook for the Hockaday Coffee House in the past, but now with a Hockaday club as well, we can cook for them.”

Orchestrating events between two clubs in two different schools has never been easy, Babilla and Weinstein have been able to keep the clubs working together. The two clubs meet at school to discuss their future plans and then

cook together at a student’s house over a weekend.

“Daniel and I are in contact with their club presidents,” Babilla said. “We give them notices like ‘Hey, Saturday we are doing an event. We want anyone who wants to join.”

Communication is key for the two clubs to coordinate their joint cooking and events at both schools.

The St. Mark’s Elevated Cooking Club plans to continue to work with the Hockaday sister chapter throughout the rest of the year and further in the future.

The clubs plan to cook for events in both the two communities, especially the coffee houses.

Elevated has already cooked for the first coffee-houses for both schools, and they plan to continue this tradition as they further develop the co-ed nature of the club into the future.

PHOTO / COURTESY ASHER BABILLA

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PHOTO / WINSTON LIN

ROUND OF APPLAUSE A group of seniors joins a standing ovation following a dropped plate.

Culinary colosseum: the chaos of lunchtime and its traditions

A seemingly mundane experience of grabbing a quick bite in a day packed full of studies has turned into a hectic and rambunctious period of the day. Students and teachers alike share differing views of this developing culture.

By Joshua Goforth, Christian Warner and Matthew Hofmann

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ntering the Great Hall at 11 a.m. is like walking into the Running of the Bulls instead of a high school cafeteria. One inevitably encounters cutting students, food on the floor and escapees with boxed lunches, hurriedly making their way out of the chaos.

At first, it seems like the brotherhood built between students is lost in the race for food. But students see the struggle differently — unwritten rules and rites as old as the cafeteria itself have emerged from the traditions of upperclassmen.

“Seniors go through high school, through three years of pain and work, to get the privilege to cut.” senior CJ Ness said. “You can't use that privilege when you're a freshman, sophomore or junior because you can't understand what it actually means.”

The act of cutting the lunch lines is deeply ingrained in the school’s culture — seniors, who were at one point freshmen, learned from their predecessors that it was a special privilege solely for the senior class.

“After watching several senior classes before me cut in front of me, the fact that we can now cut the line is rewarding,” Ness said. “If there’s any way I can get food faster, I’m going to take that every single time. I never feel guilty. Even if there is guilt, the fact that I’m eating will always take over.”

Underclassmen also acknowledge seniority and look forward to their future privileges.

“When I’m a senior, I’m going to do it,” sophomore Justin Kim said.

Although the unwritten rules of cutting are held up by many students, especially seniors, the tradition also has considerable opposition.

“In a simple phrase, I don’t like cutting,” Assistant Head of Upper School Jason Leneau said. “We think we're all entitled to get food because we think our days are busier than others.”

Many teachers and faculty members find the seniors’ cutting to be unnecessary and bad-mannered, exactly what seniors should strive to eliminate as the role models of the school.

“The job as upperclassmen should be to set the example,” Leneau said. “And if they’re setting an example that's less than positive, I think they’re doing themselves a disservice.”

As a reminder to the seniors to be composed in front of underclassmen, teachers often go out of their way to keep seniors from cutting the line.

“I'm absolutely against cutting. In fact, when I see seniors doing it, I tell them not to,” science instructor Dr. Jonathan Moody said. “I will happily station myself near the front of the lines where the seniors like to cut, and I'll let the boys know that they shouldn't be doing that. That's not a privilege. That's disrespectful.”

Teachers see the lunch period more practically. Although it is a time to talk with each other, it is mainly a time to eat — cutting or not, everyone gets enough

“TODAY WE HAD SOMEONE DROP A TRAY, AND EVERYONE STOOD UP AND GAVE A STANDING OVATION. IT'S THOSE LITTLE THINGS THAT I'LL LOOK BACK AT ST. MARK'S AND REMEMBER.” - Senior Hudson Brown food and ample time to eat it. Many teachers see the students’ line cutting as a desire for immediate gratification, but convincing students to give up their time and traditions is a challenge.

“Some teachers get mad at us for cutting, but it’s hard to change,” Ness said.

Unfortunately, another timeless aspect of student culture is the students' inability to throw their trash away. In the rush to get food and set it down on a table, plates, trays and boxes are often dropped or left on the floor, leaving food scattered across campus. This irresponsibility has led to restrictions on where students can and cannot eat.

“Teachers don't leave trash on the tables as students do,” Victor F. White Master Teacher David Brown said.

“If students can learn to clean up after themselves, they might be granted more privileges.”

Students often advocate for boxed lunches in pro-

ALL SMILES A large group of students react to a dropped tray, while another group stays seated while clapping.

hibited areas because they may need to study, do homework or prefer a quieter environment. Teachers, however, can eat wherever they want. But their privileges are backed up by their reputation, unlike with students.

“Adults have a little bit more awareness about those things and take care of their own trash and police their own areas, whereas students kind of eat and run,” Leneau said.

When moving food, spills are inevitable, but some happen in dramatic fashion. Another of the Great Hall’s traditions is to clap and cheer for anyone who makes an example of how not to carry food in the middle of the cafeteria.

Some teachers find the response excessive, and similar to what he thinks of Friday assemblies, Brown believes this tradition contributes to an increasingly rowdy student body. He thinks there should be a place for order and calm in the Great Hall.

“It's just immaturity, looking for any little diversion that's out of the ordinary to celebrate,” Brown said. “I think it's gotten [worse] over the years.”

Although the tradition may put students on the spot, their embarrassment brings other students and teachers closer. Many find it funny, or even a reminder of their school years.

“I think it's humorous,” Moody said. “I went as an undergrad to Texas A&M, and the tradition there in the food halls is if something drops, immediately all of the students yell ‘Pick it up!’ It's extremely embarrassing. Hundreds of people will be yelling good-naturedly at you, in unison, to pick it up.”

More than anything, both teachers and students recognize the ability the lunch period has to bring people together, with tradition at its heart.

“In fifth and sixth grade, we would try to finish lunch as quickly as we could and go out and play manhunt,” senior Hudson Brown said. “But now, lunch is a time for me and my friends to talk about the day and to escape from class. Things happen in the lunchroom, for instance, today we had someone drop a tray, and everyone stood up and gave a standing ovation. And it’s those little things that I'll look back at St. Mark’s and remember.”

PHOTOS / WINSTON LIN

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SNEAKER REVIEWS

New fall kicks With the fall season in full swing, many sneaker companies across the board are releasing new models, colors and silhouettes to choose from everyday. These three picks are my favorite fall releases.

By Vikram Singh

New Balance

Nike

New Balance

USA ‘C- Note’

Dunk Low ‘Industrial Blue’

WRPD ‘Sea Salt Blacktop’

The 2023 remodeling of the collab between Concepts and New Balance has culminated in the 998 Made in USA ‘C-Note’, and it is certainly reminiscent of their previous collabs together. This was released to celebrate their 10th Anniversary and is inspired by the design of a one-hundred dollar bill.

The shoe caters more to a lifestyle runner and boasts an off-white mesh upper with soft suede tones on the overlay with reflective accents along the vamp and back tab. A white leather ‘N’ for New Balance takes the center quarter panel, while Concepts branding is added to the heel overlay in olive green suede. The sneaker rides atop a cream-colored ABZORB midsole, accented with an unexpected pop of royal blue at the forefoot.

This shoe's silhouette is one we have come to know and associate with New Balance during their recent resurgence in sneaker populartiy. It is truly a timeless silhouette that is perfect for casual occasions and everyday wearing, making it the perfect lifestyle shoe. This colorway features a dynamic range of different shades which although alone seem like they would clash individually, they, in fact, come together and flow seamlessly throughout the shoe.

The shoe is made out of a mainly suede-leather material, making it both look and feel incredibly high quality as well as ensuring long-lasting durability.

The shoe sits at a price tag at about $220-230 depending on the retailer you purchase from. Although this does sit on the higher side, I personally think its worth every penny as it can be worn everyday, feels and looks high quality and has incredible durability.

If you're in the market for a lifestyle shoe — one that you could wear everyday; one that can be worn with every outfit; one with a classic silhouette — look no further than the 998 Made in USA ‘C-Note’ from New Balance and Concepts.

The Nike Dunk Lows have been around since the beginning of sneaker culture, and they persist today as one of the most easily recognizable and widely worn shoes. Nike’s newest colorway release, ‘Industrial Blue’ is built with a crisp white leather upper, contrasted by stark overlays of contrasting black and blue tints. An airbrush effect is applied to the signature Swoosh, featuring a dominant color of blue which fades out into black along the edges of their trademark logo. On the tongue, traditional Nike branding appears, with the underpinning being a durable cupsole with white sidewalls and a grippy black rubber outsole.

The Nike Dunk Lows, which have been successful for a while, are enjoying large amounts of popularity now because of to the recent obesession with the classic ‘Panda Dunks,’ which sport a simple black and white color scheme on the classic form of the Dunk Lows. However, as the Pandas are increasing in popularity, more and more people are looking for ways to rock a similar style but still attempt to differenciate themselves from others, and this is the perfect way to do it. From the slight difference in colorway, making it a different shoe but still keeping the color minimal as opposed to obnoxious, to the very unique style of the swoosh, this shoe is the perfect way to standout, but still have style.

This price tag of this shoe is around $115, placing it at a fairly affordable price especially in an incredibly competitive market not only in sneakers for general, but also for this model, giving it a great bang for its buck.

If you’re looking to purchase a shoe whose style is fairly "in," with a reasonable price tag and unique but not obnoxious look, the new 'Industrial Blue' colorway from Nike’s classic Dunk Lows should not just be high on your list, they should be your first pick.

A Great Chaos; Beautiful Madness Artist: Ken Carson Best song: Singapore Length: 47 Minutes

Overall Rating

9.4/10

The New Balance WRPD Runners have recently been unveiled in their newest colorway: ‘Sea Salt Blacktop’. The shoe debuts a new silhouette that emphasizes curved lines and exaggerated proportions, making it quite the statement piece with its bold and in-your-face appearance. The upper portion of the shoe is crafted from airy white mesh with wavy overlays in hairy grey suede. Exterior branding is limited to a printed black ‘N’ logo on the quarter panel. The sneaker rides atop a bulky FuelCell midsole, fitted with a medial stability post and supported by a durable rubber outsole that wraps up the toe and extends past the heel.

New Balance’s WRPD Runners are the newest addition in the company’s resurgence from these last few years, but this model is different from many of the releases that brought them back into the limelight of sneaker culture. For this model, they abandoned the more classic frame, and instead opted for a more bulky appearance. The sleek colorway of this shoe is one of my favorites I have seen on a shoe from New Balance, especially for the Fall season. Additionally, the nice mix of beige, off-white and cream, with the stark contrast of the black ‘N’, this shoe can be styled with almost any outfit and will not prove to limit the clothes you can wear in order to don a nice and cohesive outfit.

This shoe sits right around $200, placing it on the more expensive side in part due to its being a new model. However for me personally, the price, although a bit steep, is justified due to its uniqueness and comfort.

For those of you in the market for a running shoe that can still be worn everyday with any outfit and are also not afraid to be unique and standout in any room you are in, the The New Balance WRPD Runner and yourself, will surely be a match made in heaven.

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Friday, October 27, 2023

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Staff Editorial

Student Newspaper of St. Mark’s School of Texas 10600 Preston Road Dallas, Texas 75230 214-346-8000 EDITORIAL BOARD Editor-in-Chief Zack Goforth Managing Editors Nolan Marcus Grayson Redmond Digital Editor Ben Adams Editorial Director Aaron Augustine Focus Editors Linyang Lee Dawson Yao Design Director Noah Cathey Photo Editor Zachary Bashour SECTION EDITORS Issues Arjun Poi Hilton Sampson Academics Oliver Peck Joseph Sun Life Matthew Hofmann Akash Manickam Sports Lawrence Gardner Neil Yepuri Assistant Digital Editor Will Clifford Head Writers Vikram Singh Eric Yi Staff Tejas Allada, Weston Chance, Joshua Goforth, Chris Guffey, Kevin Ho, Michael Jimenez, Rohan Kakkar, Ronit Kongara, William Kozoman, Winston Lin, Doan Nguyen, Christian Warner, Andrew Ye, Kayden Zhong Adviser Jenny Dial Creech Headmaster David Dini Audience The ReMarker is intended for the students, faculty, staff and alumni community of St. Mark’s School of Texas.

Press run is 4,000 copies, with more than 2,600 of those mailed out to alumni, courtesy of the school’s offices of External Affairs, Development and Alumni divisions.

Opinions and Editorials Editorials represent the views of the Editorial Board and are not necessarily those of the Board of Trustees, administration, faculty or staff. All personal opinion columns, bylined with the writer’s name and photo, represent the views of that writer only and not necessarily those of the ReMarker, Board of Trustees, administration, faculty or staff.

Online www.smremarker.com Instagram @remarkernewspaper Reader Involvement The ReMarker encourages reader input through guest columns and story ideas. Contact the appropriate editor for suggestions.

Letters to the Editor Letters to the editor are welcome and encouraged.

They must be typed, signed and not exceed 300 words.

Submissions are not accepted.

Membership The ReMarker maintains membership in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, New York City, NY; National Scholastic Press Association, Minneapolis, MN; and the Interscholastic League Press Conference, Austin.

ABSENT The current participation grading system incentivizes students to engage in hasty, unreflective contributions during discussions, which leads to many students to disengage, opting to mentally withdraw rather than actively participate.

PHOTO / WINSTON LIN

Participation: a formula that needs more guidelines and transparency

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acet groans and loud cheers echoed around the Harkness Table. For seniors, it is the last day of the quarter — the last marking period for grades sent to colleges — and with it, participation grades.

Either an unwanted gut punch or a welcome respite, these last-minute participation grades can be the final shove needed to achieve the next letter grade or the knockout blow to students trying to get into college.

The lack of clarity regarding participation is unfair to students.

Teachers are not given a set guideline to determine how participation grades are to be conducted, which leads to many discrepancies between different classes within the same department. Some teachers may believe that simply not disrupting class warrants credit, while others require significant input from students.

These differences leave students feeling confused as they struggle to understand what standard they are being held to.

Participation grades lie in an ambiguous space; some classes put much emphasis on them, while others have none at all. What may achieve adequate credit in one class, will often not be enough for students enrolled in the same course but with a different teacher, which in turn causes a lack of standardized difficulty even within the same course.

Interdepartmental standards are even more chaotic, with math classes traditionally putting very low emphasis on participation grades, while some social science and fine arts classes consider participation to be nearly 50 percent of the cumulative grade.

Much like how test scores are used as an incentive to encourage students to study, participation grades

encourage students to over-participate and mindlessly babble in hopes of scoring higher, in turn degrading both the school’s intellectual curiosity and overall classroom discussion quality. When discussions are actively being graded, students are enticed to prattle in the hopes of earning points, rather than engaging in an authentic intellectual conversation.

The shift from meaningful discussion and participation towards more point-grabbing behaviors distorts the education experience and fosters a mindset where quantity is superior to quality.

Similar to how teachers are not given a guideline for how to conduct participation grades, they are not given a timeline for how often they should be completed either. Some classes with participation grades every day seem to overinflate the grade book, while others with oncea-quarter entries pose a nasty surprise to the unprepared. A standardized loose timeline for participation grades would go a long way towards allowing students the opportunity to manage their engagement more effectively. It would also provide a clear framework, ensuring that participation grades are not only consistent across courses but also align with the pacing of the curriculum.

Participation grades are decided nearly entirely subjectively by the teacher, causing potential personal disputes and bias to negatively reflect on a student’s score. This poses a problem, especially in social science classes where students will attempt to adopt ideas and positions they believe will earn more support and thus more points from teachers, inevitably limiting the diversity of perspectives and inhibiting genuine conversation. This subjec-

tive grading encourages students to conform to the ideas and beliefs of their teachers, rather than critically engaging with and arriving at their conclusions, which blocks the growth of critical thinking skills and derives the community of valued diverse opinions.

While a nuisance in the short term, the long-lasting impacts of the current system regarding participation grades are most troubling. Due to how the current system incentivizes an overabundance of low-quality comments and inputs, gradually the accepted standard for what constitutes productive participation may be eroded. This normalization of superficial engagement can have a long-standing negative impact on the school’s intellectual life.

The solution to participation grades is quite simple. First and foremost, providing clear guidelines and rubrics for participation assessment is paramount. These should outline the specific criteria for earning credit, emphasizing quality over quantity of contributions. Such guidelines can serve as a compass for both teachers and students, ensuring a fair and consistent approach across different classes and departments.

Additionally, implementing a standardized timeline for participation grades is crucial. This would establish a predictable rhythm for students, preventing last-minute surprises and allowing students to proactively manage their engagement throughout the course.

The current system is untenable and the cause of much grief, but with a few quick minor changes, the administration can restore the integrity of participation grades and provide the student body with invaluable transparency.

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Friday, October 27, 2023

GUEST COLUMN

Complex history, current realities of the Israeli-Hamas conflict

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E d i to i ra l s

COMMENTARY

The struggles of senior year: the bird that fights

Aaron Augustine Editorials Director

PHOTOS / COURTESY JORDAN FELDMAN, CREATIVE COMMONS CONFLICT Israel (top) and the Gaza Strip (bottom) are the center of conflict.

Said conflict has cost countless lives on both sides and led to much desolation.

H

Jordan Feldman Guest Columnist

istory. It all ties back to history, and it always will tie back to the history and constant struggle between Jews, Muslims, Israelis and Palestinians. If you want to be well-versed on what’s going on in the war that Israel recently declared on Hamas due to the unprecedented attacks in Southern Israel, you must know the history of both sides and how they got to this point.

Failed peace agreements. Wars. Occupations. Intifadas. Families being displaced from the homes they believe are rightful to them. It’s been going on since Israel was founded as a state in 1948. But actually, it’s been longer than that. More than half of the Torah (the Old Testament) takes place in Canaan, which is now current day Israel.

This was the Jews' holy land, which they were later persecuted and killed for by the Romans. Under Ottoman life, Jews prospered — making up a small percentage of Palestine’s population— up until the mid 19th century, where hate began to grow for the Jews.

While the Jewish population dwindled, the Arab population grew and gave rise to thousands of thousands families and peoples who took home in the land of Palestine, creating prosperous cities and lives under the Sultanate.

Eventually, in 1917 with the Balfour declaration, the British Government called for a national home for the

Jewish people in Palestine, which was eventualy established after the Holocaust in 1948.

Now, you have a problem where millions of Jews are migrating to their “promised land,” which they’ve dreamed about for thousands of years, and people living in their own promised land. Countless Palestinians are displaced, leaving the West Bank a true point of contention for years to come, and currently, a far-right government in Israel increases their presence in what is supposed to be a future state of Palestine, according to the Oslo Accords of 1993. After multiple land agreements turned down by Arab leaders, wars fought between people on whose land it is, and much aggression from both sides to get the other people out of what they believe is rightfully theirs, we find ourselves where we currently are.

While I don’t have time to go into a deeper history (and believe me, this is barely scratching the surface of the conflict,) I encourage you to educate yourself before you get into arguments or take sides.

Hamas, a terrorist group that gained control of the Gaza Strip during elections in 2006 and later violently disconnected its ties with the Palestinian National Authority, has never accepted the peace with Israel and has always called for the complete destruction of the Jewish state purely because of the Jews who live there.

They incite violence. They take hostages. They put the innocent Palestinian families living in the Gaza Strip at risk by using UN partitioned supplies to strengthen their insurgency and use their people as human shields to gain traction. It’s not right. It’s not humane.

It’s tearing up Gaza’s society.

When it comes to the death of inno-

cent civilians, there are no sides to take or people to call “right.” Whether the teenagers murdered by terrorists at the Re’im music festivals or the Palestinian families caught in the crossfire of Israeli airstrikes, both sides are taking massive amounts of casualties that are only accredited to the bitter history between the people.

Whether the land is Israel or Palestine or both to you, both people have the right to exist there. In their homes.

As we diverge from the possibility of a two-state solution more and more as time goes on, hearts around the world yearn for civilians, people who should never be a point of convention in a war. It hurts me to see more and more people dying on both sides for a conflict that both Palestinians and Israelis should not have to suffer through.

Due to the sad fact that Hamas is so deeply embedded into Gazan and Palestinian society, Israel has a hard approach to take.

Hamas has built up Gaza over the last 17 years at the expense of all the citizens who live in their land of Palestine as their ancestral home. It’s hard to find a strategy against a terrorist organization who builds armies around their society.

I urge everyone to read the news.

Read different news sources, don’t just get your news from one source. Read books. Read history, watch videos and create your own opinions.

Know the difference between the Israeli-Palestinian struggle in the West Bank with occupation battles and border struggles and the Israel-Hamas struggle, a true war against terror. Now more than ever, educate yourself on what sets these two conflicts apart and how you can become a leader in your community.

With the pressures of senior year, nothing has quite stood out to me the way an old Doctor Who episode has.

The episode follows the Doctor as he, quite literally, struggles against death itself. A reference that was particularly striking was the telling of a tale from the Brothers Grimm regarding a king and his advisor.

In this tale, the king asked his advisor how long eternity lasts, to which his advisor responded with a parable.

He described a diamond mountain, a mile high and a mile wide, which happened to be the nesting place of a small bird. Every 100 years, this bird would make a trip to the mountain to sharpen its beak and slowly whittle away the diamond. The advisor claimed that after the mountain was cut to dust by the bird, the first second of eternity had passed.

So, what’s the point?

Well, the bird encapsulates the core of what it means to be human; the bird is a struggler. In the face of this insurmountable diamond wall, the bird grinds its beak against the stone, superficially making no change, but after millions of years slowly overcoming its challenge.

I see in this bird a quality I want to embody, the ability to struggle. It is a pattern that is repeated in nearly every life: we struggle, we fight, we fail and the cycle repeats. The bird does not stop though, it picks itself up and hits the wall again, and again, and again.

For myself, that diamond wall is a lot less literal. My wall is one of college applications, essays and the general responsibilities of life. It is a personal wall and the struggle against it is hard. Throwing yourself at it every day to seemingly no results is both exhausting and discouraging, but when I find myself in doubt, I think of the bird. Like the bird, I continue to claw at the wall knowing that however seemingly small the step is, it is one step closer to breaking through to the other side.

The bird's relentless determination serves as a poignant reminder that the essence of being human lies in our capacity to face challenges head-on. That is the history of human society itself. We struggled against the dark and made fire; we struggled against hunger and developed agriculture; with modern technology and medicine, we struggle against death itself performing miracles that 100 years ago would seem the act of the divine. We are the inheritors of generations of human struggle. Pushes for wider access to education, fights against social injustices, battles against economic inequality, each struggle different, but all meaningful.

The metaphor of the bird and the diamond mountain resonates deeply. It symbolizes the power of sustained effort and the triumph of human will. As I navigate this challenging year, I keep the spirit of the struggler, knowing that I will come out the other side.

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Friday, October 27, 2023

TOP 5

Fall Sports Moments

As the fall season comes to a close, a look back on some of the most memorable moments before the SPC championships.

PHOTO / TIGER YANG SIDELINES Junior defensive lineman Aidan Lannen watches the Lions play from the sidelines, arm in a brace, as he recovers from an injury.

Athletics program handles injuries in multi-step process

PHOTO / WINSTON LIN 1: SPUR OF THE MOMENT Thanks to the work of Mrs. Santosuosso and the administration, the Spurs returned to gameday under the leadership of Student Council on Sept 1.

The football team has experienced a wave of unfortunate injuries. Here's how we work to prevent and recover from those ailments.

C

areers destroyed.

Lives altered forever.

Dreams ripped away, even before having the chance to realize them.

A new story begins every week, where an athlete suddenly pulls a hamstring, sprains an ankle, or faces an even more daunting injury.

While some injuries can not be avoided, the time spent recovering or the severity of the injury itself can be reduced based on how athletes care for their bodies. Recovery is just as important as training for any sport, and Kevin Dilworth, Head Strength & Conditioning Coach, believes it all starts in the weight room.

“The significance and foundation of sports performance is injury prevention,” Dilworth said.

“That is what the weight room is for. Yes, the weight room makes you stronger, but it also stabilizes your body so you can perform at the top level.”

Over the season, the cumulative wear and tear on an athlete’s body can significantly impact their performance. Dilworth believes the weight room is pivotal in increasing athletes’ chances of maintaining their performance throughout the season.

While the weight room plays an essential role in lowering chances for injury, injuries do still occur. When they do, it’s crucial to have a systematic approach to diminish the time it takes for the athlete to return to the field.

“I’m very connected with the trainers on returning players,” Dilworth said. “If the injury is minor, we’ll see what you can do in the weight room. If you can push, press, and pull without pain, I am free to let you return to the field.”

Though many injuries can be addressed in the weight room, more severe ones need extensive rehab training with the athletic trainers Matt Hjerstedt and Natalie Bumpass.

“Phase one starts up with coach Dilworth,” Hjerstedt said.

“The second thing is us trying to identify the problem areas. It might be a biomechanical area that you had a previous injury on, and we will see what we can do from a strengthening standpoint or flexibility standpoint to try and prevent any future injuries in that area.”

When sustaining an injury, an athlete must understand when to push through and when to sit out. Hjerstedt follows an explicit protocol when helping the athlete make that decision.

“There are three levels,” Hjerstedt said. “There is the medical level, which relates to having equal strength and range of motion. If you hit those two criteria, then you are clear. The second level is whether you are able to protect yourself and if it is safe.

The third level is are you reacclimated back into the sport. Are you going to be strong enough to use your body to compete at the same level as before?”

Both Hjerstedt and Dilworth play integral roles in an athlete’s recovery, but in certain situations, seeking outside medical assistance is important as well.

“If somebody is really injured, they go see the doctor,” Hjerstedt said. “They come back to us and maybe go into physical therapy outside, but we’re also focusing on what their injured body part is.”

As an athlete works toward a full recovery, they begin to transition from outside rehab back to the trainers and Dilworth.

“As athletes spend less time with us, they spend more time with Dilworth,” Hjerstedt said.

“We hybrid it with a slow transition to Dilworth where they work the other big muscles, then we move out onto the field to have, for example, a non-contact practice for football.”

Hjerstedt believes there are imperative ways in which an athlete can mitigate the amount of injuries on their body.

“The biggest thing they can do is play multiple sports,” Hjerstedt said. “If you have a primary sport while also competing in other sports, it is the number one thing you can do to prevent injuries and become a better athlete.”

Another critical aspect of injury prevention is giving the body sufficient rest.

“You can’t overtrain and not overload one specific body part,” Hjerstedt said. “When the younger guys enter the upper school, they are excited and want to throw themselves all into one sport. They might play tennis for an hour at St. Mark’s every day, then go to tennis lessons three days a week, then play some extra tournaments on the weekend. All that volume adds up, and when you get too much volume in a growing body, something will end up breaking.”

Though injuries greatly affect the individual, there is also a significant impact on the individual’s team, which is why Dilworth wholeheartedly believes in the next man up mindset.

“When your number is called and a teammate goes down, there should not be any hesitation,” Dilworth said. “If there is hesitation, you have not been paying close attention to detail or been in the weight room. You need to be prepared to step up.”

PHOTO / MEIMEI GAO 2: SAFE TRAVELS The water polo team took part and placed 6th in the Villa Park Classic in California on Sept 22. Usually, these California games are where the team faces their toughest competition.

PHOTO / WINSTON LIN 3: LIFT-OFF AND TOUCHDOWN The Lions football team roared out to a hot start to their season, taking down Cistercian at home on Sept 1.

PHOTO / WINSTON LIN 4: DOWN BUT NOT OUT The volleyball team won their match at home against Casady in an exciting comeback on Oct 13.

PHOTO / ZACHARY BASHOUR 5: HOME FIELD The Lions picked up another huge win at the start of their season versus John Cooper at home on Sept 8.

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A blessing or a curse Recruiting and sports go hand in hand. It is often seen on the collegiate stage, but it truly begins in high school. As high schools begin to ramp up on recruitment, many people are worried about the fairness of athletic competition, and whether it will affect our athletic program.

THE DECISION A student struggles to decide on their future in athletics and academics PHOTO / WINSTON LIN

By Lawrence Gardner and Tejas Allada

A

t any given sporting event, it becomes obvious. The Lions defensive line squares up against an offensive line boasting athletes twice their size and with excessive talent.

The basketball team faces off against multiple D1 prospects who are headed to blueblood schools across the country.

It’s clear —one school has recruited the best athletes it can find, while the other is working with its current student body.

Whether it’s fair or not to recruit students solely for athletic purposes is an age-old argument, but regardless of where one sits on the issue, it’s important to acknowledge that other schools do recruit athletes and St. Mark’s does not. This affects competition in various ways.

“The game plan is different for a team that recruits versus a team that doesn’t,” head basketball coach Greg Guiler said. “When I schedule teams that I know are actively giving scholarships to kids, I know that I’m putting a team like that on the schedule. We know that we’re playing against a team that will be a lot better than Cistercian or ESD, for example.”

Despite a school’s recruitment efforts, Guiler views them from the same lens he does for every school.

“Our scouting report doesn’t change,” Guiler said.

“Our reports will be based on their talent and have

nothing to do with whether or not they are recruiting.”

An additional issue that arises from recruiting is the potential mistreatment between different sports. St. Mark’s places a strong emphasis on providing equal treatment among all athletic programs.

“St. Mark’s is not the type of school that values one sport ahead of other sports,” Guiler said. “And that’s why in a lot of schools, a sport like tennis, for instance, would not be valued because tennis tends to get less attention. But at St. Mark’s, tennis gets just as much support and love from the school as any other sport.”

Despite the potential benefits of recruitment, it is imperative for the school to select students capable of managing the workload.

“We’re not going to put kids in a position where they’re just going to sink academically, we want them to be able to swim and flourish,” Guiler said.

“If a student is not the world’s greatest athlete, he can still have a nice niche here. If you can get the work done academically, then we are not going to create an alternative academic track for you because you’re a good athlete.”

While athletics have maintained a high level of competitiveness in comparison to other schools, the athletic program has taken a different approach, built around the school’s core values, in regard to athletic success.

“If an athletic program is trying to put numbers

on banners, and that’s the main goal in how an athletic program is measured, then adding more talent is going to lead to more victories,” Guiler said.

“But the goal of our athletic program is to help boys become men 20 years from now. I don’t think that scholarships really affect our day to day approach to coaching and trying to run the best athletic programs. ” Associate Director of Athletics Joshua Friesen said the school is doing everything it can to field competitive teams while maintaining its integrity.

“Whether that’s academically, athletically, or in fine arts, we’re always trying to bring in the best kids we can,” Friesen said. “We recruit applications, and from that pool, we look to get the most well-rounded kids possible.”

While the school is most known for its academic excellence, prospective students often possess a diverse range of talents in addition to their academic abilities. A student’s unique talent, apart from their academic achievements, will alter the school’s approach in introducing them to the campus.

“If an applicant is an exceptional student at his school and an excellent athlete, then they might come to us in the athletic department,” Friesen said. “We show them our facilities, introduce them to coaches, and introduce them to kids that play their sports. Hopefully, they’re really strong students, then they’ll apply, and if they get in, we try to make sure they choose to come to St. Mark’s. It’s a multi-level process.”

Varsity teams giving back to the community

By Rohan Kakkar Both the varsity volleyball and lacrosse teams host clinics for younger Marksmen to try out a new sport and develop their skills. This reinforces the strong school tradition of giving back to the community.

For lacrosse, this consists of a four-practice fall session that ends with a game against ESD. Meanwhile, volleyball runs a two-day clinic over the summer for middle schoolers, with one day for fifth and sixth graders and another for seventh and eighth graders.

These programs give older Marksmen an opportunity to help pass on their passion for their sport to the next generation, while also helping to remind players of their roots in the game and their joy for it as well.

For the volleyball clinic, junior Owen Ackerman primarily coordinates the event; however, all varsity

players are encouraged to attend.

“We got a game plan going over the summer and got confirmation from [Athletic Director] Sean Lissemore,” Ackerman said. “I was expecting around 60 total kids, and we got over 100 kids signed up, which was pretty crazy.”

The number of kids who signed up for the volleyball clinic is tremendous for the growth of the game.

Which follows a trend of volleyball rapidly spreading throughout the country.

“Boys volleyball is a tiny sport, but it really is growing,” Ackerman said. “There are many highschools in America that have thought about boys volleyball. So to have 100 kids sign up, I think that really shows a lot about how this game is growing and what it really could become.”

Lacrosse is the only sport that requires its players to help coach younger players, a new addition to the

program by Coach Trey Whitty. Whitty has continued the practice of helping out younger players of the sport at his previous schools. Still, the overall experience gained by the players who run the clinics is worth it every time.

“I’ve experienced these clinics many times, and everybody wins,” Whitty said. “The parents love seeing the older boys with the younger boys.”

For the culture of the school, these efforts and programs are crucial examples of what is preached daily in classes and meetings: giving back to the community. For the lacrosse team, implementing these clinics is an easy way to promote the daily lessons from around the campus into action.

“It fits St. Mark’s because that’s what we do here,” Whitty said. “We take care of each other. Our older guys give back to the younger guys, and all that stuff fits who we are.”

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Gunawardena dives into international competition He’s the next big thing in Sri Lankan Swimming. And he’s just getting his feet wet.

BUTTERFLY Ilan Gunawardena swims a lap in butterfly. His tall frame and large hand size are both key factors to his speed and power in the pool.

By Neil Yepuri and Winston Lin Ilan Gunawardena can do it all.

The freshman plays basketball, runs track, and most recently, has been a stand-out on the Lions football team.

He plays piano, the bass, and is even the president of the Class of 2027.

According to his mother, he’s “played every sport under the sun.”

But Gunawardena’s prowess and potential isn’t fulfilled on the field, court or track.

Instead, he dominates in the pool. At age 14, he will be representing the Sri Lankan national team at the Asian Swimming Championships in the Philippines this upcoming February and March.

And he’s just getting started.

“I mean, he does so many different things, and he’s good at so many different things,” his training coach, Ross Myers, said. “He is a generational talent when it comes to swimming – he’s unlimited as far as having potential.”

But Ilan’s journey in swimming has not been a typical one. Having learned to swim at age 2, he’s been on a track to compete for a majority of his life.

“I did my first competition when I was 4,” Ilan said.

Ilan’s early start in competitive swimming comes as no surprise to those who know his family. His mother, Chantal Gunawardena, was a swimmer for Sri Lanka, and her cousin was a three-time olympian. So, when Ilan took to the pool, it was natural that he excelled.

“My mother held all the national records for women in Sri Lanka until she was about 15,” Ilan said. “She introduced me to the sport and she’s inspired a lot of what I’m trying to do today.”

When young swimmers choose to swim competitively, they typically take the route of joining a club, which can offer a high level of training from a young age, as well as peers and friends in an individual sport.

However, these clubs can also be restrictive, with their massive time commitments sometimes limiting their members to focus solely on swimming, instead of trying other sports.

“The burnout rate for swimmers who start really young is by age 10 or 12,” Mrs. Gunawardena said. “It’s just a very long journey as a swimmer — it’s different

to some other sports in that [one’s level of success] depends on how many hours you spend in the pool.”

But, to this point, Ilan has avoided joining a club, instead opting to train with his own coaches, Alexandra Stevens and Ross Myers, at the Park Cities YMCA. This training structure has allowed Ilan some freedom in the sports and extracurriculars he chooses.

While a more rigorous or swimming-only approach to Ilan’s development could be taken, his mother believes that other sports provide value to a budding star.

“The reason [that freedom] was allowed that is to have those choices and the opportunity to find out what you’re really good at,” Mrs. Gunawardena said.

“I didn’t want him to sacrifice all of the experiences of team sports - the camaraderie and the community.

Just being at St. Mark’s has been phenomenal for him in terms of being part of something bigger than him.”

But, at some point, true greatness is formed through dedication. So, in order to achieve his highest aspirations, Ilan will need to focus on honing his craft.

“I would say he should narrow [his focus] down to whatever he likes to do,” Myers said. “I think he’s at the age now where he really needs to start focusing on that, because some of the swimmers nowadays are extremely fast – kids in high school are faster than those in college.”

And, Ilan believes that he’s ready to make that decision and commitment, diving headfirst into his national swimming career.

“I’m going to start really focusing in on swimming — I’m gonna try and go far in swimming versus other sports,” Ilan said. “But I haven’t really made that jump in focusing only on swimming. I think this [competition] will be a big part of that.”

Ilan’s growth has also been aided by Stevens, who is his main head coach. She recently accepted a job as the Women’s Swimming and Diving coach at Princeton University. Stevens was able to recognize Ilan’s passion for the sport very quickly.

“Ilan started swimming with the [YMCA] not really knowing what his place was in the sport or what his times even really meant,” Stevens said. “He didn’t see the talent that I saw in him. He tried multiple sports, but he always managed to find his way back to the pool.”

Ilan’s swimming journey has been unorthodox, so, it’s only natural that his journey to the Swimming Championships has been of the same ilk - unexpected.

PHOTO / WINSTON LIN

Ilan and his parents, who are both from Sri Lanka, took a six-week long vacation to the island country this summer, with the beach and family reunions in mind.

But, as Stevens said, Ilan found his way back to the pool.

“While we were on vacation, [Ilan] swam in the nationals there in Sri Lanka,” Mrs. Gunawardena said.

“It’s not something he trained very hard for, but he said, ‘Well, let’s go and see what it’s like’.”

The preliminary events in Sri Lanka went smoothly for Ilan, giving him the chance to progress throughout his vacation.

So, as the final meet approached, Ilan was training often, inspired by the prospect of performing well at a national level. And, he delivered.

“I placed in the top three at the junior national meet, which qualified me for the national team,” Ilan said. “That meant that I qualified for this meet — the Asian Swimming Championships.”

Because of Ilan’s times in the national meet, he was not required to attend the trials for the national team, which happened last month. His times held up, which means he is an official Sri Lankan swimmer at age 14.

“Representing Sri Lanka, especially since they’re less known, is really special for me,” Ilan said. “I get to represent something that’s unique to me.”

This massive feat for Ilan, though, is just the beginning. He’s got his sights set on an even bigger competition — the Asian Games, and also hopes to one day represent the United States as a swimmer. Ilan is able to compete for Sri Lanka because of his dual citizenship, based on his parents being born there.

But, his parents and coaches seem to think that this meet is not the culmination of a long and arduous journey to the top of swimming — rather, they see it as a next step in a progression forwards, limited only by Ilan’s willpower.

“I believe Ilan can be a top level, Division I talent,” Stevens said. “He is an incredible kid with a bright future and I can’t wait to see how far he goes in and out of the water.”

And, Myers seems to echo the sentiment that Gunawardena can take swimming extremely far, using an unusual analogy to get his point across. “[In terms of his potential], if you want to use Toy Story as an example, think of Buzz Lightyear: To infinity and beyond,” Myers said. “I mean, there’s no telling how fast this kid could go.”

Cricket finds home at St. Mark’s through new club

By Michael Jimenez On Thursday, Sept. 21, students and faculty packed into Spencer Gym for the club fair.

And, for the first time, Cricket Club was seen among the many clubs that were presenting.

With a passion for a sport that sees almost no recognition in America, club president and senior Sharang Vyas was inspired.

Growing up, cricket wasn’t always a part of Vyas’ life. It wasn’t until recently that Vyas really gained an interest in the sport, amidst the Cricket World Cup. “My dad inspired me to start the club,” Vyas said.

“I never got too into it until recently, when I started watching games with him.”

Vyas and his new club saw a huge success at the club fair. With over 50 members signed up and upwards of 20 attending the first meeting, the sport has caught the attention of many upper school students.

“A lot of people showed up to the first meeting to learn about the sport, before we went out and play,” Vyas said.

While the club’s current focus remains on educating students about and watching the game, Vyas plans to begin playing amongst members or with other people in the greater Dallas area later in the year.

“I kind of wanted to get people introduced first and then around December we’re going to go out and play,” Vyas said. “It’s not too serious, so I wanted to make it enjoyable for everyone.”

Cricket nowadays is most popular in south Asia, but it has been more and more watched worldwide.

With the introduction of the new cricket league in the United States, Major League Cricket, and their new Dallas team, the Texas Super Kings, Vyas hopes that the sport he Sharang Vyas Cricket Club President loves will finally get the recognition it deserves.

“Hopefully in 10 to 15 years the sport will grow big enough to where people will watch and schools all over the country will have teams,” Vyas said.

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HANDS ON On a windy day, Flaherty holds down the football to ensure it does not fall over.

PHOTO / SEBASTIAN GONZALEZ

The art of coaching: what makes a winner

Throughout the season, pressure falls on the head coach’s shoulder’s to understand the best way to lead their team. With so much responsibility, the way a coach chooses to lead his team can be the difference between success or failure.

By Neil Yepuri and Michael Jimenez It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement and anticipation of a sports game.

Sidelines full of joy and struggle.

The bright lights, the fans, the wealth of athletic talent on display.

But when emotions become overwhelming, who’s supposed to keep things calm?

Who keeps a team focused on their goal?

According to head football coach Harry Flaherty, that burden largely falls on him and his coaching staff.

“It’s difficult during the course of a competition to remain totally calm at all times, but I feel that my purpose during the game is to continuously direct the players’ attention to what they need to do next in the game,” Flaherty said.

Flaherty, who is in his third season as head coach, emphasizes the importance of keeping a level head on the sidelines and focusing on what comes next.

“There’ll be plenty of time to review when we’re watching film the next day,” Flaherty said, “But during the course of the game, there can be an emotional roller coaster that takes place - and I view the role of a coach as one of steadying the ship and focusing on the next play.”

The role of a coach, as Flaherty refers to it, has undergone significant changes over the past decades in sports. Aside from the typical developmental and leadership pieces of the job, a coach nowadays must be able to tap into a player’s mental state, helping them reach their fullest potential.

“Before games, in the locker room, Coach reminds us of how hard we have worked and how far we have come at that point,” starting quarterback and senior Jimmy Francis said. “He makes sure we know that we can and

should play at a high level and that he’s proud of the team.”

Francis, who took over the mantle of starting quarterback this year, believes that his best is brought out by both lofty goals and a strong base of support when he plays, but places more stock in the latter.

“Some degree of tough love fueled by high expectations is beneficial [in game],” Francis said. “But, at the same time, lots of positive motivation and reminders that my coach trusts and believes in my abilities goes a long way for me —with words and actions.”

The role of a coach, however, is also a balancing act.

The line between calming and ineffective, or between inspirational and overbearing, is sometimes worn down by the heat of a competition, requiring a coach to be acutely aware of the different aspects of each game.

“I think it all depends on the circumstances,” Flaherty said. “No team is exactly the same every week.

And no situation is exactly the same every week. So, there are times where our guys need encouragement, and there are times where they need a little motivation to be ready to play their best.”

As coaches try to manage a game, they often develop their own methods and attitudes to project onto their teams.

Flaherty, for example, believes that a short-term approach is most effective when moving his players towards success.

“We talk to our players about treating each play like it’s the only play that matters,” Flaherty said. “I think that’s what really good sports teams do. They’re not surprised when they have success. They’re not overwhelmed.”

But, in competition, the internal factors that affect a team are only one part of the picture. The external factors —the crowd’s raucous noise and chants, the words and actions of the competition and their performance

also play a part in a team’s mentality.

A coach’s demeanor can help determine that response.

“We’re trying to block out all of the noise, the successes and the failures that are happening, to figure out what our plan needs to be for the next series or the next play,” said Flaherty. “You also try to block out all of the narratives about who the other team is, how we’re supposed to fare against that team or whether or not we anticipate success against them.”

Coaches also need to balance their leadership between cool confidence and brash cockiness. However, Flaherty points to a team’s practice and play as the best measureof their legitimacy.

“When adversity strikes, people tend to revert to their level of training,” Flaherty said. “When the excitement starts to slip, you’re going to revert to whatever your level of preparation is. So people put a lot of emphasis on whether or not they’re confident or cocky, but in the end, once you take your first hit, those other things kind of start falling away.”

PHOTO / WINSTON LIN GAME-DAY On a Friday night, Flaherty fist-bumps Lower School students on his way towards the field.

The effect of bye weeks on an athlete’s in-game performance

By Eric Yi and Andrew Ye In a sport where every Friday night is filled with bonecrushing tackles and thrilling touchdowns, football players often find themselves needing an off week to recover from rigorous training and tough competition.

However, as teams try to plan their seasons, sometimes a bye week just doesn’t make the cut. That’s been the case the past two years for the Lions.

Bye-weeks are very important to a football player and the team’s overall health. Nitin Jain, M.D., M.S.P.H., believes that it often falls on to medical professionals to tell players that they need to let their bodies recover.

“I think that was the traditional way of thinking,” Jain said. “You just have to work through it, but time and time again, that’s been shown to exacerbate injuries if

you don’t bring it to the attention of the appropriate professionals at the right time.”

With bye-weeks, players can adequately recover and reduce the risk of getting injured or re-injured from the numerous amounts of repetitive hits that they take.

“The recovery time is essential both from the standpoint of your musculoskeletal system as well as [for] concern of a concussion as well,” Jain said.

Bye-weeks aren’t initially planned in the competition calendar, but their benefits are important to the well-being of the football team. Coming off an ankle sprained suffered during a game against Casady, Senior Lucas Blumenthal missed several practices and multiple games.

“If we had a bye week during that time, I would have had the chance to rehab my injury a little better,” Blu-

menthal said. “It’s funny because the game I injured my ankle was the week that we were originally supposed to have a bye-week. If we did have a bye-week during that time, I probably wouldn’t have hurt myself.”

During the football season, having bye-weeks are a huge trade-off for some team members. On one hand, they are able to rest and recover, but at the same time, it takes away from the games they can play, given the limited number of weeks in one season.

“Although most of the time we don’t necessarily need it, it’s a nice thing to have, especially if you’re playing a long season,” Blumenthal said. “We play 10 straight weeks of football, which can be pretty physically taxing.

Having that bye-week in the schedule forces you to take the week off and get a lot healthier and ready to continue the season stronger.”

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Max and Riggs Bean: breakout twin stars The brothers, who joined the school last year, have been instant hits on the football team and in the sophomore class. Their many years of athletic competition together have led to a unique bond.

PHOTO / COURTESY AMY BEAN

PHOTO / CHRISTOPHER GUFFEY

DOUBLE TROUBLE - THEN AND NOW Sophomores Max and Riggs Bean pose for a picture in Dallas Cowboys T-shirts (left). Now, they're attending St. Mark's School of Texas, and are both members of the Lions football team (right). Being twins, the two share a tighter bond than most students at the school.

The Bean brothers have made a profound impact on the community with their positive attitude and football skill. We sat down with the two to discuss the special chemistry they share on and off the field.

Christopher Guffey: What is it like playing alongside your brother throughout the majority of your football careers?

Max Bean: I feel like it always helps. We are always competitive with each other and I feel like that’s one of the most important and biggest motivators.

Whenever he does something well, it really gets me going and makes me try and accomplish more. He’s also really good at lifting my spirits on a bad day or after a bad game, and a lot of people don’t have someone like that.

Riggs Bean: I think that playing together since the very beginning has really brought us closer together as brothers and as best friends. I learn a lot from him, the same way I feel like he learns a lot from me.

He consistently pushes me to be better, and I really appreciate him for that. I also think that sometimes he is like a role model for me, especially when I'm feeling down.

CG: What is it about football that makes you two like it so much?

MB: I think that football requires you to really be in sync with your team, and I really like that aspect of it. Sometimes the team feels more like a family; everyone is super supportive and they all lift each

other up. I think that aspect of football is not something that can be said about a lot of other sports, and it matters the most in football.

RB: I like football a lot because it brings the whole school together. I mean, a lot of people go to football games, and seeing people show up, dressed in different coordinated themes, really improves the culture of the school. And a lot of people talk about the game throughout the week, who’s going to be there, and what the games going to be like, and stuff like that. Friday nights are just a really great time that you can have with your friends, just to chill, play around, and overall have a good time. It’s nice to see how the whole school comes together for football games to support their team.

CG: What have you guys learned from always being there for each other?

MB: Being together on the same team as my brother has really helped build our chemistry, and we’ve gotten to know each other pretty well. Since we started playing in first or second grade, we’ve gotten really close. I’ve learned a lot about him.

RB: I feel like I’ve learned the importance of teamwork because I’ve had him playing football with me when we grew up. We would always throw the ball at each other in our backyard and practice catching and receiving and stuff like that. I think that is really important, and without him being there I wouldn’t have realized how important teamwork is for football.

CG: Why did you guys start playing football in the first place, and why do you keep playing it?

RB: Well, we started in the YMCA when we were really young. We did it at first just to try a new sport, and it really stuck, especially throughout middle school. We got good at it pretty quickly, and we both felt super passionate towards football. I’ve tried other sports, I did tennis in middle school and I’m also doing Track right now, but I feel like football has been around in our lives since day 1, and I don’t see myself not playing it.

CG: Would you say competition between you two in football has ever been an issue?

MB: You would think that competition would be a problem between us, but it’s never really been an issue. Last year during the off-season Riggs got injured, but I never really saw that as an opportunity to get ahead of him physically or in any other way.

I just tried to help him and lift him up in any way I could.

CG: Is there anything specifically that you guys would say you have over others because of your brotherhood and close bond?

RB: Since we’ve been playing flag football in lower school to tackle football now, we’ve really learned to trust each other. Some people on the team may not feel the same way about others, but trusting each other just came natural for us. I mean, we’ve been playing sports together for so long, so we’ve had so much time to build that trust, which is such a crucial part of football.

Water Polo wins state, extends championship streak

By Neil Yepuri The Lions water polo team won its 4th straight state championship on Oct. 14, continuing a streak of dominance over the other schools in the state. But, for the team, it’s just business as usual.

“All three games we played were comfortable wins,” head coach Trenton Calder said.

The team had standout performances from all four grades, which is a testament to the versatility and youth featured in the squad.

“Our team captains, seniors Caleb [Maddox] and Ethan [Gao], really put their foot down and said this is how we're going to win,” Calder said, “and everybody fell in line and kept it going. We had big shots from from junior Leo

[Scheiner] and great stops from sophomore Doan [Nguyen]. Tyson Diep is our only freshmen on the team and made some great plays.”

But, according to Calder, this championship is just a continuation of the team’s recent success and cohesion.

“We went to California a couple weeks ago and really had that aha moment – everything just blossomed for us,” Calder said. “Since that day, the guys have been firing on all cylinders, so it didn't matter who we played right now. We're just a very strong team.”

This winning streak, which has lasted six years when removing the COVID hiatus, is a clear statement of the levels Calder and his staff have brought the Lions to over his time at the school.

Calder, though, believes that the team’s intensetraining enables their massive success.

“I mean, we've consistently said, ‘Guys, you have to understand the little things, the fundamentals that everybody thinks are so boring to do’,” Calder said. “Once you put those little things into perspective of the game, you create that image in practice that you're in a game situation.”

And, because of that training, the team is leaps and bounds over other squads they face.

“You realize how valuable those little things are, and other teams just aren't willing to do that,” Calder said. “And that's where we really excel – doing the little things correctly. That makes the big things a lot more fun.”

PHOTO / COURTESY MEIMEI GAO TRIUMPH The jubiliant Lions pose for a picture after dominating the TISCA State Championships, leading to their fourth straight title.

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ReMarker St. Mark’s School of Texas 10600 Preston Road, Dallas, TX 75230

PHOTO / NOAH CATHEY ‘TIS THE SEASON In asking for families to bid to carol with them, SMACapella performed “White Winter Hymnal.”

RECYCLE ME

Class of 2024 shatters record, creates memories This year’s seniors hosted the Senior Auction on Oct. 8 in the Decherd Auditorium. The event, which included both live and silent components, raised more than $173,000, beating the previous record by more than $50,000.

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PHOTOS / NOAH CATHEY A DAY TO REMEMBER 1 - Two of the Senior Auction Co-Chairs, Grayson Redmond (left) and Lucas Blumenthal (right) welcome community to the event. 2 - Climbing Club presidents Clark Cooper and Baxter Perry-Miller convince parents to spend on their experience. 3 - A lower school parent raises her card to bid, attempting to outlast some of the other bidders. 4 - The auction included 24 live items and 18 silent items and ended with more than 40 community members walking away with a gift.